Room Services
System Builder is used to create room profiles that set the properties for each room type:
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Room Features
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Areas
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Sensors
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Notional Energy
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User Interfaces
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Room Alerts
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Zones
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Services
Room Profiles
Room profiles allow you to select the room type and features to be displayed on the dashboard. Additionally, the dashboard identifies the sensors allocated for Guest Occupancy, Staff Occupancy, Leaving the Bed Nightlight, and Returning to Bed Nightlight.
The hotel room mapping lists each room location, room number, description, area range offset, room profile, and FIAS server. It also lists rooms that can be interconnected.
Room Alerts
Room alerts are displayed on the dashboard and passed to the API for third-party user interfaces. Room alerts are defined in the SB job and then added to the guestroom or zone within the guestroom.
Guestroom Alerts
| Room Alert | Description |
|---|---|
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Indicates the online/offline status of room devices after the minimum elapsed time. Requires the Device Online Status metric. To exclude devices, set Device Properties > Device Identification > Room device enabled to False. |
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Indicates when the entrance door has been left open for the minimum elapsed time. Requires a room controller or DLLI8I8O Entrance Door Dry Contact Input and/or Access Control System message. |
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Indicates the current room status after the minimum elapsed time (requires a UI, Dashboard, or PMS to set the room status): |
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Indicates that the room has remained occupied but no-motion has been detected for the minimum elapsed time. Default = 24 hours. |
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Indicates that a DALI driver or lamp is offline. |
Zone Alerts
| Room Alert | Description |
|---|---|
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Indicates when a balcony door has been left open for the minimum elapsed time. Requires a Balcony Door Dry Contact Input. |
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Indicates the FCUC filter is dirty after the minimum elapsed time. Requires an FCUC Air Filter Dry Contact Input. |
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Indicates the FCUC drip tray is full after the minimum elapsed time. Requires an FCUC Drip Tray Overflow Dry Contact Input. |
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Indicates the humidity is below the Lower Threshold value or above the Upper Threshold value for the minimum elapsed time. Requires a Humidity Sensor. |
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Indicates that the safe door is closed when guest checks in or out. Requires a room controller or DLLI8I8O Safe Door Dry Contact Input. |
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Indicates the soil moisture is below the Lower Threshold value or above the Upper Threshold value for the minimum elapsed time. Requires a Soil Moisture Sensor. |
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Indicates the temperature is below the Lower Threshold value or above the Upper Threshold value for the minimum elapsed time. Requires a network user interface with temperature sensor. |
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Indicates bathroom water leak. Requires a room controller or FCUC Bathroom Water Leak Dry Contact Input. |
| DALI alerts (Channel offline, Driver/Ballast failure, Lamp failure) do not need to be configured in the Room Alerts editor. Once DALI channels are placed into zones, DALI alerts are automatically displayed in the dashboard. Device Health must be enabled. |
Zones
A standard guestroom typically only requires a single zone, whereas a suite may require multiple zones. Zones are intended primarily for suites, but can also be used to support separation in the UI and API if required for applications such as guest apps and tablets.
To maximize clarity in the UIs, we recommend using as few zones as possible, e.g. only a Bedroom 1 zone and Bedroom 2 zone for a standard two-bedroom suite. Within each Bedroom zone you can then separate lighting for different spaces (e.g. a 'Corridor' lighting area for the corridor) in the nested lighting service.
Services
You can attach a service type to a zone. Some service types can process multiple similar services such as multiple lighting areas, multiple curtains, or multiple balcony doors.
Other service types such as Wake-Up Alarm and HVAC are limited to a single service within each zone. Where a single room requires more than one HVAC or Wake-Up Alarm service, multiple zones must be used.
| Service type | Maximum number of services within a zone | Service features |
|---|---|---|
HVAC |
1 |
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Wake-Up Alarm |
1 |
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Door |
99 |
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Blinds and Curtains |
99 |
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Lighting |
99 |
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Room States
Guestroom control functions are achieved by automatically moving the room between states in order to deliver three core system priorities:
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Manage guest experience and comfort
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Optimize energy and conserve room assets
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Provide accurate real-time status for staff and operations
The system uses context from a range of sources to switch the room state:
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Checked Out, Unoccupied
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Checked Out, Occupied (Staff Mode)
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Checked In, Unoccupied
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Checked In, Occupied
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Daytime
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Evening
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Green Mode
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VIP Mode
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Guest Preferences (Inter-stay)
Sources of Context
The sources that provide this context and knowledge are within the system as well as through integration:
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Real-time occupancy (source: system sensors)
Using passive infrared movement sensors and sensors on the entrance door, the system can use advanced logic to determine if a guest is present in the room.
This is a core system feature used for energy management and staff optimization. -
Real-time clock (source: system network)
The real-time clock used by welcome scenes and wake-up alarms (where present) to provide guests with appropriate time-of-day lighting scenes and curtain logic. It is a standard feature, enabled by a combination of server application and network floor gateways. -
Check-in/out events (source: PMS integration)
Understanding if a room is currently rented/sold to a guest is core to guest experience and energy management. Receiving these status changes from the PMS is a key trigger to changing guestroom state and resetting guestrooms back to default behaviors. -
Occupancy type - guest/staff (source: access control integration)
Understanding if a guest or staff member is entering/occupying a room can help to both optimize room state and preserve guest preferences throughout their stay. Knowing that a staff member has been in the room can also allow for shorter timeout periods compared to guests when leaving the room to further boost energy savings.
Room Logic
Door events
A reed switch embedded in the entrance door frame triggers the sequence to start - it suggests that a guest is entering or leaving the room and that occupancy needs to be checked. The room immediately goes to Occupied state whilst this is verified.
