3 ms·

Regarding room service, I wonder if room service wouldn't be better served by some kind of dumbwaiter system powered by a Willy Wonka-style elevator. A kitchen

Regarding room service, I wonder if room service wouldn't be better served by some kind of dumbwaiter system powered by a Willy Wonka-style elevator. A kitchen prepares food, puts it in the dumbwaiter-sized standardized container (like a shipping container), puts the container into a delivery system (with the destination room button-pressed in) where it is magnetically propelled within the walls to it's destination, where it is retrieved by opening a shutter in the wall. It doesn't have to just be room service, I could see it as part of a modern apartment building as well for deliveries. I imagine that the main barriers are maintenance - opening up the walls in case of blockages etc. But maybe the correct design could account for that somehow.

Cthulhu_ 7y ago
A food elevator in every room would already go a long way; you'd have to include something like an airlock though to avoid abuse / accidents (e.g. people climbing into them). For smaller and sturdier items the old pneumatic air tube system or a variation thereof could work.
ghaff 7y ago
Room service falls pretty squarely into the category of things hotels can (and many do) simply drop if they want to simplify. I travel a lot and I don't think I've gotten room service in at least a couple of decades. A lot of the robotic stuff is mostly silly in any case. I sometimes stay at the Yotel in NYC which has a robot gadget to store luggage. It's amusing theater but usually you just give your luggage to a person because the robot is so slow (and space inefficient so it runs out of lockers).
bluGill 7y ago
The problem is space. To put your elevator in the wall you need the wider wall -- less space for guests when the elevator isn't in use. You probably also need something between the floor joists which may or may not be empty of beams. Noise of the mechanism is also concerning, and safety (see other reply) are also issues. The loss of floor space is the big one.
empath75 7y ago
It’d be fine in a bed and breakfast but seems like it wouldn’t scale.
ThinkBeat 7y ago
Wel the main business of a hotel is to store as many people as possible in a limited amount of real estate, setting aside space for such infrastructure would cost several rooms. It is also a feature that only some guest use at all and use is very limited. If every guest used it several times it a day it would make sense.
- clairity 7y ago
  if that were the case, all hotels would have evolved to be capsule hotels. certainly hoteliers know their business better than that, and don't simply maximize for space. a hotel's biggest challenge (after financing) is occupancy, which is a 4P's marketing problem[0]. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marketing_mix https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marketing_mix

Cthulhu_ 7y ago

A food elevator in every room would already go a long way; you'd have to include something like an airlock though to avoid abuse / accidents (e.g. people climbing into them). For smaller and sturdier items the old pneumatic air tube system or a variation thereof could work.

ghaff 7y ago

Room service falls pretty squarely into the category of things hotels can (and many do) simply drop if they want to simplify. I travel a lot and I don't think I've gotten room service in at least a couple of decades. A lot of the robotic stuff is mostly silly in any case. I sometimes stay at the Yotel in NYC which has a robot gadget to store luggage. It's amusing theater but usually you just give your luggage to a person because the robot is so slow (and space inefficient so it runs out of lockers).

bluGill 7y ago

The problem is space. To put your elevator in the wall you need the wider wall -- less space for guests when the elevator isn't in use. You probably also need something between the floor joists which may or may not be empty of beams. Noise of the mechanism is also concerning, and safety (see other reply) are also issues. The loss of floor space is the big one.

empath75 7y ago

It’d be fine in a bed and breakfast but seems like it wouldn’t scale.

ThinkBeat 7y ago

Wel the main business of a hotel is to store as many people as possible in a limited amount of real estate, setting aside space for such infrastructure would cost several rooms. It is also a feature that only some guest use at all and use is very limited. If every guest used it several times it a day it would make sense.

clairity 7y ago
if that were the case, all hotels would have evolved to be capsule hotels. certainly hoteliers know their business better than that, and don't simply maximize for space. a hotel's biggest challenge (after financing) is occupancy, which is a 4P's marketing problem[0]. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marketing_mix https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marketing_mix