Umajin Solution Examples
Rapid Response Button
The Challenge
The hotel industry recently committed to the “Five Star Challenge,” which includes providing rapid response buttons to employees to enable them to call for assistance in urgent situations (CNBC interview with Marriott CEO).
Although GPS provides accuracy to a few meters outdoors, accurately tracking indoor location by a rapid response button at large hotels remains difficult. Typically, indoor location services rely on triangulating among dedicated beacons and WI-FI access points, or using RFID gateways. These solutions can be very expensive to install, and have accuracy in multi-story structures of 60% or less (as measured by the ability to identify a specific room). This made it difficult to get the needed assistance to the correct floor and room.
The Solution
Umajin’s partner PwC initially identified the opportunity for rapid response buttons in Chicago-area hotels, which faced a legislative requirement to deploy a solution several months prior to the hotel industry’s commitment. Umajin rapidly developed a location solution required no hardware installation, and has demonstrated accuracy of greater than 98%.
The solution operates by scanning the ambient RF signals in a building (WI-FI, Bluetooth, etc.) and creating a unique fingerprint for each location. The location can then be used by a variety of reporting, messaging, or management applications required by the rapid response system.
While heavy metal doors, thick concrete walls and other features of large buildings typically degrade the accuracy of WI-FI or Bluetooth beacon triangulation solutions, they actually improve the accuracy of Umajin location services because this helps create a unique fingerprint.
Technology is becoming more and more accurate and more and more efficient. One of the things we had been wrestling with is how do you find a technology solution to call somebody when it’s urgent whether you are in a 50 storey stacked high rise hotel or a spread out resort so that the technology is simple and accurate.
The Benefits of Umajin
The Umajin rapid response solution was built using Umajin’ s development platform, and includes the button firmware, smartphone management applications, dashboards and notifications, and an AI model running on a cloud service that identifies the precise location of a button when it is activated. It requires no hardware installation in the hotel to provide location information. Umajin also developed an automated RF scanning application as part of the solution, which enables it to be deployed in large facilities in a day or two.
The solution contains a half dozen application components. Using legacy development tools it would typically take a year or two to create, involving multiple teams whose work would need to be integrated. Umajin allowed the entire solution to be created on a single platform, with much lower development time. This enabled PwC to get into the market quickly with a cost effective, highly accurate solution. They have now won contracts with Marriott, Hilton, Wynn, MGM, and others.
Umajin’s platform provides flexibility in how location data can be displayed—from simple dashboards to VR visualizations of location in the hotel.
Value of the Solution
Umajin’s solution requires no hardware to be installed in each room or hallway, dramatically reducing the capital cost of deployment. The ongoing operating cost of the solution was lower than competitors like AT&T. No other competitor came close to Umajin’s accuracy (typically 98% to room and floor) providing much greater likelihood that the response to an urgent situation will in fact be rapid. This has very high value to the security and safety of the hotel employees.
Other Key Benefits of the Solution
Hotel rapid response buttons is just one use case that benefits from Umajin’s indoor location technology. College campuses and assisted living facilities are other markets where the rapid response button has high value. Asset tracking like locating equipment in hospitals, hotels, and other facilities. Indoor wayfinding such as helping users navigate large complex buildings. Depending on the type of hardware in the solutions, users can encode voice messages, or send status information enabling the solution to be tied into workflow management. An example of this would be letting the front desk know that a hotel room has been cleaned.
