Transcript: Episode 173: Wartime Mattress
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[00:00:00] Susan Barry: This is Top Floor episode 173. You can find the show notes at topfloorpodcast.com/episode/173.
[00:00:14] Narrator: Welcome to Top Floor with Susan Barry. This weekly podcast right up to the top floor features tangible tips and excellent stories from the experts and characters who elevate hospitality. And now your host and elevator operator, Susan Barry.
[00:00:32] Susan Barry: Welcome to the show. Fabio Zaniboni is an engineer and expert in Internet of Things solutions for the hospitality industry. With a diverse career spanning automotive robotics, yachting luxury controls, and architectural lighting, Fabio has brought innovative and sustainable technology solutions to high end environments worldwide. He focuses on creating wireless solutions that enhance sustainability and guest well-being in hotels, addressing issues like energy efficiency and circadian lighting. Today, we are going to talk about the future of technology in hospitality. But before we jump in, we need to answer the call button.
Call button rings
[00:01:19] Susan Barry: If you would like to submit a question, you can call or text me at 850-404-9630. Today's question, Fabio, was submitted by Whitney. This is what Whitney has to say: “One of my biggest pet peeves in a hotel room is when the menu is only available on the TV. Surely we can do better. What are the latest advances for this or are there any new technologies to solve this problem?” I figured you would know this better than I do and this is also one of my pet peeves. So what do you think about Whitney's question?
[00:02:18] Fabio Zaniboni: Well, there is a few options. The easiest was technology that was developed during COVID. When in the hospitality world, we're trying to have a touchless experience. And the way it is, is that you have a QR code - it can be on the TV or it can be just in a desk and you scan the QR code. And now with your phone, you have your menu and you can control your TV, you can order food, you can do your check in, check out straight from your phone.
[00:02:53] Susan Barry: I definitely prefer that. Although I'm curious about what the push is. This is going to make me sound like such an old lady, so just be cool. But what, why are hotels so anti-paper menus? Like, why can't we just have a paper menu in the room? Is there a reason for that that I'm not thinking of?
[00:03:18] Fabio Zaniboni: Well paper menus tend to not have a very long life. And they get tossed, they can be used for taking notes or whatsoever. And the paper menu then, no, yes, it can be made of a material that is going to be a more durable material. Then it stopped not looking anymore as nice as a crispy paper. And again, it's going to end up being a tool that is touched by multiple guests, and there is this secondary effect of, “Huh, how many people have been touching this menu?”
[00:03:58] Susan Barry: That makes a lot of sense. Okay. Well, I still don't think we've solved the menu on the TV problem, but Whitney, hopefully that helps. Could you share a bit about your journey from engineering and automotive robotics to your work in the hospitality sector?
[00:04:16] Fabio Zaniboni: Sure. Yes. So academy wise engineer, working in all the 40 different countries, experiencing how technology can be applied for different goals. And about 20 years ago, I had the opportunity of using my engineering expertise to create amazing experiences on board high-end yachts. And that's where I start transitioning towards the hospitality. And it's fascinating to me how you can use technology to create an emotion, how you can use technology to create an experience. And that was really the driving factor that then kept me in hospitality and developing what I ended up by developing with Bablinet and IOT.
[00:05:16] Susan Barry: So let's talk a little bit about IOT, which stands for Internet of Things. I think before I dive too deeply into it, we probably should explain for the listeners what Internet of Things is. What does that mean?
[00:05:31] Fabio Zaniboni: Yes. So the Internet of Things is the next wave after what we've been experiencing the last 40 years. From the old mainframes that were connected across continents to now being able to have web browsers on the hand holding device. And the next phase is now being able to have that connectivity on anything, any device. It can be a coffee pot, it can be a motion sensor, it can be a dialogue. And so Internet of Things is how we can have all these devices talking to each other and creating experiences by interacting with one and the other.
And the way you do that is that you embed intelligence on these little devices. So a motion sensor could be just an old type of motion sensor or somebody's in the room and now you activate light. So, you know, activate lights. Well, if you add more intelligence that than motion sensor could do different things throughout the day. So if you are getting to, let's say your guest room at night, then the motion sensor could trigger a more subtle lighting that what you will be needing during the day. And that motion sensor could also be sending information to reception desk to let reception know, well, there is somebody in the room, do not disturb, or the room has been vacated and a dispatch cleaning services.
