Hilton and Other Hotel Brands Extend the Smart Home into the Hotel

Global hotel and hospitality giant, Hilton, says it will roll out smart home capabilities across its U.S. hotels next year. The rollout will follow current beta testing of its Connected Room technology in a single U.S. Hilton hotel. Hilton has 5,100 properties worldwide and, as other hotel giants increasingly looking to smart home technology adoption, we could be at the start of a broad revolution in hospitality. Hilton’s plans are of note because its technology extends control of room temperature, lighting systems, screens and appliances to a Hilton app on the guest’s own mobile device.

According to Hilton, users will not only be able to control multiple devices in their rooms, but also personalize their room with the most ability to stream content from guest devices and other accounts to in-room TVs. Furthermore, guests will able to use voice commands to control their room or access their content. They will also be able to upload their own artwork and photos to displays in their room.

The Connected Room system will also give guests the option to sync room air conditioning with their schedule and allow hotel operators to monitor how their hotels are managing energy in real time to ensure they are effectively reducing environmental impact. Hilton itself will also benefit from Connected Room since the platform will provide them with better insight into guest preferences

At the heart of the connected room strategy is Hilton’s Honors app, which is also central to the company’s customer membership and rewards program. Hilton Honors members are already able to use the app to check-in, select their room, and open their hotel room's door with Digital Key which uses Bluetooth in the user’s device and the room door lock [The Hilton Digital Hotel Key Experience]. According to the company, The Hilton Honors Digital Key has seen wide acceptance with the app for 34 million digital check-ins, four million room key downloads and more than 18.7 million doors opened. In the month of October, a door was unlocked with a Digital Key every 1.5 seconds.

Hilton is not alone in looking to push smart home functionality into its guest rooms. Earlier this year Marriott, the world’s biggest lodging company, announced ongoing trials of Alexa and Siri voice control devices at one its Aloft hotels in Boston. The smart home voice control front ends were deployed to allow guests control room temperature, lights, change television channels as well as gain tourist information. Elsewhere, Wynn Las Vegas, the Washington Four Seasons, and British hotel chain Village Hotels have all deployed Amazon Echo throughout 2017, although these all lack integration with the in-room devices to allow voice control of the environment. In addition, private rentals are also moving toward smart home technology adoption. Last January, managed smart home service provider Vivint, announced it had teamed up with Airbnb to deliver its smart home offerings to Airbnb hosts and for control through Airbnb accounts.

The deployment of smart home technology in hotel guest rooms is not new, traditional players including Crestron and Control4 have long offered their equipment to the hospitality sector with Control4 embedded in the Aria resort in Las Vegas in guest rooms for a range of in room features such as lighting temperature and audio-visual entertainment systems.

Even so, Hilton’s plans present a significant shift in smart technology in hotel rooms, both in terms of potential adoption but also in the approach to the technology. Putting the guest’s mobile device at the heart of controlling the guest room, although details remain vague, does require leveraging standardized connectivity embedded in those devices. Whether that is extended to ensuring Wi-Fi and Bluetooth connectivity in all related devices in the room or by deploying a bridge in each room to link differing protocols together remains to be seen. ABI Research’s report Smart Home and Mobile Device Integration outlines the growing integration between mobile operating systems and smart home system management and Hilton’s approach extends that role further into the realm of the hospitality management.

Perhaps most telling about Hilton’s plans, is that it is confident that the level of technical awareness and capability regarding smart home devices is high enough within its membership and the wider population in general, that it can deploy such systems and not fear a wave of guest support inquiries and subsequent overhead. It is another sign of the progress that smart home technology has made in the past years.