Sensors
Occupancy sensors and other inputs are switched on to detect movement. They remain on until they detect movement, or for a chosen timeout (default = 15 minutes).
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Ceiling occupancy sensors
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Nightlight sensors
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Any button presses
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Proximity detection in our panels
Occupied
If any movement is detected after a door event, the sensors are switched off. The room is now fixed in Occupied state until the next entrance door event.
Unoccupied
If no movement is detected after a door event, the room is moved to Unoccupied state. Room conditions automatically adjust as defined.
Recovery
In the rare event that a guest leaves the room whilst another is sleeping and is not detected, recovery state ensures that they remain undisturbed, silently recovering the previous state as soon as they detect movement.
| All room state values are configured to meet the hotel’s preferences, either globally or by room type. They can be scheduled to update automatically from day to night and from season to season, and can be self-managed by authorized users via the dashboard’s configuration page. |
Energy Saving
Multiroom System Manager optimises energy usage in unoccupied and unused guestrooms. For example, you can manage in-room conditions including lighting, temperature levels, and open/close curtains. Energy savings are a key indicator of a system’s performance, providing the most tangible metric of return on investment and ongoing value. There are several key areas in which the system enhances energy savings:
Automatic Room State Switching
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Combining check-in/out events and room logic, a room shall automatically condition itself to each different room state. This shall be configurable and change with seasonality across the year as required.
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Each state shall contain its own unique parameters for temperature setpoint, fan speed, socket power state, curtains/blinds, and lighting scenes.
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Throughout a stay (between check-in and check-out), guest preferences shall always be retained. While a room will move to a new state to conserve energy when the guest is not present, the guest’s preferred setpoint and other customizations shall be immediately restored upon their return to the room.
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While they are away from the room, the system shall offer the hotel the option of:
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Moving to a state with fixed parameters (e.g. Checked-In, Unoccupied = 24°C)
OR -
Moving the guest preferences by a relative offset to save energy while remaining close to their customization. For example, if a guest has their setpoint at 21°C, the system will allow this to be offset by a value, such as +2° to 23°C, or -2° to 19°C.
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Additionally, where door lock integration is available the conditions shall be configurable based on the occupancy type - guest or staff - as well as ensuring that any changes made during staff occupancy do not affect the retention of guest preferences.
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External doors and windows (e.g. balcony) shall be linked to the system to directly influence behavior when opened. Either immediately, or after a predetermined delay, heating or cooling shall be disabled to conserve energy and prevent the buildup of condensation, humidity, etc. This shall be configurable to allow just the heating or cooling elements to be disabled while retaining the fan for air circulation if preferred by the hotel.
Green & VIP Modes
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A one-touch Green Mode button on the thermostat shall provide sustainably minded guests with an easy way to help conserve energy during their stay.
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Pressing the Green Mode button shall move the setpoint in the room to a value defined by the hotel and the thermostat should display suitable messaging such as "Green Mode - Thank you for helping to save energy".
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The use of Green Mode shall be remotely visible via the dashboard and tracked for use in trending and analytics databases. The hotel may also wish to use this data within their loyalty program, rewarding guests for their sustainability contributions with additional points or incentives.
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Conversely, the system shall also support a VIP Mode to temporarily disable room automation where the hotel determines that guest comfort or happiness could be disturbed. VIP Mode can be enabled from the dashboard to prevent the room state changing, irrespective of real-time occupancy. This preference shall be retained until check-out or it is cancelled by the guest, at which point the room is returned to its standard automated behavior.
Multi Temperature Reading Aggregation
A single temperature reading from one thermostat location often fails to accurately represent overall guestroom conditions. Due to airflow and thermostat placement, active heating/cooling can result in temperatures varying by as much as 3-4°C across a room.
This variation often results in overheating or overcooling, as the thermostat is unable to provide a representative temperature for the entire room.
To overcome this:
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Every panel in the guestroom (entrance, bedsides, desk, curtains, etc.) includes an embedded temperature sensor that provides the system with multiple reading points.
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Depending on the current time or room status, the panels considered in this processing shall be configurable - for example, taking only the bedside panel readings when Occupied at night to optimize conditions for the part of the room the guest is actively using.
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The RCU shall locally process all these readings and provide a truly representative average temperature to the HVAC controller, reducing energy waste and enabling more accurate heating and cooling adjustments.
Room-Specific Calibration/PID Logic
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Upon installation, the HVAC/FCU controller shall be capable, in conjunction with the connected sensors and panels, of running a PID or calibration process. This shall create a room-specific configuration of dead band mapping to maximize guest comfort and system efficacy.
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By automatically heating/cooling the room to its limits and measuring the time it takes to achieve the change, a more specific configuration shall be automatically created.
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This calibration process ensures that the unique aspects of the room are taken into account, rather than using the same dead band settings across the hotel.
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Intended as a part of the initial setup, this calibration process can also be triggered to repeat and update at a later date if changes are made to central systems (e.g. chilled water) which may affect system efficacy.
Room State Retention
It is essential that the system provides guests with immediate feedback to confirm their actions and any automatic room functions. This should not be affected by power or network loss. To achieve this, the room controller’s onboard logic is able to fully and independently operate a room or suite of any size on a local basis.
In the case of power loss, the room controller must be able to fully restore the room state, including guest preferences such as temperature setpoint. Recovery of room state must be done immediately on power-up, without any dependency on network or server access. The room state shall therefore be continually stored to the local controller memory, so that it can be recovered without loss at any time.
For example, it would be unacceptable that an overnight power loss, either for maintenance or unplanned, was in any way noticeable by guests. Upon power-up, the controller therefore needs to know that the room is Checked-In, Occupied, with lights off, curtains closed, and a temperature setpoint of 23°C.