[00:07:06] Susan Barry: That's sort of amazing to think about that you could time housekeeping to the moment that the guest departs versus knocking and saying, please come back later. And then you cross your fingers that they are going to remember to come back later. So tell me, what drew you to focus on this for hotels specifically? And the reason I ask that is it feels like. There are a lot of these solutions that would work well in office buildings or residential settings or anything else.
[00:07:40] Fabio Zaniboni: Well, because hotels is a kind of an extension of your home and everybody's different. So when I go to an hotel, I'm expecting something that probably is different from what you will be expecting. So now the challenge is how you can create an experience that is tailored to two different guests. And yes, an office space is more sterile. If I may say is more well, you're going to average out what every employee and you and tenant needs and you end up by having a more common solution. Well, if you really want to go beyond the expected and push for excellence, you want to have that experience tailored exactly to that client. And so I would say is the most challenging application for iot, but also the most exciting application.
[00:08:38] Susan Barry: That’s interesting. I love what you said about it being a way to personalize the stay without. You know, repainting the room or changing out the furniture or something like that. That is a perspective that I hadn't thought about before. I know that there is also a sustainability impact when you apply IOT technology to hotels. Can you explain that, how it, how IOT addresses sustainability requirements like energy conservation, HVAC efficiency, that kind of thing?
[00:09:16] Fabio Zaniboni: Yes, of course, because now you can tailor that experience. You can also tailor how the room or how the entire property is gonna operate based on the occupancy and based on the requirements of the guest. So talking about sustainability. Well, if a guest is not in the room, why keeping the lights on? If a guest is not in the room and you are, let's say on a tropical resort, why keeping the shades up? Or why having your HVAC at a certain temperature? So by tailoring the parameters of a room, depending if it is occupied or not occupied, there is a lot of statistics about the rooms are being used probably beyond the sleeping time only for an hour or two. So most of the day, the room is vacated. Well, there is a substantial saving in terms of energy that could be made.
There is also other things like I will give you an example. I remember a resort that we did and every room had a beautiful balcony and the problem or the challenge was well, many guests will leave the balcony windows open. And so the HVAC will keep on running. And of course, it was generating condensation, and the condensation was dripping, and then you were having mold and smell and so on and so forth. So with IoT, it becomes very, very simple. Now, you are, opening the balcony, you are leaving the room. Well, that can be information that goes to reception desk where somebody can go to the room and close the windows. Or you could decide, well, when the windows are open, your HVAC is going to go just doing some recirculation instead of a cooling down the air. So you are avoiding all these things. So there is really a many, many aspects on your sustainability.
I would say that something that is important that I don't see enough being made regarding sustainability is informing the guests about your decisions on how you use IOT for sustainability. Because sometimes when, when you use these tools, the guest experience could be, “Oh, the property is trying just to cut costs. Operational costs.” True. You have a byproduct or you have a secondary result that is a cutting cost. But if you present it as of “Well, we are doing these for the good of all, for the good of the planet and so on.” The guests will contribute them to that aspect of the experience of the property.
[00:12:13] Susan Barry: think there's - I'm glad you brought up the communications point because I think that that is sorely lacking or presented in a way that is perceived cynically by most hotel guests as like greenwashing or sure, you know what I mean? Like, okay, you just don't want to clean the rooms. There's this piece that I'm, I may not be able to articulate this question perfectly, but sort of the first generation of energy savings in hotels was programmable thermostats for guest rooms. And so you could set it so that like, if the room wasn't occupied, something would happen if it was during the - all of the things that we've already talked about. But the problem was that you couldn't override it. So like say it's a cold night but you have just come back from running on the treadmill and you're dying of a heat stroke so it's way too hot in your room. There's no way to change it. I think that's an equal part of the communication that you say, here are the things that we're doing, here's why, here's the savings. And also, if you don't like this, here's what you can do, or here's how you can reach us to make a change. What do you think about that? Or does that defeat the purpose of this?
