Press release

Universal Parks Taps Comcast’s MachineQ to Infuse IoT Intelligence into Park Operations in Universal Orlando Resort

0
Sponsored by Businesswire

Comcast today announced a collaboration between its enterprise Internet
of Things (IoT) service, MachineQ™,
and Universal Parks and Resorts, to use low power wide area networking
(LPWAN) technology for IoT projects at its Orlando location. Using
MachineQ’s integrated hardware and software platform, which is being
fully deployed at the Orlando resort, Universal’s operations and IT
teams are able to quickly test and launch IoT projects designed to
increase operational efficiency in the park.

This press release features multimedia. View the full release here:
https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20190606005663/en/

Comcast's enterprise Internet of Things (IoT) service, MachineQ, and Universal Parks and Resorts, ar ...

Comcast’s enterprise Internet of Things (IoT) service, MachineQ, and Universal Parks and Resorts, are using low power wide area networking technology for IoT projects in Orlando. (Image: Business Wire)

“We’ve identified multiple applications where MachineQ’s low-power IoT
platform can deliver data to us faster than previous methods, and we’re
seeing the positive impact that can have for our teams,” said Bill
McCorey, Senior Vice President, Chief Information Officer, Universal
Parks and Resorts. “We’ve conducted a number of pilots for different use
cases, and have plans to put several of them into production in Orlando.
As our teams continue to take advantage of the MachineQ platform, we
anticipate more adoption from our internal teams, and even greater
efficiencies as a result.”

The MachineQ platform provides IoT hardware and software tools that will
be accessible across the entire Universal Orlando Resort. With the
network in place, wireless sensors that can detect temperature,
location, energy consumption, and more, and can be affixed to park
assets that operations teams want to monitor or control, such as food
refrigeration units, fleet vehicles, and utility meters.

Once activity is recorded by a sensor, it relays that data wirelessly to
a MachineQ gateway, which in turn can be delivered over the internet to
a digital dashboard used by park operations and IT staff. With this
information at park operations teams’ fingertips, new efficiencies can
be realized in the management of the park. Examples of these
efficiencies could include optimizing maintenance schedules, identifying
anomalies in the consumption of utilities, or understanding usage
patterns of fleet vehicles.

“While we offer a growing number of pre-defined IoT solutions, we are
excited to see businesses, such as Universal Parks and Resorts, leverage
our platform and APIs to rapidly build and customize solutions unique to
them,” said Alex Khorram, General Manager of MachineQ. “Universal’s
adoption of IoT to enhance the guest experience and drive operational
efficiencies is similar to what we’ve seen in other industries where
digital transformation is happening – such as agriculture,
multi-dwelling housing, manufacturing or food service. Once the platform
is deployed, and organizations learn more about the technology and the
ability to add new connected use cases with relative ease, the positive
impact on the business becomes very real.”

The engineering team at Universal is leveraging MachineQ’s public APIs
(Application Programming Interfaces) to build an application that
connects storage lockers at the Volcano Bay water theme park. In
addition, Universal is piloting a solution to use IoT sensors to improve
management of its food and beverage inventory at the Orlando resort
using more data. Future use cases for leveraging the platform could
include smart outdoor lighting, tracking mobile assets like golf carts,
and water leak detection.

MachineQ’s B2B IoT platform is deployed using LoRa® network
technology. LoRa-based networks are similar to cellular or Bluetooth,
but are better-suited for IoT use cases because they require less power
and have the ability to send data over wider geographic areas and into
hard to reach locations like deep indoors or underground. These
characteristics are a primary reason why Universal will be able to cover
its entire complex with 15 MachineQ wireless gateways, and why solution
providers across the globe are building equipment and solutions that
leverage the LoRaWAN® protocol. For more information, visit www.machineq.com.

About Comcast

Comcast Corporation (Nasdaq: CMCSA) is a global media and technology
company with three primary businesses: Comcast Cable, NBCUniversal, and
Sky. Comcast Cable is one of the United States’ largest high-speed
internet, video, and phone providers to residential customers under the
Xfinity brand, and also provides these services to businesses. It also
provides wireless and security and automation services to residential
customers under the Xfinity brand. NBCUniversal is global and operates
news, entertainment and sports cable networks, the NBC and Telemundo
broadcast networks, television production operations, television station
groups, Universal Pictures, and Universal Parks and Resorts. Sky is one
of Europe’s leading media and entertainment companies, connecting
customers to a broad range of video content through its pay television
services. It also provides communications services, including
residential high-speed internet, phone, and wireless services. Sky
operates the Sky News broadcast network and sports and entertainment
networks, produces original content, and has exclusive content rights.
Visit www.comcastcorporation.com for
more information.