Smart home technology exists not just in the residential space, but also in hotel rooms. Hotel chain Hilton has announced a plan to roll out mobile-connected rooms in 2018, allowing users to access smart home features via the Hilton Honors app.
Smart home technology exists not just in the residential space, but also in hotel rooms. Hotel chain Hilton has announced a plan to roll out mobile-connected rooms in 2018, allowing users to access smart home features via the Hilton Honors app.
Guests will be able to control the temperature in the room, adjust lighting and stream media contents on TV. The “scenes” feature will allow guests to bring their favorite room setting to every Hilton rooms.
In the long term, Hilton expects these rooms to be responsive to voice commands, and to support Google Assistant or Amazon Alexa. However, the hotel chain didn’t reveal further details on which voice platform it plans to adopt.
The connected room concept is now being testing in one of Hilton’s hotels. The concept will be expanded to more properties and the full roll-out is expected to come in 2018.
Hilton Honors loyalty program members can already use an app to check in their room, unlock the door and exit. Features of connected room will be built upon this app via updates.
“The technology we put in hotel rooms has to be intuitive, simple and quick to pick up because guests typically spend a limited amount of time in their rooms and we want them to spend that time enjoying the experience instead of adapting to new technology,” said Joshua Sloser, senior vice president of Digital Product at Hilton.
Smart home technologies are already preset in other hotel rooms. Some hotels have allowed guests to watch their own Netflix and Chromecast during the stay. Smart speaker Amazon Echo has found a new home in every room in Wynn’s Las Vegas hotel.