"Hey Siri, lights out": Aloft Hotels' new voice-activated rooms

Fancy turning a hotel’s room lights on before stepping out of bed, adjusting the air conditioner to the perfect temperature or even setting the right mood for an evening of movie-watching by speaking to your room rather than pressing buttons?

Then meet Aloft Hotels’ new voice-activated hotel rooms, where guests are issued with an iPad running a custom Aloft app to control the room and which is programmed to respond to “Hey Siri” requests.

For example, you could say “Hey Siri, cool the room to 72 degrees” to adjust the air conditioner (remembering that the USA uses Fahrenheit, with 72°F on-par with 22°C), or “Hey Siri, set the lighting to ‘Re:lax’”, one of the hotel’s pre-sets for evening ambience.

Also on that list: ‘Re:view’ for a movie theatre atmosphere, ‘Re:vive’ for bright mornings and ‘Re:set’ to return to standard lighting.

You can also access your iTunes account and purchased music library via the tablet, so if you’re singing in the shower and want a new track, just ask Siri – and when you check-out, all personal preferences and account details are automatically wiped.

Designed as part of the chain’s previously top secret ‘Project Jetson’ experiment, you’ll find these rooms at Aloft Boston Seaport and Aloft Santa Clara in the USA, although there’s no word whether the tech will follow to other Aloft hotels around the globe.

Also read: Starwood brings new Aloft hotel to Melbourne

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Chris C.

Chris is a a former contributor to Executive Traveller.