Your Tech-Savvy Hotel Room Is Not Just A Peaceful Sanctuary

It is also a space that boasts increasing degrees of applied technology for a greater amount of personalisation and in-room entertainment.

- Suman Tarafdar

Hotel stays are increasingly becoming a way for me to upgrade my tech skills and understand how technology is transforming the world. No, I do not jest.

A recent stay at an opulent heritage hotel was an instructive one—the suite was redolent in luxuries, some classical and some that were, well, more in the Inception vs Minority Report league. The giant living room mirror doubled up as a television. The bedside table wirelessly charged the smartphone. The WC had nine settings for comfort. The tablet was a super helpful butler, once you figured out its quirks. Mood lighting enhanced the relaxation process. And this one almost made me call for help—the coffee maker offered dulcet voiced suggestions, based on my past preferences in different hotels across continents.

Welcome to the era of connected rooms. Unless you are a boilerplate millennial or Gen Z-er, the pace of change in tech all around you must have left you a little breathless already. Maybe even yearning for the good old days of instructing a hotel staff to, well, do every little thing that you desire. Requests for room service, wake-up call, laundry and everything else that once led to human interaction.

Well, you may still get that bit of human interaction, but only when you indulge in ‘calling-a-helpline’, as ‘console control’ is increasingly taking over modern hotel rooms. Around the world, guests are able to directly access their room using their smartphone, which also allows them to manage their in-room services, view any upgrades or special offers, and even have a virtual look at the entire property before they check-in. Queuing up to check-in or making a call to order-in only reveal that you are not ‘with it’ as far as technology is concerned.