An App for All Reasons: Enabling Mobility in the Built Environment – Part I

ThoughtWire’s @WorkApp helps owners remake buildings designed for conventional workforces to support anytime, any-day workforces. Image: ThoughtWire

Everyone remembers the first time. Eagerly or anxiously, cautiously or recklessly, everyone remembers downloading and using that first smartphone app. Given the current ubiquity of smartphone applications, it tests one’s sensibilities to remember they didn’t exist eleven years ago.

As ThoughtWire’s @WorkApp learns about how people interact with the facility, it optimizes lighting, heating and cooling patterns to help building owners save. Photo: ThoughtWire

Who is innovating smartphone apps for the built environment, and what benefits might these apps offer to users and specifiers of commercial spaces?

‘App’ wasn’t recognized as a word when Apple launched the App Store. Its inventory on July 10, 2008, was a meager 500 apps. Steve Jobs told USA Today that iPhone users downloaded ten million apps over the first weekend. When the Verge.com asked staffers about their first apps, they replied with a mix of social, productivity and gaming apps.

Ideal for the workplace, apps reside in a device small enough to go anywhere, connected enough to operate everywhere and powerful enough to display simple presentations of complex data.

The allure for workers everywhere is the boon in productivity apps. They hold the promise of improving work/life balance, enhancing performance, easing workloads and much more.

An expanding interest in tenant satisfaction from building owners is fueling the introduction of operational apps. Toronto-based ThoughtWire, an Operations Performance Management software company, anticipates a workplace where the building learns the habits of employees, detecting who is working when, where they are working and their lighting and climate preferences.

Stephen Owens, Chief Technology Officer, ThoughtWire. Photo: Thoughtwire

The firm characterizes its niche as helping hospitals and commercial buildings operate smarter, safer and healthier. For employees, all it takes is downloading ThoughtWire’s @WorkApp to their smartphone, making them visible to the building’s sensors.

Distributed within a building, sensors convert what they sense into data and ship it off to devices with decision-making intelligence that govern actions and report status.

Evening fades into night and lighting glows with brightening intensity. Occupants fill a conference space and a flow of conditioned air commences. A coffee bar’s refuse bin signals full capacity and housekeeping attends to it.

For those learning of such magic for the first time, sensors and more devices like them compose the tangible endpoints of what’s called the Internet of Things. Abbreviated as IoT, these device-to-device and machine-to-

Michael Monteith, Chief Executive Officer, ThoughtWire. Photo: ThoughtWire

machine communications are invisibly happening in everyday living, connecting with humans in innumerable ways and assisting with an inexplicable range of tasks.

Stephen Owens, ThoughtWire’s Chief Technology Officer, described the firm’s products to Bisnow’s Benjamin Paltiel in December 2018: “It doesn’t take any effort on the employee’s part. The building learns when employees like to arrive and when they like to leave throughout the week and over the course of the year. As it learns, it optimizes its lighting, heating and cooling patterns to help building owners save.”

Savings in building operations for the owners and personalization of working environments for employees make ThoughtWire’s @WorkApp a win-win proposition. This app helps owners remake buildings designed for the conventional eight-hours-a-day on Mondays-through-Fridays to support an anytime, any-day workforce.

Sandy Mangat, Director of Marketing, ThoughtWire. Photo: Thoughtwire

The @WorkApp includes messaging functionality, allowing a facilities group to communicate about planned construction, drills, outages and report to employees about unplanned events or emergencies.

Lest one dismiss these as commonplace examples, expand this network across thousands of square feet and multiple facilities. ThoughtWire empowers a firm’s leadership with an actionable interpretation of the raw data collected about interactions of employees, visitors and others with a given space or facility.

Michael Monteith, ThoughtWire CEO, and Sandy Mangat, Director of Marketing, detailed this approach in the Bisnow article. Ms. Mangat noted ThoughtWire’s uniqueness, saying that other IoT solutions are “often more focused on the reliability of their assets” rather than viewing the facility in its entirety as an asset. Mr. Monteith built on that comment, saying, “We manage the distribution of work to the right people, and we’re very focused on achieving the complete operational response.”

Distributed work is familiar to Jeremy Jennings, the co-founder and co-CEO of Jabbrrbox, a workplace solutions company. “All of us are mobile workers,” said Mr. Jennings. “Technology allows us to work wherever we need to be and have what we need in that moment.”

Jeremy Jennings, Co-CEO and Co-Founder, Jabbrrbox. Photo: Jabbrrbox

Mr. Jennings and Brian Hackathorn, CEO and Co-Founder, had always envisioned supporting mobile workers outside the four walls of the office. However, they needed a vessel. After Mr. Hackathorn designed, engineered and built the vessel, the duo realized marketing it as a place of privacy inside the open office was a viable way to start building the company.

The resulting solution presents users with a single-seat or a two-seat compartment for quiet and calm within the drone of the open office workday. These are places to meet, work and discuss in confidence while making use of building amenities and not leaving the office.

Last February, at New York City’s LaGuardia Airport, Jabbrrbox launched its first public consumer activation, in which customers could rent a Jabbrrbox pod for brief increments of time and pay per use.

