One Night In the Hotel Room of the Future 58
Mickeycaskill writes: Hub by Premier Inn in London is pitching itself as the hotel room of the future, using technology to make staying in a city easier and simpler. Automated kiosks, digital temperature controls, augmented reality walls and even the ability to control things using an Apple Watch or smartphone are just some of the innovations used. A custom app is used to order room service, control the television and has a number of other features. TechWeekEurope spent a night in the hotel to see if technology could make a hotel stay any better.
TL;DR (Score:5, Insightful)
There will be more ads.
Re: TL;DR (Score:1)
There was one of these in Glasgow 2 years ago. Citizen hotel it was called of I remember. How is this an article and not advertising
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Will it still require a PhD to turn the lights on and off, as issued by the Escher School of Hotel Design?
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Worse than Now (Score:5, Informative)
$$ to remove ads! (Score:2)
Step 1 - Introduce ads.
Step 2 - Introduce $10/day charge to remove said ads
Step 3 - Profit!
Not a custom app (Score:5, Insightful)
That's a horrible idea. Why not a web app?
I don't want to have to install some crappy app just to order room service.
Re:Not a custom app (Score:4, Insightful)
Totally agree. I'm rapidly coming to the conclusion that most mobile apps are unnecessary and evil.
I've just extended the battery life on my Nexus phone by at least 30% by deleting a bunch of scarcely used mobile apps that insisted on running background processes (turning off push synchronization on Exchange added another 50%, btw). I'm now back to the once-per-day charge that I remember enjoying when the phone was new.
My phone is now faster, cooler, quieter, less cluttered and gives me fewer irritating notifications. Die, apps, die!
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My phone is now faster, cooler, quieter, less cluttered and gives me fewer irritating notifications. Die, apps, die!
Getting off topic here, but I still use a 2007 RAZR and I only need to charge my phone once a week (if that). And I amazed a guy sitting next to me on a plane the other week when I told him that I didn't even bother to pack my charger on that particular trip.
Other benefits of this phone included being small and lite, and me not caring when I drop it as I know it will survive pretty well any fall onto a hard surface.
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technology is made for the purpose of making our lives harder.
There's an app for that. Primary reason that I don't own a smart phone.
Let me just translate this... (Score:5, Insightful)
Digital temperature controls! (Score:4, Insightful)
The future is....digital temperature controls?
"Augmented reality wall" - um, so, it looks like a panel that displays local information, it's hardly Minority Report style interactivity. Just marketing bullshit, tons of hotels, in Asia at least, have these features without advertising them as 'futuristic'. Most botique hotels in Hong Kong have all the digital room control functions on panels similarly designed, even, and have for years. I don't get how this is anything regarding 'future tech'.
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Welcome to 1996, IBM released their own hardware and software suite that did all of that, the only thing lacking was the "augmented reality wall" where you needed to have a PC connected.
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The future is....digital temperature controls?
I stayed in one of these hotels for a computer security conference last year - and the temperature didn't drop below 27C (80F) even at 6am, making for a lousy two nights given the high humidity. No a/c, only heating, and the window only opened two inches ('for security', the label helpfully explained: being five floors up, presumably this means they're worried about Spiderman incursions.)
So, does "the future" actually include either decent a/c, or at least a window you can open properly to get some air move
How is a map on a wall augmented reality? (Score:1)
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Stop using buzzwords outside their definitions. Stop it!
Do you have a problem with them using the IoT to crowd-source cloud data for their augmented reality interfaces? You are clearly a misogynist that wants to keep women out of STEM. At least they aren't 3D printing drones, because if the singularity happens tomorrow, that would really be disaster. (I'll stop now)
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A map on a wall, however interactive, is nothing related.
It is if you do it right:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
That's taking a real thing (a physical map) and adding in new elements. Very cool, though a little laggy and slow, but it's 2005 era tech in both computing and computer vision, so chances are it would be smooth and fast today. Also, one would use an iPhone (well, probably Android), not an iPaq.
OK and yes technically that's a map on a table, not a wall :)
Basics first (Score:5, Insightful)
Automated kiosks, digital temperature controls, augmented reality walls and even the ability to control things using an Apple Watch or smartphone are just some of the innovations used.
Cool story. Now, do basic ventilation, heating, mold prevention and soundproofing work properly?
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Be interesting to see what they do with this. Not a massive augmented-reality wall fan but the rest sounds fine to me.
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That was my thought as well. All this tech and yet the bed probably still has bed bugs and your neighbors will still be too loud...
Fake temperature controls (Score:5, Interesting)
More and more hotels play games to see how often they can keep the HVAC turned off.
The hotel I'm in now (a "Comfort Suite") is fine by basic hotel standards -- clean, friendly staff, fridge, etc etc.
But they've added the Amana IR door/motion senses to their HVAC system and when the sensor doesn't detect motion it turns off the HVAC, so you come back to your west-facing room (which housekeeping has helpfully opened the drapes) and it's hot and stuffy because the IR package sets back the temperature by 5 degrees. Even no motion for like 20 minutes sets it back 2 degrees, so you wake up to stuffy room.
