The Best Western Hotel Tomo, San Francisco
Hotels are increasingly becoming high-tech. And with good reason: People want their 24/7 connectivity and other techie requirements even when they're away from home. So hotels that want to become (or stay) successful are making sure they offer amenities like wireless or even the latest video games. That's where our nine Techie Hotels come in. These hotels have found a way to go above and beyond standard hotel niceties. Some offer both luxurious surroundings and futuristic tech conveniences, some have found a way to offer tech amenities at a reasonable rate, and some are using technology to bring people together.
Modular High-Tech
High-tech in both construction and amenities, the CitizenM hotel's founding philosophy is "Affordable Luxury for the People." (Rooms start at US$100.) Located in Amsterdam at the Schiphol Airport, the hotel is constructed of pre-fabricated rooms that were built and assembled offsite. HotelM offers amenities like self check-in, the ability to store personal room preferences on an RFID keycard and free wireless. Rooms also feature a "MoodPad," which guests can use to control shades, temperature, and the flat-screen entertainment center. It also controls the ambient lighting to create atmospheres from "romance" to "relax."
Luxury in the Meatpacking District
Located in the ultra-hip Meatpacking District in New York City, rooms at the Hotel Gansevoort (which start around US$500) offer free wi-fi, 42 inch LCD TVs, CD players and alarm clocks with iPod docking stations. They also offer in-room safes for your laptops or purchases at the area's many designer boutiques. Of course, the Meatpacking District is also home to trendy restaurants galore, and guests can choose to work off those meals the high-tech way: By requesting a Wii console delivered to their room and working up a sweat playing one of the sports games. Tennis anyone?
Motion Detection at Your Service
Seattle's Hotel 1000 offers high-tech amenities like video phones that allow guests to see when the valet delivers their car to the hotel entrance. Rooms, which start at about US$300 a night, boast digital thermometers that use infrared signals to scan the room for motion and activate the desired temperature if a guest is detected. Infrared signals in the room are also used to let staff know when the room is occupied. All key systems in the hotel rooms are connected to the IP converged network, allowing information exchange via HTNG-based XML interfaces.
A Room That'll Talk to You
The ARIA Resort and Casino will open in late 2009 on the Las Vegas Strip. The high-tech hotel will feature rooms that "greet" guests as they enter (noting if it's their first time), turn on the lights automatically, and part the curtains to showcase the room's city or mountain view. Guests have access to integrated one-touch control of guestroom features, including lighting, room temperature, television/video systems, music, wake-up calls, draperies and requests for services through a single, easy-to-use remote control (controls will also be available from a nightstand touch screen). And all settings will be remembered and incorporated every time a guest returns to the room.
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