At NeoCon, the company formally unveiled the JabbrrX, a self-contained, cyber-secure and tech-enabled privacy pod. “We see distributed work as a flow, where users work whenever, wherever and in whatever manner when away from

Brian Hackathorn, CEO and Co-Founder, Jabbrrbox. Photo: Jabbrrbox

home and outside the office,” said Mr. Jennings. Their philosophy of work’s future is one where the activities and events associated with work slot into a continuum of time and place.

The trend has been manifesting over time, as the clear divisions between times of “at work” and “off work” are giving way to using time as a personal asset and place as a resource. “A fine line divides freedom from the sense of being ‘on’ all the time,” said Mr. Jennings. “We approach ‘place’ as a curated service for productivity, privacy and wellness, where our products become a haven for family moments, meditation or simply a quiet moment.”

Jabberrbox anticipates locations in 25 airports by the end of 2019 in addition to LaGuardia, Cincinnati, Pittsburgh and JFK. Photo: Jabbrrbox

Mobility for the segment of workers who make the most of it is empowering, observes Mr. Jennings. “It increases happiness and productivity,” making working anywhere and anytime a relevant answer to the work/life balance equation. The value of time, of viewing every minute as a perishable quantity, elevates desires for places responding to this imperative, wherever one might be.

Jabbrrbox’s eponymous product line of customizable, freestanding tech-enabled pods are welcome sights at New York City’s John F. Kennedy International Airport and LaGuardia Airport, along with Cincinnati and Pittsburgh International airports, with more sites coming. Mr. Jennings told Zlata Kozul Naumovski, writing for Crain’s New York Business, that Jabbrrbox expects placements in 25 airports by the end of 2019.

The company’s newest product, JabbrrX, provides users with an on-demand, technology-enabled workplace. JabbrrX features secure Wi-Fi, Bluetooth connectivity and a video conferencing camera and monitor. Requiring 4’ by 4’ of floor space and standing 7’5” high, JabbrrX fits almost anywhere, and the company provides cleaning and maintenance services.

A free smartphone app, coming soon, makes Jabbrrbox locations searchable and reservable, and makes available a host of other feature-rich experiences. The app books a location, accepts payment, provides entry codes and Wi-Fi passwords.

But which app does one summon for a comfy bed on-demand?

The app from Sleepbox comes to mind. Travelers can download the app and reserve a pod in a Sleepbox Lounge, a micro hotel good for working or resting a few hours or overnight. Once there, the app offers customization of the rest experience.

Inside the Sleepbox Lounge at Washington Dulles International Airport, where 16 pods await occupancy. The ramp leads to an ADA accessible pod. Photo: Sleepbox
Interior of the Sleepbox Compact, just enough space at 30 sq. ft. but kitted out with premium linen and extra-long memory foam mattresses. Photo: Sleepbox

Once inside and nestled into the pod’s bed, made up with premium linens over an extra-long memory foam mattress, the app controls ambient lighting, ventilation and other features. Wi-Fi, charging ports and desk space add to the pod’s utility and comfort.

Washington Dulles International Airport is home to the first Sleepbox Lounge, which opened in April 2019. Especially noteworthy is its location: within the airport’s security perimeter, near gates on the A Concourse, by the AeroTrain stop. Weary travelers couldn’t design a better location for a micro hotel. Inside are sixteen pods awaiting occupants.

The room proportions among self-described micro hoteliers vary, possibly due to their surroundings. The pods in a Sleepbox Lounge measure 30 square feet for the Compact or 45 square feet for the Single; sizes geared to the long layover after a red-eye or a cancellation. No baths are inside the pods nor the Lounge. Guests avail themselves of the public restrooms.

A Sleepbox Lounge might be aptly termed a mini hotel because another group of hoteliers with rooms typically 115-170 square feet consider themselves micro hotels.

This category of micro hotel locates inside tightly-defined urban neighborhoods, luring travelers who want to be “at” where things are happening, not nearby. They may stay overnight, book a weekend or make extended reservations for business or pleasure.

As for on-property features, these travelers desire spacious, well-appointed common areas. These are spaces for work, play and dining prized by guests who are decidedly social. Essentials include speedy Wi-Fi, unlimited coffees, teas and snacks, bar service and slouch-worthy seating.

That comfort and practicality, even luxury, exists in the micro hotel category is a reality sweeping across the U.S. Smallish rooms, yes, but in a style presented with grandeur. Expect opulent finishes, rich architectural details and original artwork.

Among high-end operators is Arlo Hotels of New York City and Miami, one of the few presently offering a smartphone app for check-in, keyless room access, requests during the stay, on-property events and more.

The award-winning, 325-room Arlo Soho at 231 Hudson Street, New York City, nestles among some of New York’s most iconic sights while offering warm, inviting common areas. Photo: Courtesy of Arlo Hotels

The industry will have a clearer idea about how traveling families fare with the app-operated micro hotel category once these properties have been around a little longer.

Rooms at the Arlo Solo average 150 square feet. Guests who download Arlo’s app get access to Arlo events, news and magazine library, mobile check-in and keyless entry to their rooms. Photo: Courtesy of Arlo Hotels

Moms nursing infants need not wait for an app-enabled innovation to make their travels more comfortable.

