Hotech @ HITEC
Hotech Edge directors, Howard Field and Geoff Wales, were invited by the world Hospitality Finance and Technology Professional (HFTP) to attend the 2008 HITEC event in Austin, Texas, USA in June. HITEC is the world’s largest hospitality and technology event and this year drew over 6,000 visitors.
Geoff was a guest speaker on ZigBee wire-free standards (IEEE 802.15.4) and their implementation in the hospitality environment - a unique opportunity for hoteliers and technology vendors from around the world to discuss trends and needs in a single forum.
ZigBee, as the new standard for wire-free building automation, was the hot new topic across the entire event. Interestingly, half Geoff’s HITEC audience already knew of ZigBee, compared with no one when Geoff presented to a similar audience six months ago at EHTEC (Europe’s Hotel Technology event).
A number of top international hotel groups have already put ZigBee on their technology road maps. The key factors influencing their decisions were:
- Better control and guest service
- Reduced costs and energy savings
- Flexibility of wire-free infrastructures for building automation
- The fact that wire-free based on ZigBee is a small of fraction of the cost of any other infrastructure.
This was the first year at HITEC that manufacturers were advertising, or planning to advertise, ZigBee compatibility in their equipment. On display were ZigBee compatible lighting systems, room safes, door-locks, mini bars and fridges. Hoteliers and vendors alike are realising that ZigBee is a globally interoperable standard that is starting to dominate in building automation and energy management and HITEC confirmed that Hotech Edge network architectures bringing ZigBee enabled equipment online are a unique and extremely cost effective solution.
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