MachineQ, Comcast’s IoT unit, has launched a service aimed at providing hoteliers with a way to detect bedbugs before they spread, require remediation and threaten the hotel’s brand. The company is working with Spotta, a company that specializes in bedbug detection, on the offering.
The service features Spotta’s Bed Pod sensors, which are installed under mattresses. The traps exude odorless pheromones that lure the bugs in. Once detected, Spotta’s artificial intelligence system analyzes and validates that a bedbug actually is in the trap. If so, MachineQ’s cloud network sends an image along with the time and location to hotel employees, who can proactively react.
“We are proud to continue offering unique and scalable IoT solutions with partners like Spotta to expand our platform’s value to customers in hospitality,” Bryan Witkowski, the Head of Product and Strategy at MachineQ, said in a prepared statement. “Our clients can start with bedbug monitoring and add other use cases to help manage risk, such as water leak detection and staff duress, using the same network infrastructure for a low total cost of ownership and fast deployment.”
The MachineQ-Spotta bedbug service is a great example of the type of incremental initiative that is possible when the IoT, cloud and specialized and often industry-specific capabilities are combined.
In July, MachineQ announced extended capabilities for indoor asset tracking real time location systems (RTLS) that were introduced in 2022. The company said that the new Nano RT, Nano LP, the Dura ET, Dura PT, and Dura AC active asset tags support a variety of form factors, environmental ratings and capabilities.
The wide variety of uses for such platforms is best illustrated by 2018 announcements of MachineQ clients: FAIRWAYiQ, (for use in conjunction with golf courses); H2O Degree (tenant billing, water leak detection energy analytics); Seco Sys (mining operations, campuses, utilities); SteamIQ (radiators, water heaters, industrial kettles, refineries, sterilizers, turbines) and Vinduino (vineyard, wine making industries).
