High Tech Minibar

from the be-careful-what-you-take dept

Trying to scam that hotel minibar out of its $5 bottle of water? Be careful. New highly automated minibars may catch you. Apparently, this is the next big thing in minibars, and it's saving hotels lots of money (which maybe they'll pass on by lowering the minibar prices to something this side of the sanity level). The article also talks about other technologies that will allow hotel employees to know whether or not a room is occupied before entering. Who knew the hotel business was so full of high tech gadgetry?
Hide this

Thank you for reading this Techdirt post. With so many things competing for everyone’s attention these days, we really appreciate you giving us your time. We work hard every day to put quality content out there for our community.

Techdirt is one of the few remaining truly independent media outlets. We do not have a giant corporation behind us, and we rely heavily on our community to support us, in an age when advertisers are increasingly uninterested in sponsoring small, independent sites — especially a site like ours that is unwilling to pull punches in its reporting and analysis.

While other websites have resorted to paywalls, registration requirements, and increasingly annoying/intrusive advertising, we have always kept Techdirt open and available to anyone. But in order to continue doing so, we need your support. We offer a variety of ways for our readers to support us, from direct donations to special subscriptions and cool merchandise — and every little bit helps. Thank you.

–The Techdirt Team


Reader Comments

Subscribe: RSS

View by: Time | Thread


  • identicon
    Ryan, 21 Nov 2000 @ 12:56pm

    Old fashioned?

    Maybe I'm just old-fashioned, but:

    Coming up are fridges that go beyond proffering food and drink and billing electronically: They allow you to store valuables, control room temperature and more.

    isn't that what thermostats and safes are for? Yeah, I know it explains a bit more later in the article, but I can think of two situations where I wouldn't want this:

    1. I get up in the middle of the night, want a drink, and can't remember the combination to my fridge
    2. A crook breaks into my fridge, steals my valuables, takes all the food, sets my room temperature to 95°F, and orders a huge cash advance on my credit card, which is delivered to him/her in minutes.

    Hey, it could happen. I also disagree that personality has more to do with snacking from minibars than income. No matter how much money I had, I wouldn't pay $4 for a can of Coke. While I do think that snackers will want their snacks and will buy them at any price if desperate, if you listen to the jokes, they centralize on the price of minibars - people are just so used to exhorbitant prices that most buy/bring their own or don't bother.

    link to this | view in chronology ]


Follow Techdirt
Essential Reading
Techdirt Deals
Report this ad  |  Hide Techdirt ads
Techdirt Insider Discord

The latest chatter on the Techdirt Insider Discord channel...

Loading...
Recent Stories

This site, like most other sites on the web, uses cookies. For more information, see our privacy policy. Got it
Close

Email This

This feature is only available to registered users. Register or sign in to use it.