[00:13:36] Fabio Zaniboni: I totally agree with what you say. You always need to give options to clients. You are going to have a small percentage of clients that don't care about sustainability. They just care about the comfort and it is what it is. And so it's, it's very important to communicate that there is an option you can use it or not use it. And also, of course, we are always looking for better technologies to predict them what is going to be the experience or the requirements of a guest. In the old days, you will have motion sensors that in the middle of the night Will not sense your motion just because you're sleeping deep and trigger your HVAC to a setback temperature. And now all of a sudden you're sweating under, under the blankets, and that was your technology. Now there is a, what are called intelligent or smart sequences. So when you close the door it sensors motion, and now the, the knows that until you do open the door - you’re not going to go out the window, hopefully! Maybe the room is occupied. So even if you are still, if a motion doesn't detect you and so on, you are not going to have that unpleasant situation where now you need to move to get your HVAC back at the right temperature.
[00:14:57] Susan Barry: I remember working in an office like that and you know, you would just be sitting there working away and all the lights would turn off. What?
[00:15:07] Fabio Zaniboni: Yes. And you have that also in public spaces and amenities where you will have motion sensors. And now all of a sudden you are on your treadmill at five o'clock in the morning, and there is just a light above your treadmill and everything else is pitch black. And it's kind of like a creepy sensation.
[00:15:25] Susan Barry: Yes,
[00:15:25] Fabio Zaniboni: Exactly. And so nowadays there is a ways where yes, you can have light exactly where you are. And as you move, light follows you, but then you have a perimeter that has a gentle, lower dimming level, but still safe enough to know that there is nobody watching behind you or whatever.
[00:15:46] Susan Barry: Speaking of lighting, can you talk a little bit about circadian lighting and what that is and how that fits into a hospitality or hotel setting?
[00:15:56] Fabio Zaniboni: Yes. So circadian lighting is a lighting that emulates. So it tries to duplicate the experience that you have outdoors. So the sun, as we know, the morning has a certain color and throughout the day changes color and then sunset you have another color. So that color is a frequency that the sun is emitting. Well, the sun is always at the same frequency, but because of the angle at which he hits the surface of the planet, it has different, different temperatures. So the biology of all animals, including humans and plants, is connected to these cycle. So when you take a, and you go just outside your balcony early in the morning, and you expose as much skin as possible to the sun the body tends to sync with what is the time of the day. I remember I was mentioning earlier, I've been traveling now all my life, and I remember pilot telling me, well, no, my trick to, to take care of the jet lag is that. And I'd been doing it for many, many years, now I have no problem with jet lag. So I get on a totally different time zone, like 12 hours time zone. The first thing I do is I try to get as much surface of my body exposed to the sun and the body automatically, it syncs to that time.
[00:17:29] Susan Barry: I didn't know that there was a benefit to like your skin. I knew that being in sunlight would help with jet lag, which is something that I have the hard like I'm the opposite of you. I'm always have jet lag. But now I know why, because I need to be exposing my skin to the sun. Okay, carry on. I'm sorry.
[00:17:52] Fabio Zaniboni: Yes. So you have, you have photoproceptors in your eyes. So the eyes is a big part of it, but you have also photoproceptors on your skin. And this certain frequency of the, of the, of the sun triggers different hormones and different activities in your body. So back to circadian lighting, for instance, during the day your blue sky and your bright light is a telling your body is the time to be active. And since the cave days you get out and either you were running after something or something was running after you. So, so your metabolism has to be high, you have cortisol, that is your, your stress hormone kicking in and so on. So you probably noticed in the last several years, most wearables, most smartphones that after a certain time of the day, they remove that blue spectrum and they can, can become kind of yellowish.
And that is why, because if it's 10 p.m. at night and you have that blue spectrum kicking you, that light is telling your body it's daytime, be active. That's why kids sometimes they that stay on their iPads and so on. After a certain amount of time, then they have such a hard time sleeping because it takes about three or four hours for the body to say, well, there is no more blue light. It's time to, you know, decompress and chill out and prepare for a good night of rest. So back to hospitality. And when you were asking me about circadian, I remember a couple of years ago reading a very interesting survey where the number one complaint was about quality of sleep, okay? And quality of sleep, of course gets very influenced by circadian lighting. So if you have lights, without getting too technical, that are kind of blueish in your hotel room, well, it's going to be more hard for you to fall asleep at night.
