With a logo depicting man’s best friend, Josh.ai is helping to make the hotel room that can be a human’s best friend. Teaming up with IHG Hotels & Resorts, Joshi.ai has helped to create the hotel room of the future, by turning it into a voice-controlled smart room.

Situated at the Kimpton Rowan hotel in Palm Springs, California, the first-of-its-kind hotel room has been thoughtfully deign by the two brands to promote well-being and performance, with a design aesthetic befitting IHG’s Luxury & Lifestyle collection.

“We are constantly exploring next-generation technology to give guests epic experiences as they return to our hotels,” said Brian McGuinness, SVP, Global Guest Experience Shared Services, IHG Hotels & Resorts. “Josh.ai has never been used in a hotel room before and we look forward to discovering how AI can be more widely adopted by our properties around the world. We take great pride in pushing ourselves when it comes to digital innovation in hospitality.”

Inside the Hotel Room of the Future

Upon entering, guests are immediately treated to an expansive, brightly lit space, made possible through ample window space, and a glass-clad bathroom. Usually sectioned off from the rest of the room, the generous use of glass walls allows the space to breathe, a discreet system of Lutron shades providing privacy when needed.

“At Josh.ai we are hyper focused on delivering experiences that are simple, privacy-focused, and magical,” said Alex Capecelatro, CEO of Josh.ai. “Our partnership with IHG couldn’t be a better fit as we endeavor together to transform the hospitality experience with natural voice control of lighting, shades, music, TV, and more! For example, guests can give a command like, ‘set the lights to warm white, listen to Hotel California, watch the Golf Channel, and when is happy hour?’ and Josh.ai will handle the rest.”

It’s actually quite impressive how seamlessly the technology blends into the space when not in use. At first glance, one might even mistake the Samsung television on the wall as a landscape painting as it hovers above the soundbar that looks equally decorative as well. Meanwhile, the discreet Josh Micro, taking up no more space than a thermostat on the wall, provides complete control of the entire space.

This, of course, allows the beauty of IHG’s design to come through. Neutral tones pave the way for splashes of blue that provide wonderful accents for the seaside-like sanctuary. Cool, white marble tables in turn provide a nice contrast to the warm, wooden textures that line the floor and make up most of the room’s furniture. And of course, the beautiful bounties of natural light, with support from Ketra where needed, uplift the spirit instantly.

So What Makes It So Smart?

The “hotel room of the future” explores the potential for guest interaction with their environment at a time when people are spending more time within hotel rooms during travel. It blurs the line between hotel and home by employing connected devices inspired from luxury smart homes across the globe, including:

• Josh Micro expands its capabilities beyond convenient and secure automation of the room, introducing built-in hotel concierge responses that keep guests in the know of everything on offer during their stay.
• Ketra Lighting, by Lutron, also makes its hotel room debut. Ketra promotes well-being through tunable lighting that transitions with the natural rhythms of daylight, while also allowing guests to set the mood with color temperature, vibrancy and saturation control.
• Lutron Shades strike a perfect balance between a well-lit and private bathroom.
• Sonos Speakers with an Arc soundbar tune every stay to the right beat with access to any genre and immersive, impeccable surround sound.
• Samsung’s Frame TV transforms from an art piece to a high performance 4K QLED display when guests are ready to watch their favorite content.
• DISH TV offers guests a fully integrated live entertainment experience with the power of voice or tactile control.
• Roku provides access to popular streaming platforms like Netflix, Hulu, and more so that guests can enjoy the comforts of home by binge watching a show or turning on a movie.
• IPORT is powering Josh.ai’s manual room control with its sophisticated iPad mounting solution sporting the user-friendly Josh app, allowing guests to tune into their ideal specifications.

And all of it can also be controlled through voice commands using Josh.ai’s purpose-built natural language processing. This allows Josh.ai to understand multiple requests in one command, search for specific music and video content through deep-linking and leverage location and contextual awareness.

Tours Available Now

Curious to see it firsthand? A digital tour is available for all to view for a better look, so go visit it when the chance presents itself, and see what Josh.ai and IHG Hotels & Resorts have put together.

Ketra’s color tuning capabilities are on full display as the Samsung display takes the form of a digital frame while not in use.