This work presents an innovative application of ambient technology in the domain of tourism and leisure that aims to improve the quality of services offered by the hospitality industry.
The Intelligent Hotel Room provides a ubiquitous attentive environment that constantly monitors the activity and location of people and objects within it, and uses this information to control technology in anticipation of the guests needs. To this end, various technological devices and software agents are incorporated in the physical environment to form an ambient ecosystem, that observes its surroundings and adapts its behavior in real-time to deliver “intelligent” and personalized services to its guests.
Intelligent Devices
Various smart devices integrated in the environment ease interaction with the room facilities and the request of the available hotel services. A “Universal Remote” can control every electronic appliance in the Intelligent Hotel Room (e.g., lights, blinds, etc.)
using a limited amount of input buttons to reduce complexity.
An intelligent laundry hanger automatically requests the laundry service when a laundry bag is detected, while an intelligent touch panel mounted next to the room’s entrance knob lets the guests easily request for the cleaning service before leaving their
room by touching the respective area.
A technologically-enhanced room label, namely DoorMate, is placed next to a room’s door and has a twofold role: on the one hand it presents the current state of a room (e.g., occupied, Do-not-Disturb, etc.) and the pending room service requests, and
on the other hand it controls room access.
As an alternative to the aforementioned ambient controls, guests can use the Portable Room Controller application to manipulate and configure room facilities and services through intuitive touch-based graphical user interfaces
Room Butler
It is a 3D character, deployed on a TV, who welcomes the guest upon arrival and provides a mini tutorial about the features of the room.
Hotel Explorer
It is an in-house navigator that localizes the user through 2D Barcodes (QR Codes) and calculates the shortest path between two given locations.
Reception Application
The receptionist can manage the hotel’s clientele, and monitor at real-time the status of the entire hotel and the progress of the various room service requests.