Mamava’s smartphone app is a free download, and so is the use of some 750 Mamava pods across the country. In public spaces, workplaces, airports and train stations, Mamava pods provide a dignified lactation space outside the home, a need among many of the 27.6 million women of childbearing age in the United States.

Mamava’s pods in public spaces, workplaces, airports and train stations across the country provide dignified lactation spaces away from home. Photo: Mamava

In a recent segment of NBC’s Today Show, moms had the opportunity to share some experiences in motherhood nobody told them to expect. From a mom breastfeeding her first child: “I found out firsthand how special that bond between mother and child can be.” From another breastfeeding mom: “In the beginning, it was really challenging – I didn’t know how hard it could be.”

Rebecca Roose, Director of Digital Products, Mamava. Photo: Rebecca Roose

Such feelings are well understood at Mamava. Founders Christine Dodson and Sascha Mayer drew motivation from their personal experiences as working, nursing moms. They believed a setting could be designed to support all of the breastfeeding moms when away from home and, maybe, away from their babies.

Romper.com, an online parenting resource, reported that in 2015, 64% of breastfeeding moms discontinued their breastfeeding journey when they returned to work, partly because their workplaces lacked facilities to help them meet their breastfeeding goals.

“You wouldn’t go into the bathroom to make a sandwich,” said Rebecca Roose, Director of Digital Products at Mamava. Nor would anyone sit on the toilet to eat it. The company’s mission is to create a healthier breastfeeding culture nationally, offering every woman support and encouragement for nursing her child. The Internet of Things helps make this happen.

“Moms can find Mamava pod locations, unlock and enter them with our app,” said Ms. Roose. “They are connected over the IoT and the app shows whether a specific pod is available or occupied.”

The app helps moms find more than 3,000 other pump-friendly locations vetted by Mamava. The app reviews these locations and includes photos, so moms know what to expect on arrival. The reviews list such details as stroller space, electric outlets and other amenities.

Mamava’s smartphone app, a free download, unlocks pods. Once inside, moms use the app for adjustments to lighting, airflow and more. Photo: Mamava

Once inside a Mamava pod, the app’s concierge features appear. “The app takes moms to an in-pod experience screen,” said Ms. Roose. “There you can adjust the environment inside the pod.” Moms can dim the lighting for feeding their babies or if they are pumping milk, they may want brighter lighting. The airflow is adjustable, as are sound effects of a crying baby, laughing baby and white noise to help with let down and mask the sounds of noisy pumps when needed.

Because these can be isolating experiences, Mamava enhances its digital connection with moms to foster an old-fashioned feeling of community and togetherness. It started with a message in a mirror.

“We place a mirror inside every pod and on it, we inscribe the phrase ‘Looking Good Mama’ for encouragement,” said Ms. Roose. “Pumping milk is a process that isn’t especially enjoyable – it can be hard, just as being away from your baby can be difficult.”

Inspired by spontaneous mom-to-mom messages left inside Mamava’s lactation pods, the firm’s app now includes a feature called Words of Support. Photo: Mamava

Moms using the pods got the idea. Spontaneous mom-to-mom messages of support began appearing as hand-written notes on and around the mirrors.

“These acts of affirmation and comfort inspired us,” said Ms. Roose. Mamava provides an in-app feature called Word of Support, so more moms than ever can know others know what they are feeling.

Messages from moms posted on the app include, “Hope you enjoy this delightful private space – much better than pumping in a bathroom,” “It’s not easy but it’s worth it,” “No mom ever said traveling with a baby is fun – you’re doing great,” “Your baby is so lucky,” and “Hurray! You’ve made it another day, and your baby loves you!”

“These digital notes on the app are an extension of what was happening organically inside the pod,” said Ms. Roose. “I’d like to think that the message we put on the mirror that’s inside every pod, Looking Good Mama, was an invitation for moms to add their encouragement.”

Encouraging moms who start breastfeeding to continue doing so permeates the culture at Mamava. “We believe all moms should have access to a lactation space outside the home, including moms who are working at venues, airports or pop-up events,” said Ms. Roose.

Increasing that likelihood is a mission at the company, which offers the original pod design plus an ADA version, a smaller-scaled version and a rental model for temporary spaces.

Each pod is customizable with exterior graphics applied at the factory. Retractable casters mean pods are easily moved.

Mamava’s ordering process is equally customized, preferring to work closely with specifiers over the phone. Pods start at $9,000 based on size and ship about 4-to-6 weeks after ordering. Two people can assemble the pod in 3-to-4 hours or an assembly crew can be contracted separately.

Knowing there are apps that can help find a Mamava pod or a Sleepbox location begs the question, ‘What about when I’m looking for a desk at work or where has my team quartered?’

Stay tuned next week, featuring an ingenious solution to this question offered by contract desking company Innovant.

As researcher, writer and commentator, Stephen Witte reports and advises on trends shaping the future for the A&D community, manufacturers and distribution channels. His background includes corporate roles in product management, product development and public relations. He can be reached at stephenmwitte@gmail.com.