[jzwinck]

Not about smoking but I recently stayed at a W hotel and was woken in the middle of the night by the room lights turning on. They used electronic push buttons and I turned them off. Seconds later they turned on again. This repeated several times until I was fully awake and called the front desk.

"We can come put tape on the sensors."

"What sensors?"

"There are sensors under the bed."

"Oh, so you already know about this problem but haven't fixed it. Thanks, please don't send anyone."

I then looked under the bed and sure enough there was a motion detector on each side. I removed these from their brackets and let them dangle facing the floor instead of outward. This blinded them and solved the problem. I guess they were malfunctioning or they were able to detect motion above the bed via reflections.

The next day I reported this to the front desk, who were unsympathetic and unhelpful. They told me it was for my own safety. Apparently at other hotels I have just been incredibly lucky not to have fallen down when getting out of bed.

I will not stay at a W hotel again unless I can confirm in advance that they do not have motion detectors under the bed which spuriously turn the lights on at night. Maybe I'll add Hyatt to the no-go list.

[tehwebguy]

Stayed at a Hilton owned property recently and the fan / light used a wireless controller and someone else’s room was controlling mine!

[netsharc]

All these gadgetry.. seems like we'll need to bring an EMP blaster to hotels to "sanitize" the room..

[quickthrowman]

Why the hell would they put occupancy sensors below the bed that trigger the overhead lights, that’s an absurd solution to people tripping and falling at night, provide a nightlight that costs $2 instead of (2) $100 occ sensor/relays.

Possibly the issue was they used PIR/ultrasonic (aka dual-tech) sensors and the ultrasonic one was picking up vibrations, I’ve seen that happen in tenant spaces before and turning down the ultrasonic sensitivity fixed it.

I run electrical work and if I was asked to install these, I would’ve written a sarcastic RFI to make sure the customer actually wanted to do something this stupid and expensive vs a $2 nightlight in a receptacle.

[Marsymars]

I don’t know about $2, but for $35 you can get some nice motion-sensing nightlights, e.g. https://casper.com/products/glow-nightlight

[spauldo]

Perhaps no one asked them to make a little birdhouse in their soul.

[card_zero]

Strange choice, fitting rooms with a novel device to annoy guests. Do you suppose it's because somebody fell out of bed and sued? And then maybe some other people thought that was a good idea, and they fell out of bed too, and now the hotels have to have the annoying thing.

[jzwinck]

I find it somewhat unlikely, as this particular W hotel was not in a country known for personal injury lawsuits.

More likely it was sold to them by some interior design firm as a luxury feature. Unfortunately it's only helpful if you're alone--even if it worked correctly you wouldn't want the room lights turning on just because your spouse got up.

[dreamcompiler]

Stayed at a Marriott property in Germany that had these. Got up in the middle of the night to pee and the automatic lights woke up my partner.

I carry black electrical tape whenever I travel. It's marvelous for disabling sensors and covering up too-bright LEDs that light up the room all night.

[Marsymars]

Do you take the tape off when you leave?

[SilasX]

Oh wow I ran into problems with those too. When I brought my cats to a Hilton, they would get the zoomies and run around at random in the middle of the night, which would make the lights turn on. I think I found some way to block the sensor.

[spauldo]

I'm staying at a Candlewood in southern California and they've got motion sensing light switches for everything. They mostly go to plugs, though, and whoever stayed in the room before me unplugged all the lights. I left 'em that way. The bathroom light came on automatically blinded me three times a night when I'd get up to pee until I got in the habit of reaching in and hitting the button before stepping into the bathroom.

Automatic lights in private spaces are just a hassle.

[em-bee]

there was a monster under your bed...