Too bad for them I found the installation manual for the IR sensor on the web and the in-wall unit easily allows you to reprogram the setbacks (no security). Sorry, hotel, but I set them all to zero setback so the AC stays at my temperature.
My understanding is that this is common in a lot of European and Asian hotels, where you have to put your room key in a slot to make the lights and HVAC work. Ugh.
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They sure seem to want to come as close as possible to keeping it off.
The Amana DigiSmart unit is meant to set it back 2 deg F after 30 minutes, 3 degrees in one hour, and 6 degrees in 3 hours. It's non-sensitive enough that sitting still working at the desk results in it appearing to shut off and only turn on when I get up and move.
Set to a nominal temperature of 74, you could come back to a room that was 80 degrees after a day which isn't unlikely if housekeeping leaves a sun-facing room's windows wide
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Before that was using an old ID that did not have a mag strip and did run into few rare places that could not work with that.
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but some only appeared to recognize the room key itself (ie, not any plastic card or even a generic mag stripe card).
Just ask for 2 room keys when you check in - one for you and the other for the room.
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Too bad for them I found the installation manual for the IR sensor on the web and the in-wall unit easily allows you to reprogram the setbacks (no security).
You're a better hacker than me, I would have hung a long-ass pendulum in front of the sensor, or made the air from the AC constantly move something.
One night in a hotel room...of the future... (Score:2)
...you stand at the doorway aghast at the sight of a strangely familiar (now mature) call girl and three children with an uncanny resemblance to yourself.
And a Bible (Score:2)
Hotels are bad enough already (Score:3)
Sounds too 1980s... (Score:2)
There must a way to say someone has applied some of more recent innovations into something without claiming it is "of the future". Nobody knows what the future will look like, and most of predictions turn out to be wrong (Where are all the auto adjustable clothes and flying cars?).
Most things that used to be touted as "of the future" look old-fashioned nowadays, especially because they had a lot of drawbacks. They were resource consuming, inconvenient, uncomfort
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Because hotels are the most ethical places (Score:3)
I'll believe it when I see it. (Score:1)
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You are lucky to get a mid-level owner to clean the carpets. Hotels are pretty scummy.
Then you don't really travel (Score:5, Insightful)
If those things appeal to you, you don't/haven't traveled much.
I want:
- to get to my room
- sleep in a clean bed with minimal thoughts about the copious amounts of jizz on everything that's not regularly soaked in causting cleansing chemistry
- a bathroom with decent light & a shower with decent water pressure that sprays me somewhere above the sternum
- a reasonable compromise between price and location.
Is there tech that can deliver these things? Already the web basically has 1 and 4 covered, I don't think the others are 'reachable' by a smartwatch or whatever magic tech bullet they're deploying today.
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Add to that:
- Quiet
- Not having bright lights facing into the window
- A window that actually opens
- A reliable mechanism for opening the door.
The Future? (Score:2)
Everything in that hotel room is horribly out of date. Holy cow my company was installing that stuff 5 years ago.
Remember kids, the "future" is already obsolete by the time journalists find it.
Make a stay in the hotel any better (Score:4, Insightful)
It's not the devices. It's not the interfaces. It's soundproofing the darn room, hallways, and elevators. Most especially this means designing hotel doors that will close/lock without banging. And maybe setting up a late-night, noise-detecting flamethrower for all those people who desperately need to have conversations at top volume between their room and the elevator. I'd like to see more of that, and forget about gadgets in my room.
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THIS.
I build and rent cabins on my property. Sure, vacation travel is different from business travel, but still my main concerns are:
1) comfort
2) soundproofing
3) basic amenities
Because THAT is what people want on a vacation. Not fancy gadgetry, people get enough of that in daily life anyway.
Control the television (Score:2)
Is this some alternate timeline of the future where we still care about television? I haven't turned on my TV at home for years, let alone on a hotel room. Now if the hotel would provide proxies to different countries so that guests could watch their favorite streaming service with the correct catalog, *that* would be the future.
Kiosks? How quaint (Score:2)
From the moment you check in, it's clear that hub is a little bit different. Lengthy queues at reception are replaced by kiosks (pictured above) that allow you to check in using your smartphone, with key cards for your room set up in seconds right in front of you.
The last time I stayed in a hotel (in Stockholm) I checked in online from the airport and my phone was the room key.
Auromated Bathroom? (Score:2)
How much automation and technology is there in the bathroom? It would be nice if you could set the shower temperature with the room controls. As for the toilet, for a room of the future one of the hi-tech Japanese ones would not be out of place.
As a... (Score:2)
Frequent hotel guest, I can say that my two top priorities are a toilet that will actually flush what I put in it and a shower where my ass doesn't touch the walls or curtain. I don't know who designs hotel rooms but in my experience, neither of those two items gets enough attention. I can deal with the vanity that is meant for a 7 year old but the other two things are just annoying. And forget high tech if I am going to a destination hotel like a resort. Just make it comfortable and quiet. I have no troubl