[00:19:57] Susan Barry: And that's those LED lights that are horrible. I hate them because it's like that. I don't know if I'm getting it right, but it's like that cool light that's so unpleasant.
[00:20:11] Fabio Zaniboni: You're totally correct. You're totally correct. That unpleasant light that makes you like almost cringe, okay? So that light is a spectrum that is telling your body “Wake up, you are under attack or you need to be active. You need to be active.” That's why you have all that feeling. So some properties are using this lighting. So throughout the day, like early in the morning, you have this blue light and is an invigorating and energizing. Light. So it's perfect in the morning when, when you're, when you're preparing to go to work or do what you wanna do throughout the day. But in the evening, you want to have a more subtle and gentle and warmer color. That's why typically around the candlelight in, in a restaurant or around the fireplace, we, we feel more cozy, more intimate, and also we, we tend to relax better. And, yes. So circadian lighting definitely is a, it's an opportunity for a property to give it that extra experience that right now you have only on high end residencies or, or certain healthcare facilities.
[00:21:24] Susan Barry: I feel like I'm going to try to do this in my house. Like the rooms where I need to wake up this room, I need cooler light. And then also, I think I have it opposite right now. I think I have warm light in here and cool light, like in my living room where I relax at night. So that explains so much.
[00:21:43] Fabio Zaniboni: But I have it, of course I have it at home because I experienced everything that we developed first with my family and stuff. In the morning, so you have light that can change throughout the day automatically. So that's, that's it emulates the sun. So the lights, for instance, in my bedroom, when I turn them on the morning, they are blue, but in the late afternoon, they become more let's say ambery. And after 10 PM, they go to a very low level and he's almost like a candle light kind of color - that is circadian. So you can program your lighting. So when you press that button, you have the right intensity and the right color for your use.
[00:22:31] Susan Barry: That is amazing.
[00:22:32] Fabio Zaniboni: Yeah. It's also very interesting because Susan, another example is sensors. So you have sensors in bathrooms and now you're getting to the bathroom and the lights turn on - fantastic! That's your experience. But what happened when like at two o'clock in the morning, you want to go to the bathroom now you get blasted with full light? That doesn't make any sense. So back to IOT, you can have a solution where you get into a bathroom and depending on the hour of the day, you are going to have full lighting, or you're going to have just a little, a task light or a little courtesy lighter that allows you to do what you may want to do at two or three o'clock in the morning.
[00:23:11] Susan Barry: Very interesting. We like to make sure that our listeners come away from every episode of Top Floor with some practical, tangible tips to try either in their businesses or in their day to day lives. Obviously, I've gotten a good tip for my day to day life that has to do with lighting, but what are the top things hoteliers can do when, if they're looking to implement IOT technology, what should they be keeping in mind?
[00:23:42] Fabio Zaniboni: They should keep, first of all, in mind the end goal of the custom experience. And I will give you a little anecdote. In yachting it's all about blowing away the client that when - I'm talking now about charter yachts, okay. So, and you are always trying to blow away your guests for that five days, six days that you are on board. And we had these beautiful touch reading lights by the bed. And there were, in particularly this one, it was the, the Mosca and it was a leather wrapped and it was just beautiful, gorgeous and you touch it to turn it on, you touch it to turn it off, and then you touch and hold and just a little head of a reading light and to dim it down. And we thought it was an amazing solution also for SM registries We did that many years ago, the design, a lot of the, the idea, but the problem was the technology was not approachable, they say by the guests. So guests were trying to turn it on, there was no switch. And I'm sure you had this experience. You have a table lamp or you have something and you try, you keep on touching and you wonder how to turn on that light.
[00:25:12] Susan Barry: Yes. Or is it the switch on the wall, the switch on the lamp, both work sometimes, neither work sometimes.
