3 Ways That Power Over Ethernet Lowers Costs In Your Restaurant
Food and restaurants have driven innovation since their conception, from how to best preserve foods to ways to optimize your preparation and delivery. In 21st century restaurants, convenience and efficiency are the foundation of your business, to provide high-quality items as quickly and consistently as possible. Kitchen display systems (KDS) have long since solved for the logistical issues inherent in using handwritten paper tickets that are transmitted by hand between stations. As those systems became increasingly sophisticated, Kitchen Armor was created to protect the adjoining hardware technology. And now, that protection is even better with the introduction of power over ethernet (PoE) functionality for your hardware needs.
What is Power Over Ethernet?
Invented by PowerDsine in 1997 and further developed by Cisco in 2000 as a means of powering Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) phones, Power Over Ethernet is used to describe the mechanism to transmit both power and communications over a single cable. Anyone who utilized pre-cellular phone technology can recognize then that this is the natural evolution of how telephones were powered, as they drew their energy through the same copper wiring that carried voice calls.
The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers standardized the concept in 2003 and again in 2009 when it was updated to show enhancements to the technology’s capacity for energy management. Through the IEEE’s creation of a standard that manufacturers could work within, PoE gained prominence and acceptance as a substitute for other power supplies. Through that commonality came continued development of the technology, which is now employed in Kitchen Armor hardware accessories. Let’s look at a few of the benefits.
Restaurant Technological Logistics
Powered electronics can clutter up your workspace, leading to a tangled knot of cords and cables that connect spiderwebbed between a host of devices. The larger your operation, the more you have to deal with this; as your restaurant business grows, it evolves newer needs and newer tech to meet these challenges. If you use a KDS, you need a variety of hardware devices, from controllers to monitors.
What Kitchen Armor does so well is to protect that various hardware and support the logistical needs of your kitchen. With PoE, you can cut at least some cords, by utilizing the assets of the technology. Bear in mind that not only are there a variety of electrical circuit requirements in your kitchen but that these are likely state-mandated to help guarantee safety. By utilizing the PoE through Kitchen Armor, you can have your cake and eat it too.Continuity of Service
Power outages are an unfortunate and unavoidable reality of any business operation and can have catastrophic effects on your restaurant. Not all power grids are created the same, so mileage varies on how the average time of a power outage. The U.S. Energy Information Administration reports that the typical outage duration is 112 minutes under normal weather and operating conditions, and 250 minutes during major events. During those extended periods of a power outage, restaurants lose food stock and customers, which cuts even deeper into your budget.
Since PoE draws power from an ethernet cable, average outage times are only around 100 minutes. That means that you have approximately 12 minutes under normal circumstances where your restaurant tech can still function, allowing you to deliver foods mindful of safety to any guests that happen to be there when the lights go out. While 12 minutes might not seem like much, if you own or manage a chain or franchise, that time can add up to some significant savings.Under dire circumstances, you can still use your restaurant tech to get critical information about when an outage started, which can prove beneficial when calculating waste later. Stay wary of food temperatures and keep safety first.
Saves On Energy
There are a lot of reasons to go green in your restaurant. Sustainable business practices are not only good for business but inevitable in the face of climate change. By advertising your commitment to energy efficiency, you can draw on the spending power of consumers increasingly considerate of environmental issues. The good news is that by utilizing PoE, you can get more from less.
Mileage varies from device to device, but you can calculate your total expected usage by taking the wattage per hour and multiplying that by the hours of operation. For example, Kitchen Armor 21.5-inch Touchscreen consumes 19 watts per hour, which is around 190 watts per day on a ten-hour shift.
Most utility bills are measured in kilowatts per hour, meaning that it takes approximately six days to equal one full kilowatt worth of usage. In the U.S., the average kilowatt usage per hour is 12¢, meaning that in the span of a month, which is around 300 total hours of usage, you would spend approximately 70¢ per month per device. That may not seem like much, but when you add in all of your other devices and scale up, it can start to accumulate; whatever you can do to lower your costs is ideal.
In addition to drawing less power overall, you can use PoE to turn off each device remotely. For operators with remote viewing technology, you can use that to monitor if something is on or off at the end of a shift.
Conclusion
We often measure technology by small incremental change, and PoE is one more step in that chain. With PoE, you lower your costs, protect your hardware, and streamline your operations. It enhances the speed and quality of your data for less cost, and through standardization, easily integrates into your setup. At the end of the day, it’s easy to use and like all good tech, improves your operations in invisible and lucrative ways, enhancing your restaurant in the background without requiring any further use of your time.
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