Powered by edge: A former Texas oil office updated as luxury hotel
The Sinclair, a new luxury Marriott hotel in Fort Worth, Texas, has contracted with Intel Corp., Cisco Systems and others to install edge-based digital guest amenities and support services.
Marriott opened The Sinclair last year after a four-year renovation that gutted the nearly century-old landmark office building in Fort Worth. It originally housed the Sinclair Oil Company.
The cost of turning it into a hotel with 164 digitally enhanced guest rooms has not been disclosed.
According to Intel, The Sinclair is being fitted with:
• Intel’s IoT gateway, which will bring together data, edge-computing power and management capabilities.
• Intel Power over Ethernet small-form-factor computers, used to support IoT technologies, including gateways, controllers, data aggregation, edge computing and Intel’s Unite hub.
• Unite hub wireless display-and-collaboration products in meeting rooms.
• Cisco’s Meraki Wi-Fi cloud networking product line with SAS Software data-analytics integration for location-based analytics and personalized guest messaging.
• VoltServer‘s Power over Ethernet (PoE) product to power Cisco switches.
• Motorized shades and drapes from Somfy, which use PoE, and which can be controlled by guests through a digital kiosk.
• PoE-powered LED mirrors from Electric Mirror, on which guests can read news, listen to music, get weather updates and contact guest services.
• SinkTech‘s IoT sinks in the hotel restaurant that autonomously regulate water temperature, soap and sanitizer levels.
Marriott and its digital-renovation partners claim that the building is the first all-digital hotel, which is a stretch. It does claim to be the first to use PoE technology to power all of its lights – meaning that over 2000 lights in the hotel are also fixtures with IP addresses.
The Sinclair, as it is referred to is a good example of how commercial buildings in general are being fitted with new occupant-facing edge systems.
According to a report published last month by research firm Verdantix, about one-third of real estate occupiers globally said their top priority when it comes to deploying smart-building technology is improving occupant comfort.
More specifically, a second Verdantix global report, also released last month, found that sales of commercial real estate and building-management software will have grown by seven percent from 2019 to 2013, reaching $7 billion globally.
Edge-powered technology updates are more likely for hotels, at least among existing commercial buildings, because owners and operators of them perform major property facelifts every decade, on average. Other types of commercial buildings are updated every 25 to 30 years.
Netskope takes a $340 million round, is valued at $3 billion
Article Topics
Cisco | edge hardware | IIoT | Intel | Mariott | real estate | wireless
Comments