How to Make Your Mechanical Room Smart

When we think of smart devices for the home, these usually focus on creating the best indoor environment that is comfortable and will save on utility costs while providing easy controls right at your fingertips. We have smart thermostats that can be preprogrammed to control the temperature during the busy hours of the day and when nobody is home. There are smart speakers that can act as a personal assistant while playing your favorite songs. We even have security apps that provide alerts directly to our mobile phones and provide real-time video of rooms while we are away.

With guests so immersed in this smart technology at home, it’s become an expectation to find similar technology while they are away on vacation, visiting relatives, or doing business travel. Smart devices are being developed for hotels to increase the comfort for guests and so that general managers can take and maintain control of their guests’ experience.

Reasons to Go Smart in Your Mechanical Room

Your employees can’t be onsite and in every part of your hotel at all hours of the day. They have to provide customer service to guests, clean rooms, and make repairs. So when a hot water heater is down and leading guests to experience cold showers, your maintenance team likely won’t know about the issue until a guest files a complaint. Unfortunately, many guests will simply not say anything to the front desk manager about the issue with the water temperature. They will only voice their complaints after they leave by posting a negative online review.

Using Symmons Evolution, a connected water management system, you can transform your “analog” mechanical room into a connected one. Sensors are attached to various components of your hotel’s water system, such as your hot water heaters, storage tanks, thermostatic mixing valves, and more. Leak detectors are placed on the mechanical room floor to detect moisture (hot water heaters only tell you they are on their way out when they spring a leak). By installing smart devices into the mechanical room to monitor your water system, your staff can be instantly notified regarding an issue. In addition, the alert can be sent even before the times when there will be heavy water usage in the hotel, such as morning showers before checkout. Then the maintenance staff can perform the repairs right away, and guests will be pleased with their hotel experience.

How a Water Management System Works

Symmons Evolution is designed for use in your hotel’s mechanical room and consists of both software and devices that share information with each other and with your staff. Temperature sensors and leak detectors that are placed onto the pipes in risers throughout your hotel as well as onto the water heater systems. Then the Symmons Evolution application can be downloaded to your mobile device or easily accessed via the web on your desktop computer.

These sensor installations are non-intrusive. You don’t have to shut down the hotel for long periods of time to perform a large renovation process just to install the system. The temperature sensors will help to detect a problem, such as the water being too hot or too cold, which can lead to unsafe conditions. The sensors will monitor water temperatures to point out anomalies that are outside the desired hotel water temperature parameters.

This sensor data is sent through a private network to the main application that examines the information with no impact to your hotel’s WiFi. When a problem is detected, the application automatically sends out text message alerts to your staff. Even if you are away from the hotel at the moment, you can still receive the alert and coordinate repairs with onsite maintenance workers.

Benefits of Smart Systems for Hotels

In addition to pleasing your guests and informing your staff about possible water issues by using early detection sensors, smart water management systems such as Symmons Evolution can also help general managers locate the source of the water issue. This strategy helps to speed up the repair process since your staff will know which part of the hotel is experiencing problems. Your front desk staff can better accommodate guests and potentially move them to different rooms quickly to improve guest satisfaction.

Let your hotel’s mechanical room work smarter. Learn more about Symmons Evolution’s water management capabilities.