A Smart City That Floats

In order for IoT to Work Well, a Closed Loop Helps 

It’s amazing how you can ease into the future when it’s been pre-arranged for you. For those of us who dwell on the land-locked version of the Internet of Things, it can be a spider’s web of bad connections, competing protocols, crazy interfaces, and different operating systems. But aboard a MedallionClass ship from Princess Cruises last week I got to walk into a closed-loop floating city, where all the IoT got along famously. Carnival's mission was to make cruising aboard the ship an experience where room keys, mobile apps, and credit cards could be things of the past.  

The key to connected sailing is what Carnival Corporation, the parent company of Princess Cruises, calls its OceanMedallion. It’s about the size of a quarter (weighing less than 2 oz.). Worn as a bracelet, watch or neck medallion, it's your personal tracking device while cruising. The device has the same essential innards of your smartphone -- Bluetooth and NFC, but it’s all personalized to your profile and automatically connected to a variety of sensors, kiosks, displays and other connected devices around the ship. All told, the ship uses 7,000 sensors, 4,000 interactive digital portals, and a couple of data centers to create the IoXT network-- a floating closed-loop city.

As John Padgett, Carnival’s Chief Experience and Innovation Officer told us as we toured the ship while it was docked in Brooklyn last week, “The Medallion means no on-off buttons, nothing to configure, and no user interface.” 

The ship offers a host of nearly invisible interactions. I found it a mix of the carefree and frictionless (never having to think about where your cards and keys are) and the terrifying (knowing that Medallion Class ship knew more about my family's travels aboard than I would). 

Even before you board the ship, the Medallion, mailed to you in advance, knows about your passport, stateroom, and luggage. As you approach your stateroom it’s automatically opened via a conversation between your medallion and the room.  

Each stateroom, which Padgett says, “is essentially a steel box”, has its own access point making high-speed Internet ubiquitous throughout the ship. Anyone who’s ever been trapped on a cruise ship with poor quality and expensive Internet access will be in heaven. Similarly, the housekeeping staff can see if there’s a medallion in your room, eliminating intrusive that intrusive “housekeeping, can I come in?” knock at your door. 

Order a drink or food via the screen in your room and head up to the pool. The staff can locate you and deliver your goods anywhere onboard. Traveling with a group, young kids or memory challenged adults? As long as you’ve added them to your Medallion contacts (via the mobile phone app) you can locate and chat with them via kiosk or mobile app. Deck 9 Aft for Zumba Class? Your medallion knows where you. Through the app or ship display, you'll get turn by turn directions to wherever you’re headed. 

Staff throughout the ship have access to relevant passenger data. They can remember your birthday, offer a complimentary drink or greet you by name. By eliminating the normal frictions, "guests can be freed up to enjoy the experience more and [therefore] consume more experiences," Padgett said.

The seduction of being connected also means that you can gamble (once offshore) on your device or certain kiosks without ever leaving your lounge at the pool. The pool, framed by a large jumbotron, doubles as an interactive gaming center and there is a digital scavenger hunt where guests can tour the ship in search of adventure. 

All the while the MedaillionClass cloud is quietly scarfing up your whereabouts, activities, and habits --- allowing them to do everything from order food and plan activities more efficiently. It’s hard not to wonder about security in a world where Carnival knows your every more, but Padgett explained that Carnival has taken a set of step to secure passenger data based on a two-factor authentication (2FA) process. Your medallion device stores no data, nor do the IoT devices. Your record is not duplicated anywhere on the ship, but rather in blockchain-like fashion it’s stored in the cloud and each action becomes a record.

Today, it’s super hard to replicate the Carnival experience on land. The closest analogy in the Disney Magic Band that tracks your movement and purchases through Disneyworld. Princess Cruises could have made the Medallion experience a nightmare of ad-driven push announcements. They could have sold the information they collect from passengers to myriad data-hungry sources. They could have made it mobile-app driven -- hence harder to use. But they had the luxury of a closed world, a floating smart city. That’s the IoT experience we landlocked folks should be striving for. 

Interested in more about Carnival Cruise's technology. PC Magazine has a good “behind the tech” view. 

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