They are sensors the size of thumbs, but they're helping to save busy hotels a bundle each year on utility bills.
The widgets are part of a new temperature-control system from Honeywell called Inncom. Using interconnected door sensors, thermostats and infrared motion detectors, Inncom can tell whether a guest is in a room and aptly adjust the thermostat without intervention from the hotel staff.
Since Honeywell bought privately held Inncom 15 months ago, it has been on a tear upgrading hotel rooms with its surreptitious systems. Honeywell hopes Inncom will revolutionize the way hotels — and hopefully other businesses — manage their energy consumption.
"If you take a busy hotel with 300 to 400 rooms, they can spend $1 million a year just on energy. We can save them 10 to 15 percent on that energy bill," said Tom Rosback, vice president of Honeywell's $2.6 billion Environmental and Combustion Controls Americas business, based in Golden Valley.
On the surface Inncom doesn't look like much, but its multiple components stay feverishly busy.
Small sensors on each guest door monitor when doors open and close, while software and other tiny sensors constantly scan the room for motion and heat. If a guest is in the room, the system lets the guest set the thermostat. But once the sensors determine that the guest is gone, Inncom's computerized thermostat automatically resets the room temperature to the hotel manager's preferred setting. The system's inner workings are invisible to guests, but the savings can be substantial.
Hotel general managers say they like Inncom, which usually costs $200 to $400 per room, because it's automatic and can be integrated into a hotel's property management system at the front desk. Honeywell said the systems are in 1 million hotel rooms worldwide; customers include Sheraton, Four Seasons, Hyatt and DoubleTree. According to Rosback, Inncom "has been growing in the double digits. We want to move it into as many areas as we can."
That's why Honeywell is installing 160 systems this year in hotels, dorm rooms and military barracks. Last year, the Grand Hotel Minneapolis put Inncom systems into 140 rooms. Carlson's Radisson Hotels and Country Inns & Suites have installed Inncom in about 50 of their 550 U.S. hotels over the years, and executives want more.