Volara, Schneider Electric Marry Smart Room Controls with Voice Command for Hotels
Volara – a fully integrated voice-based conversation management software for the hotel industry – and Schneider Electric, a provider of digital transformation of energy management and automation, have signed a partnership agreement to combine their automation and voice technology expertise to co-develop new innovative solutions in the hospitality industry. Together, Schneider Electric and Volara will provide intuitive voice activated guest room control that enhances the guest experience and provides enriched analytic capabilities that can improve operational efficiency for the hotel.
As the first step in this collaboration, the two companies have completed a new application programming interface (API) which connects Schneider Electric’s room controls to Volara’s cloud software solution, which will enable guests to intuitively control their room using voice commands for a frictionless, memorable experience. To implement this solution, hotels will be able to choose any of the major natural language processing platforms, such as Amazon Alexa, Google Assistant or IBM Watson, to enable voice control of the guest room’s lighting, thermostat, curtains, sheers, make-up-room, and do-not-disturb features.
Volara provides cloud-based, platform agnostic, real time, multi-property conversation management software and a secure integrations hub. Its software turns the major natural language processing platforms into a hotel business tool that drives more efficient guest service, influences guests’ behavior by promoting hotel amenities and guest activities, measurably improves net promoter scores up to 20 percent, and helps hoteliers understand their guests better. Schneider Electric provides energy solutions for all areas of a hotel, from building and power management to guest room and common area management. The guest room solution monitors and controls energy consumption, identifies and proactively addresses maintenance needs, facilitates maid service requests, and troubleshoots problems remotely.
The jointly developed API has been tested in Schneider Electric’s North American R&D Center. Cybersecurity is of critical importance to both companies, and the architecture of Volara’s software was proven to contain layers of protection for guest personally identifiable information and the proprietary data of the hotel.