How Smart Technology is Reinventing the Hotel Experience
As much as we all love exploring or soaking up some well-deserved sun, you’d be hard-pressed to find a vacationer who doesn’t treasure their time in the hotel just as much. A fluffy bed, cozy blankets, and great service are parts of creating an excellent guest experience.
The hotel room TV is an often overlooked device that can also help make or break the hotel stay. Everything from the content to positioning can hugely influence a guest’s perception of the hotel they’ve chosen to splurge on.
Designing the Perfect Guest Experience
The hotel room TV plays a major role in keeping the guest both entertained and informed. Many old hotels are still using cable TV systems to provide entertainment to their guests. After all, cable TV can broadcast local content, offer pay-per-view options, and display hotel information.
Today, modern hotel TVs provide much more services than just cable shows. Hotel chains that invest in online services usually maintain fleets of smart TVs that offer more than movies and TV shows.
Some establishments allow guests to use their hotel room TVs to access a complete reference guide for their in-house services and directories. This includes connecting to room service, concierge, or any other department simply by pressing buttons on the remote control.
In addition, modern hospitality TVs can also feature channels that play videos of recent hotel events or fun activities. Hotel smart TVs can also turn into ambient night lamps for guests with trouble sleeping.
Customized Content with Managed Android TVs
Their ability to deliver custom content to their guests sets modern, internet-connected smart TVs apart. Android TV-powered hotel units are primed for popular apps and video and music services. They include the likes of Netflix, Hulu, Amazon, Disney+ Spotify, Tidal, and others.
Conveniently, hotel management will allow guests to log into their private accounts to access their favorite streaming services. For customers, this ability to access and play personalized streaming content can greatly enhance the guest experience.
Logging into personal accounts allows guests to pick up where they left off in terms of TV shows or movies they saved or are currently following. This accommodation is ideal for people who cultivate their personal watchlists or monitor their content consumption data.
Hotels that fail to offer these services push their guests into a corner where they’re hunched over their smartphones trying to finish the latest season. These guests may very well catch a glimpse of the hotel TV during their ad breaks and conclude how much of a waste it is.
Streamlining Communication
The choice of Android TV as the hotel TV operating system allows guests to access their custom content. Like its namesake, older brother OS, Android TV features thousands of apps that run on mobile phones, tablets, and other smart devices. As a result, hotel TVs can now also install and run these popular apps.
Being a part of the Google family, Android TV gives hotels a lower-cost option to keep smart TVs running smoothly across their entire chain. Unlike branded TVs that use proprietary operating systems, Android TV benefits from Google’s continued tweaks to its OS. Instead of infrequent updates in-between months or years, Android TV hotel chains enjoy continuous updates and enhancements.
Creating the Wow Factor
Logging personal accounts into hotel devices might be very convenient for streaming users. However, some guests might forget to log out before checking out of the hotel. Thankfully, the right Android TV application can initiate remote logout on behalf of the customer.
Low-level Maintenance
Moreover, hotel TVs require occasional operating system updates, application installations, and bug fixes or patches—the same as our TVs at home. For chains that have hundreds or thousands of rooms, performing updates in person via the IT team can take time.
By the time an IT administrator finishes installing updates, they'll likely have another to install right after. Instead, hotel IT teams should have modern tools for Android TV devices at their disposal, such as wireless connectivity and device management.
This allows admins to perform low-level device management on demand. This means that admins can make remote updates simultaneously on multiple devices instead of doing the same manually and individually. It also means that IT teams won’t have to physically travel to each hotel location to perform routine maintenance services.
Security
In terms of security and maintenance, the right Android TV application can help ensure all devices remain accounted for. Aside from remote data wipes, admins can also remotely lock lost or stolen units to prevent access to private data.
In addition, admins can also assign access permission levels depending on their actual line of work. Admins and IT can access and modify system settings but won’t have access to guest data. Conversely, guests can launch apps and log in without being able to modify settings or delete apps.
Upgrading the entire hotel chain’s fleet of TVs into smart TVs is no doubt a hefty investment. It only makes sense that management would protect these investments with the right device management software.
With the right Android TV support software, your IT support team can update the entire fleet of devices remotely and easily. Your team can also successfully manage, maintain, and secure each device. Guests won’t have to worry about their personal streaming accounts falling into the hands of strangers even if they forget to log out. Protected guests are happy guests, and happy guests are the epicenter of a successful hospitality business.
About the Author
Nadav Avni is CMO at Radix Technologies
