Keeping hotel employees safe has been a priority in the industry for years now. Starting as far back as at least 2016, regional authorities including the City of Seattle began passing laws requiring panic buttons to be furnished to hotel workers. These buttons provided employees a discrete and fast way to notify security and emergency personnel when critical security situations required their involvement.

These buttons, when pressed, send emergency alerts to the on-call security team showing them a map view of where the security incident occurred down to the specific hotel room. No need to guess or scramble when seconds matter most.

I worked with the team at React Mobile to develop the first version of the Dispatch Center application. It connected with backend APIs to receive emergency alerts, plot them on to a Google Map, presented information about the specific room where the event occurred, and which employee needed help.

The initial version I developed was in the form of a desktop application that ran on Windows, Mac, and Linux from an easy-to-use installer. The application utilized native push notifications to escalate the application to the top of the window stack when an emergency event occurred, making sure an end-user binging YouTube videos wouldn’t lose sight of a critical event. Additionally, support was included to play a loud emergency alert siren that could be configured on and off based on organization preference and requirement

Technologies utilized in development of this application included Bootstrap, JavaScript, Electron, and Node.JS.

The React Mobile Dispatch Center made national news several times as it was rolled out across major cities:

• https://www.kcra.com/article/norcal-hotel-working-to-help-workers-with-panic-buttons/23000377
• https://www.chicagotribune.com/2018/06/07/chicago-hotels-roll-out-panic-button-systems-to-protect-housekeepers-from-sexual-harassment/
• https://www.wjcl.com/article/in-reversal-hotel-industry-to-back-panic-buttons-for-workers/22995817

Does your organization need help building something like this? I can help! Drop me a DM and let’s make it happen.