[00:25:20] Fabio Zaniboni: Exactly. So in this case, you had just to touch the head and somebody will touch the head while moving it and randomly turning it on and then they didn't know how to turn it off and then call, call, reception or No, my light will not turn off. I need to go to sleep. So we talked with we've ownership and say, well, probably we should have a little, I'm back to the communication. We should, we should have a, like a label or something saying, touch this light gently. And of course, property was not, we're not going is everything is so beautiful. We're going, we're not going to put a tag there or we're not going to put an instruction manual. And anyway, so the, the story is about technology for the sake of technology sometimes can be detrimental. You, you always want to understand if I'm pushing the technology envelope, am I going to go beyond the grasp of my guests or not?
[00:26:24] Susan Barry: I have stayed in a hotel like that where everything in the room was automated to the point that you had no idea what to do next.
[00:26:35] Fabio Zaniboni: Yes. And, and there is really discomfort. You feel like stupid because if it's, if he's in a hotel room, everybody should figure it out. And if I cannot figure it out, there is something wrong on me. So definitely a bad experience. So it's almost somehow. First thing, let's, let's consider always, I guess, experience for the property. And then as a quick a tip use technology that is not going to hardly impact on your infrastructure. When we are going IOT, typically I would recommend go wireless because if you start wiring all these different devices, then you end up by having a panels that you need to hide behind armoirs or under the bed, you end up by having a big boxes with equipment that it's, it becomes very easily complicated. And then if all those devices then need to be connected together with your PMS and so on, it can become very quickly a very expensive endeavor. So look at the platform, try to go with something that will not impact both your existing infrastructure also in terms of data.
[00:28:00] Susan Barry: That's what I thought you were going to say that all of a sudden now nobody can get on Wifi because their lamp and their air conditioner are talking to the front desk. Well, we've reached the fortune telling portion of the show, so now you have to predict the future and then we will test at the end of the year if you got it right. What is a prediction that you have about the future of IOT in the hospitality industry?
[00:28:30] Fabio Zaniboni: I would say, well, from now to the end of the year, I don't know if they're going to be many big advancements for sure. They're going to be way more adoption. But on the next three years, I'm pretty sure that IOT is a Is going to deliver functionalities that we couldn't dream about. I will give you an example. The other day, my one of my R&D engineers came up and he showed me a sensor. So it's a motion sensor that detects also, keeping privacy, so there is no cameras and sound. It kind of recognize the gender of the guests. So we comply with all the European and international standards. But now this sensor can detect if you are. Laying down on the bed or you're sitting on the bed. And if you fall from the bed or you can even measure your heartbeat.
[00:29:09] Susan Barry: What?!
[00:29:10] Fabio Zaniboni: Yeah. It can measure your heartbeat just because it's a sensor that is an infrared sensor. So it measures the temperature, but it has also without getting technical, yes, it's able to measure, those bits per minute of the circulation of your blood flow.
[00:29:54] Susan Barry: So this would be amazing, like in an assisted living facility, right?
[00:29:59] Fabio Zaniboni: Yes, assisted living facility. But Susan, think about what a guest room could be. Yes, you can have a guest room where you want to have an old way kind of experience, or you want to have a guest room that is kind of a energizing or regenerating for you. And there's a lot of people that are all about healthcare and wellbeing and so on. And now you can have sensors that senses your heartbeat and based on the heartbeat, we can decide to have a soothing music or the circadian lighting getting warmer, as we were mentioning or you are getting, you could end up by having a client being worried or distracted because you have a lot of noise on the corridor. So now the room could have a background brown noise that is a soothing kind of noise and mask out anything that happens outside the room.
So back to your question, what would be the future? There could be a very interesting future where not only that room, that guest room is a location where you can rest and sleep, but is also a space where you can regenerate them as you would like. Because you are addressing sound, you're addressing the way things of your light. You could even be addressing fragrances. What about if we, like there is nowadays, there are dispensers that can mix different fragrances depending on the hour of the day. I'm going to tell you, can I have time to another anecdote?
[00:31:00] Susan Barry: Of course.
[00:31:59] Fabio Zaniboni: Okay. So a few months ago, I was working with a very well known chain of hotels. And the idea was well, we are going to start syncing the beats per minute of the music that we are using on the property with the lighting.
