Robotic Furniture Company Collaborates with Marriott to Help Guests Live Large in Small Spaces

At CES 2022, Marriott made the announcement that it would be collaborating with a robotics company called Ori. Ori combines engineering, technology, and design expertise to create transformable furniture and provide more flexible and multi-functional spaces that are also more sustainable because they essentially create two rooms out of one. For example, imagine a bed that lifts into the ceiling to reveal a table for dinner or desk for work – all at the touch of a button, via a voice command or via a tap on one’s phone.

The two brands will be working together as part of Marriott's Design Lab to completely reimagine the guestroom space. Integrating Ori products and technology into Marriott guest rooms will allow travelers greater flexibility and adaptability and new kinds of rooms and experiences. 

In a statement provided to Hospitality Technology on their collaboration, Jeff Voris, SVP, Global Design Strategies for Marriott International said: “In today's environment, guests are increasingly seeking flexible and adaptable spaces. We are excited to work with Ori to reimagine the guest room space and further meet the needs of our guests, owners, and associates, as well as the industry-at-large.”

Ori’s Origins

While the name Ori may be mostly unfamiliar to the hospitality industry, the company has already made significant inroads within the real estate industry.

“Ori came out of research conducted at the MIT Media Lab in response to the challenges of urban density, particularly affordability and sustainability – and with the explosion of ‘work from home,’ we can also add flexibility,” explains Founder & CEO Hasier Larrea. “We are currently in 400 apartments across 30 cities in the USA with more than 2,000 new apartments featuring Ori products scheduled to come online in the next 24 months.”

While Ori may have originally been designed for the multifamily sector of the real estate industry, the company quickly realized that its products could benefit multiple industries from hospitality to student and senior housing.

How Does It Work?

So, what exactly does Ori create and how does it work? The best way to understand it is to first view it happening. Here is a video provided by the company that gives a taste of how two of its products work.

As the video shows, Ori’s Cloud Bed Table transforms a space which seems to be an office or dining area, gently lowering a bed from the ceiling to stand above a desk that lowers in tandem Another Ori product, the Pocket Closet, expands from the wall revealing a walk-in space filled with clothes and lighting. As the company says: “It’s transformable, robotic furniture.”

However, anytime you begin to add electronic components to something the inevitable question becomes: What happens when it breaks?

“We purposely created a series of products that contain modular components that can easily be replaced, if needed. Most issues with these products can actually be resolved remotely, in 15 minutes over the phone; but if a repair is necessary, a simple half-hour service call is usually all it takes,” Larrea says.

And as Ori developed its products, it knew it had to create something that would always work for the end user even if there wasn’t any electricity or internet within the guestroom/residence. While normally Ori products are operated with just the touch of a finger, natural disasters can cause power outages. So, the company made sure it was 100 percent possible to easily operate their products manually, if needed.

The rest of the time, consumers have three options to choose from to operate the Ori products: an electrical interface located on the product, Ori’s mobile app, or voice control (currently integrated with Amazon Alexa and Google Home).

“Controlling the robotics with the mobile app is where things can get really interesting,” says Larrea. “For instance, you can program the system so that every time the bed drops from the ceiling the lighting changes to a customized intensity that you prefer for bedtime.”

And for those individuals who might not always make their bed perfectly before leaving the hotel room or apartment, the app allows them to make that messy bed just disappear into the ceiling before entering the apartment with an unexpected guest.

In the near future, Ori plans to continue to integrate with other IoT devices so that its mobile app will be able to control even more features of a room than just the bed including devices that are on the periphery: thermostats, shades, etc.

“Here’s the most beautiful part,” Larrea explains. “When you wake up in the morning and press a single button telling your bed to rise to the ceiling, the shades will also rise, the thermostat will change to a different temperature, etc. This new type of IoT device empowers all of the IoT devices in the room to be smarter and more exciting as they integrate with the space transformation.”

And while Ori’s products obviously have some great guest benefits within the hospitality space, they also offer some great housekeeping benefits as well.

“One of the biggest problems in housekeeping is the wear and tear of the work on staff bodies, specifically their backs,” says Larrea. “If you can provide a way to make housekeeping jobs easier and more efficient – such as raising the height of the bed – you’re quickly realizing a significant ROI.”

Helping Hospitality with Sustainability

Improving the guest and housekeeping experience aren’t the only benefits Ori hopes to bring to the hospitality industry. Ori’s robotic solutions can also help hotel brands with sustainability goals.

“The real estate industry, including hospitality, has recognized that it is among the biggest contributors to climate change,” Larrea explained. “Forty percent of carbon emissions come from either constructing or operating a building.”

The challenges of sustainability are proportionally correlated to the amount of square footage, Larrea adds. If someone can comfortably live in half the square footage of what they’re used to, then a building only needs to be half as large and requires half the energy to maintain.

“There’s a big lie we’ve all been told: The more square footage you have, the more functionality you have,” he notes.  “It’s not about the square footage, it’s about how that space is being used. And to use smaller spaces in a smarter and more sustainable way, you need to have technologies that will profoundly change the experience of that space.”