Setting the temperature of your hotel room has become a cat and mouse game between guests and the hotel management. People just want to set their rooms to a comfortable temperature for when they’re sleeping and hotels want to minimize the amount of money they spend on keeping those rooms cool.
Hotels are constantly updating technology to keep rooms at the temperature THEY want by installing smart thermostats, sold by companies who advertise that this is actually good for the guests’ comfort.
Of course, there are ways for guests to override the temperature settings on some of these thermostats and we’ve shared information on:
- How To Override Hotel Thermostat Settings
- Alternate Ways To Cool or Heat Your Room When Regular Hotel Thermostat Hacks Don’t Work
- Funny Story: Sometimes It Doesn’t Take A Rocket Scientist Hack A Hotel Air Conditioner Thermostat
However, hotels have found a new way to keep from being able to hack the temperature settings in the room.
Just put the thermostat in a place where most people can’t reach it.
I included the top of the chair in the photo for scale but the bottom of the thermostat is about 6 feet off the ground and the display and controls an inch or two above that. I’m just about six feet tall and I had to look up to see what temperature it was set for.
I think a “typical” short person would have difficulties with that thermostat but can you imagine what someone like Sharon, who’s 4’6″ tall, sees when she’s looking at that? Never mind trying to reach it.
You can’t hack the thermostat when you can’t reach it or see what the temperature it’s set for. Sure, she could pull the chair over and stand on it but is that really a good hotel room design unless you didn’t want people to mess with the thermostat.
Until we come to an agreement on the best way to set the temperature of a hotel room, the struggle continues.
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3 comments
Sharon can stand on that very chair.
Waiting for hotels take a cue from those fake electrical outlet stickers in airports and just put fake thermostat stickers up high near the ceiling of all the rooms…
That’s a bit of hype but seriously the biggest issue with hotel thermostats isn’t that the hotel can control them. Most come on a bit after you enter the room and eventually heat or cool the room to your comfort. The problem is that the software controlling the thermostats at the local hotel often don’t work right or are not programed correctly to override the motion sensing at night when you are asleep. That is why you wake up in a sweat at 1am and walk around the room playing with the thermostat to have it come on and then go back to sleep to wake up again in a couple hours with the same issue. They are supposed to have a “night” feature set so it doesn’t go off with no motion when you are in bed. This isn’t universal but one of the biggest problems with these.