[00:32:22] Susan Barry: Interesting.
[00:32:23] Fabio Zaniboni: Very interesting, because again, as I was mentioning earlier in the morning, you want to have a more bluish light, a more, more vibrant light, a stronger light and so on.
And typically that kind of frequency of, of, of the lighting spectrum goes with a certain kind of frequency of your, your, your music. So more beats per minute. And then in the evening when you're trying to unwind typically wants to harbor lower beats per minute. So having a property that throughout the day changes, the lighting changes the beats per minute and also changes the fragrances because you're going to have fragrances that are more exciting and get you like that zest of liveliness, or you could have a, a more amber and soothing fragrance that is more prone to unwind. And so you see, like with IOT properties could really become something that is totally new in terms of experience.
[00:33:35] Susan Barry: That sounds amazing. Okay, folks, before we tell Fabio goodbye, we are going to head down to the loading dock where all of the best stories get told.
Elevator voice announces, “Going down.”
[00:33:50] Susan Barry: Fabio, what is a story you would only tell on the loading dock?
[00:33:55] Fabio Zaniboni: Well, I have many stories about hospitality, but if this is our, our last anecdote, I will tell you one that is very, very kind to me. I'm Italian. I grew up in South America. So I'm very Latin per se, in terms of culture and hospitality has always been very, very native to me, a hospitality is that feeling of giving, is that feeling of being generous that I love on any property where that culture lives. And the experience is the midnight is one of my first jobs. And I ended up by working in Serbia during the war. And so the interpreter, we, we get to a town that is totally devastated, destroyed, and there is only one hotel. And my interpreter give me direction to the hotel. I get into the hotel and the lobby is like a two story entrance and the wall behind the reception desk is all crippled with gunshots and so on. And it's like, it's the real deal. And you know, I'm already nervous.
[00:35:23] Susan Barry: Yes.
[00:35:24] Fabio Zaniboni: And the thing that was incredible is in the middle of devastation, in the middle of a war, there is this hotel that is being a hotel and, and they, they greet you like it was before the war and they try to take care of you in kind of interesting ways. Like for instance, they helped me out with my luggage and I get to my room and I look at the room and the bed is on one side, but then the mattress is under the seal of the window. But it's probably done, perfectly done. So, and I say, why? Well, we take good care of our guests and that location for your mattress is the best location to avoid ricochets of gunshots.
[00:36:15] Susan Barry: No.
[00:36:17] Fabio Zaniboni: So you say, okay, thank you. And I still think, well, guess how did they find out? I still think, well, did they wake up one morning, and they get to the room and now they realize that the… Anyway, so, and then we get down to the restaurant. And and of course in the middle of the world you eat what you need to eat. The chef, of course, we were very few clients, the chefs come to us and I ended up by having it was kind of a catfish with some potatoes, but it was Susan it was so terrible. So like the taste was horrible, but it was so well presented because it was the only thing they had. So the story is, of course, I didn't, I didn't sleep at all that night on the mattress under the seal. But the, what I wanted to say is that willingness to give, that willingness, that hospitality. It's a human touch that goes beyond any kind of, now I'm talking against my interest it goes beyond IOT and the technology and how much you spent on your bedsheets and so on. And these it is that culture that makes really the difference between an amazing brand and an okay brand.
[00:37:45] Susan Barry: Wow. Fabio Zanaboni. Thank you so much for being here. I know that our listeners are going to be seeking out the appropriate lighting for their houses, namely me. And I really appreciate you riding up to the top floor with us.
[00:38:04] Fabio Zaniboni: Susan, it was a pleasure being with you.
[00:38:08] Susan Barry: Thank you for listening. You can find the show notes at topfloorpodcast.com/episode/173. Jonathan Albano is our editor, producer and all around genius. He even wrote and performed our theme song with vocals by Cameron Albano. You can subscribe to Top Floor on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you like to listen, and your rating or review will go a long way in helping us give you more of what you like.
[00:38:43] Narrator: Thanks for listening to the Top Floor Podcast at www.topfloorpodcast.com. Have a hospitality marketing question? Reach us at 850-404-9630 to be featured in a future episode.