Hilton Debuts High-Tech Room
Hilton Hotels has revealed its Connected Room, a first-of-its-kind, high-tech guest room that allows guests to personalize and control every aspect of their stay from their mobile device. Currently in beta testing, the Connected Room is live in one hotel, will deploy in coming weeks in several more, and will begin implementations in a variety of hotels across the United States in 2018.
The Connected Room Experience
Guests who stay at Connected Room-enabled properties will soon be able to use the Hilton Honors app to manage most things they would traditionally do manually in a room, from controlling the temperature and lighting to the TV and window coverings. Guests will also be able to personalize their room with technology that loads the most popular streaming media and other accounts to in-room televisions.
In the long term, Connected Room will support a range of connected devices, engagements and experiences. Guests will be able to use voice commands to control their room or access their content, and to upload their own artwork and photos to automatically display in their room. Guests will also be able to set various preferences in their Hilton Honors account profile to further customize their in-room experience to their individual preferences.
“Innovation has been in Hilton’s DNA since entrepreneur Conrad Hilton purchased the first Hilton property and pioneered the hospitality industry nearly 100 years ago,” says Christopher J. Nassetta, president and CEO, Hilton. “Many innovations later, we are once again setting a new standard for the industry by giving our guests a travel experience where the room knows them, and they know their room.”
A First-of-its-Kind Technology
With Connected Room’s introduction, Hilton is delivering the industry’s first truly mobile-centric hotel room, building on the success of the award-wining Hilton Honors app. Hilton Honors members are already using the app to check-in, select their room, and open their room’s door with Digital Key.
Designed and built by Hilton from the ground up, Connected Room is a natural extension of the Hilton Honors app’s existing capabilities. Its creation was rooted in the unique needs of guests, who have voiced an increasing desire to personalize their stays. The beta version of Connected Room uses a physical remote control to manage the experience, with the goal of supplementing it and all traditional remote controls with the Hilton Honors app before deployment at hotels across the portfolio. Hilton is working with popular streaming media providers to enable guests to seamlessly access their favorite programs in Connected Room hotels.
“At Hilton, almost all digital products are born out of necessity and shortcomings in the marketplace – and Connected Room is no exception”, says Joshua Sloser, Senior Vice President of Digital Product, Hilton. “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.”