Carnival Cruise Line Expands Smart Device Manufacturing

Carnival Corp. & PLC has launched the first Experience Internet of Things consumer wearable manufacturing and fulfillment center in Santo Domingo. 

The center, set up in partnership with manufacturing solutions provider Jabil, is expected to deliver wearables to a distribution point in Miami, Florida for its Caribbean cruise ships.

Launched in 2017, the Princess Medallion wearable device allows passengers to enter and leave their vessel without touching any surfaces as well as keyless stateroom entry. 

Other features include frictionless commerce, dynamic way-finding, a family and friends locator, and portable entertainment access.

“The proximity of Jabil’s state-of-the-art facilities and factory automation along with its exceptional track record across consumer, medical and military device manufacturing gives us a tremendous opportunity to support the increased demand for our experiential IoT wearables and also support good-paying jobs in the Dominican Republic in the highly desirable sector of travel and tourism,” said John Padgett, chief experience and innovation officer for Carnival Corp. 

The news comes after Royal Caribbean announced in October the deployment of its customized wearable across the company’s 24-ship fleet. 

However, Carnival’s product has a four-year head start on its competitor. Carnival says that it has transformed vacation travel with highly personalized customer experiences.

Passengers are offered the medallion as a free extra on routes operated by Carnival’s subsidiary Princess Cruises.

The device itself is no larger than a U.S quarter coin. Weighing 1.8 ounces, its exterior is a disc that can be worn as either a smart watch or necklace. It also hides the fact that technology lies inside  there are no on-off switches or menus for the user to operate.

Instead, the user downloads an app to their smartphone. Some of the Medallion experiences are the same as on the guest’s TV — for example, the film they’d been watching might continue to play.

Guests carry the device with them on the ship to sync it with various experiential Internet of Things readers, sensors and edge computing devices that recognize their identity and supply experiences based on location and personal information they provide.

Carnival says the technology is both waterproof and heat-resistant. The device contains two antennae — one for near-field communications and another for Bluetooth low-energy transmissions.