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Why Hospitality Will Choose Bluetooth LE for Panic Button Initiative

A major shift is underway in the hospitality industry after five of the leading hotel chains along with the American Hotel & Lodging Association (AHLA) announced the 5-Star Promise – an initiative to improve the safety conditions of their workforce by equipping hotel staff with panic buttons.


In an industry where workers are at a heightened risk of verbal and physical abuse, as many as 9 out 10 workers, this comes as a landmark decision that could improve the quality of the work environment for workers and guests significantly.

The 5-Star Promise is an opportunity for these organizations to publicly acknowledge the problem, outline a game plan, and execute an effective rollout of a panic button solution across hundreds of thousands of properties around the US.

From a technology perspective, this represents a massive number of connected devices and IT infrastructures that will need be deployed and maintained in an efficient and affordable way.

As the leader in indoor location-based technology solutions, Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) is the technology best-suited for deploying panic button solutions across the US and the world at large.

This post will cover the reasons why BLE is best-suited for deploying panic buttons across the hospitality industry and the ways to capitalize on your existing infrastructure to seamlessly deploy your panic button solution.


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Panic Button solution – meeting the requirements of the Five-Star Promise

During an interview with CNBC, the CEO of Marriott described the most important features of a panic button solution as “simple and accurate.”

What does a “simple and accurate” panic button solution look like?

  • Simple because these devices have a clear purpose: send help to the location of the employee who pressed the button. This means that the hardware i.e. the panic button, should be easy to use, the dashboard for managing alerts should be easy to use, and the infrastructure supporting it i.e. the access points (APs) should require limited upgrades in order to achieve desired functionality and scalability.
  • Accurate because help needs to be sent as quickly as possible to the right location. Regardless of where the room is or the environmental conditions, each press of the button should result in the real-time position and instant notification of someone capable of arriving for help.

Based on these criteria, the only indoor technology capable of providing a simple and accurate location-based solution is BLE.

Let’s take a look at why that is and how your hotel can use BLE to meet the expectations set forth by the 5-Star Promise to power panic button and a range of other hospitality use cases. You might not even need to upgrade your current AP network to do so.

Choosing a Bluetooth LE Panic Button provider

The arrival of Bluetooth LE as an affordable, open and multi-purpose technology alternative to RFiD, Wi-Fi and others has made it possible for use cases like panic buttons to be adopted faster, easier and more effectively over the years.

It is useful to remember that panic buttons are not a novel use case – from healthcare to tradesmen, industries where employees are at a heightened of danger due to isolated or vulnerable workplaces have been using personal alarm systems to call for help in times of need for over a decade.

At Kontakt.io, we are the leading BLE provider of location-based solutions worldwide.
Two of our most recent wearable BLE tags that are compliance ready are:

As the only true BLE end-to-end solution provider, we manufacture the hardware, develop the software, and with our rich ecosystem of partners, support a robust AP network that may leverage your current one with minimal need for add-ons.

Additional use cases made possible

Once your facility is equipped with the necessary infrastructure, you can begin to explore additional use cases that provide value for employees and customers alike and require only additional BLE devices (beacons or tags).

Using our powerful API and SDK, our platform can be easily integrated with 3rd party applications to produce more relevant and valuable data based on location and behavior.

BLE opens the door to Industry 4.0. Automated check-in and check-out, condition monitoring, asset tracking, indoor navigation, proximity data and more are all possible using the same technology infrastructure provided by Kontakt.io.

A technology and ecosystem for the future

With a rich ecosystem of technology giants and solution providers counting on BLE as a leading technology for the Internet of Things (IoT), it’s easy to see why this multi-purpose technology will enable powers ca presence in hospitality in hospitality is just beginning.

P.S. to read more on comparing BLE, RFiD and Wi-Fi – check out these articles:


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