Google Nest looking to bring a smart display to your hotel room

Last year Google introduced Interpreter Mode for smart displays in hotel lobbies. Unfortunately since then the world has taken a turn for the worse and as Australians it may be a while before we can use that. Google though are looking to expand their Nest hotel offerings though and are now looking to implement Nest smart displays into hotel rooms.

Google have today introduced a new hospitality solution where they are partnering with hotels to bring Nest Hub smart displays to each and every hotel room. First off, you will not need to sign into the Nest Hub to get the answers you need (assuming you do not want personalised calendar answers etc).

The Nest Hub displays can be tailored by the hotel to their business and provide hands free experiences to guests. In a day and age of hand hygiene and touching as few things as possible it sounds like a perfect solution. Hotels will be able to customise the Hub to give answers to questions such as:

“Hey Google, ask my hotel for extra towels”, “Hey Google, what time does the pool close?” “Hey Google, tell me about the specials”

Some hotels are even allowing guests to start a fast check out using the Google Assistant on the Nest Hub display in their rooms — social distancing at its finest. The smart displays can also offer mid-stay surveys so they can be notified if anything is wrong.

The Nest Hub displays will also of course offer in-room entertainment through all the usual means and some hotels will also be able to tailor the room experiences and smart control (eg. blinds, lights etc) to be able to be controlled from the smart display.

The Nest Hub smart display can also be used to provide answers about local sites and attractions for guests. In some areas you can also use the local Google Assistant to make restaurant reservations etc.

The Nest Hub smart display of course does not have a camera built in and for added privacy there is of course the physical mic switch to allow you protect what privacy you have left.

Without signing in of course none of the searches or activity will be saved to your account and the activities you use on it will be wiped from the device “when it’s reset for the next guest”. It is unclear whether this is somehow automatic but you would hope it would be given humans make mistakes and someone could easily forget to reset a device in busy periods.

At this stage the new program is only available in select hotels in the US along with a chain in the UK. Additional hotel partnerships are coming soon but I wouldn’t hold your breath for it to arrive here in Australia any time soon but we can only hope that it arrives sometime given that it may be a while before we are able to travel overseas.