Even on a hot day with temperatures up to +35° Celsius (or 95° Fahrenheit), there is no sign of heat or sticky air in Hotel Neu Heidelberg: The guests enter a well-tempered room that is protected by the sun but still bright. When hotelier David Schwaninger decided to expand his facility, he chose to install the KNX technology to ensure the comfort of his guests. With KNX, the hotel can control lighting, ventilation, heating and blinds based on room occupancy or external environments.
As a part of the KNX building systems technology, the Room Master RM/S 2.1 from ABB forms the basis for the automatic control. It offers a variety of possibilities to control building automation in a more convenient and energy efficient way - particularly in buildings with many similar rooms such as hotels, hospitals or housing communities.
In Hotel Neu Heidelberg, the device is hidden in the distribution board in each guestroom and simultaneously forms an independent system, where all electrical circuits run together. The advantage: Instead of having several KNX components installed, now only one single device is required to bring together all the different actuator and sensor functions.
The Room Master is connected to the KNX bus system, which is networked with the electrical installation of all rooms and hotel areas. Additional devices for functions in public areas are installed decentralized or in the technical center of the hotel.
For instance, an ABB weather station on the roof measures the intensity of sun light, temperature as well as wind and rain. The measured data is transmitted through the KNX bus system to the Room Master. According to the programming the devices react to the commands: If the sun shines and the temperature exceeds the values, shutter and blinds move automatically downwards. “A big advantage of KNX is its flexibility, because the functions are not restricted to specific circuits”, explained Thorsten Reibel, KNX Marketing at ABB STOTZ-KONTAKT.
Hotelier David Schwaninger is able to reprogram the automated processes, if necessary, or interrupt the program at any point. On the PC or on a tablet, he is able to see which rooms are occupied, which temperature was selected by the guest and which temperature is actually reached.
When the guests are in their rooms, KNX transmits that information through the keycard, which is stuck in the card reader to activate the electricity in each room. Therefore, the hotelier knows which rooms can be cleaned without disturbing the guests. The KNX-visualization at the reception enables the employees to switch the heating for newly arrived guests from stand-by-mode to comfort-mode.
Once the guest enters the room, only he/she has full control. “We do not want to disturb our guests”, the hotelier says. Each guest can set the temperature, blinds and lighting according to individual needs. If the guest inserts the keycard again in the card reader, the system automatically switches from stand-by-mode back to the guest’s settings.