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A Night in the Hotel of the Future
Roland Piquepaille writes "Michael S. Lasky was lucky enough to test the amenities of the "Room of the Future", Room 267 of the Hilton Garden Inn in El Segundo, California. Among other things, the room provides a wall-mounted, 42-inch flat-screen HDTV Panasonic plasma television, a biometric room safe, free broadband, accessible via laptop or the TV, or a Panasonic massage chair. Needless to say, Lasky didn't have enough time to test everything during his one-night stay, but was quite pleased. Check this column for a summary and a picture of the "Room of the Future.""
I found this to be most interesting:
a compressor-less mini-refrigerator that is completely silent
I want more and more quiet appliances, including computers. Everything is so freakin' noisy now! I wish more industrial design took this into account. Yay future!
I hate to say it, but I'm a little tired of things that pawn themselves off as "of the future," when they're just showcases for the most expensive, newest stuff that's already floating around.
Maybe it's because the real "hotels of the future" won't be any more exciting than they are now. If they're motels, they'll be cheap - if they're five star hotels, they'll simply emulate what's in the best houses, plus a feature or two (whooo, biometric safe).
What's so futuristic about a room that uses technology available for the household for at least 10 years (broadband not withstanding). OK the tv is plasma, but it's still just a big tv. Anybody could offer a room like this if they could get away with charging the extra amount it would cost to pay for it.
Now when you can get a room like this at Motel6 for $39.95 at night, then wake me up.
Well, this is true for tourists like you and me, but I'm quite sure that business travelers don't spend their entire nights outside... They probably want to relax in their room after spending ours in endless meetings, and an addition of a massage chair and a 42" plasma TV probably is a nice bonus.
Be an elitist - read Slashdot at +4.
Hear hear. I've been on both sides of the coin -- travelling as a tourist, I spend as little time as possible in the hotel room. But, having done the consultant thing, including a stretch of 100% travel (get up Monday morning, kiss wife goodbye, come back Friday night, kiss wife hello, enjoy weekend, lather, rinse, repeat ad nauseam), a comfortable hotel room with pleasant amenities makes a huge amount of difference. It's especially welcomed when you're stuck in your hotel room doing business in the evening and you can take a decent quick shower to refresh yourself, or finish off a 16 hour day by raiding the mini-bar and watching television.
More importantly, such amenities will put one in a better frame of mind and result in a more relaxing time, giving added benefit to the client (a happy consultant is a more productive consultant) and the spouse when you get home. For professional and personal reasons in such a scenario, this could only be a leg up in the business traveller's world.
One of the most popular features is very simple - two hooks on the inside of the bathroom door.
Hilton is doing this because they made an expensive mistake. They tried a smart card system in New York, using the same card to unlock rooms, pay for meals, and make phone calls. People hated it. So now they use their rather boring location in El Segundo (next to LAX) to debug.
Hotels have a terrible problem with guest-visible technology - all their users are new. They don't want to hand a manual to each guest, or get calls for tech support. So it has to be subtle. This is good; too many products come with far too many controls for things the system should be managing itself. It's a nice design exercise to design technology for hotels.