Hotel Butlers in 2021

Video Game Discussions and general topics.

Moderators: AArdvark, Ice Cream Jonsey

User avatar
Flack
Posts: 8822
Joined: Tue Nov 18, 2008 3:02 pm
Location: Oklahoma
Contact:

Hotel Butlers in 2021

Post by Flack »

My wife is currently staying in a Marriott hotel just outside of Beverly Hills. Today she needed some additional towels and after she called the front desk she was told "Beverly" would bring them right up.

A few minutes later there was a knock at the door. When my wife opened the door she discovered that "Beverly" was a robot. It beeps and whirrs like R2-D2, and is shaped like a three-foot-tall trash can. After my wife opened her door, the top of the robot's head (a hollow storage unit) unlocked and opened, revealing the towels. Later when she was retelling me the story, she ordered a candy bar from the lobby and Beverly brought that up, too.

From what I've read, it looks like these robots are being heavily used in hotels in and around the LA area. They were first released in 2016 and didn't get much use until COVID arrived. They are autonomous (no one's manually driving them) and they have sensors on the the front that allow them to avoid hitting people. They can control the elevator and access the phone system.

Here's someone else's video I found on YouTube of an identical robot.

"I failed a savings throw and now I am back."

User avatar
Ice Cream Jonsey
Posts: 28877
Joined: Sat Apr 27, 2002 2:44 pm
Location: Colorado
Contact:

Re: Hotel Butlers in 2021

Post by Ice Cream Jonsey »

This is incredible. We are truly living in the goddamn future. If I had kids I would tell them to get into robotics and software automation. I don't have kids, so let me talk to all of yours. Get them on the show immediately. Tell them to follow my dreams.

Also, I love that the robot butler fucks off when you have your stuff.
the dark and gritty...Ice Cream Jonsey!

Casual Observer
Posts: 3266
Joined: Wed Oct 01, 2003 10:23 pm
Location: Everett, WA, 2 blocks from where the Green River Killer picked them up

Re: Hotel Butlers in 2021

Post by Casual Observer »

I love no tip required and i dont have to get dressed or even feel bad about what an absolute pig I've been in their room. If we could have this for restaurant waiters then this would be some kind of heaven (if i ever eat out again, I mean)

User avatar
Flack
Posts: 8822
Joined: Tue Nov 18, 2008 3:02 pm
Location: Oklahoma
Contact:

Re: Hotel Butlers in 2021

Post by Flack »

My wife said Beverly brought her room service breakfast this morning and whistled a little song. I have a sneaking suspicion I'm about to be replaced by Beverly.

EDIT: There's a sign in my wife's room that says if you request a visit from maintenance or any other human, you need to vacate your room for at least 3 hours before they will show up. Beverly, on the other hand, laughs at your COVID concerns.
"I failed a savings throw and now I am back."

User avatar
Jizaboz
Posts: 4811
Joined: Tue Jan 31, 2012 2:00 pm
Location: USA
Contact:

Re: Hotel Butlers in 2021

Post by Jizaboz »

This removes language barrier issues too. Neat to see them actually in use there.
(╯°□°)╯︵ ┻━┻

User avatar
pinback
Posts: 17672
Joined: Sat Apr 27, 2002 3:00 pm
Contact:

Re: Hotel Butlers in 2021

Post by pinback »

Image
I don't have to say anything. I'm a doctor, too.

User avatar
AArdvark
Posts: 16178
Joined: Tue May 14, 2002 6:12 pm
Location: Rochester, NY

Re: Hotel Butlers in 2021

Post by AArdvark »

and you can call them whatever slur you want!

THE
THANK YOU, SLAVE
AARDVARK

Casual Observer
Posts: 3266
Joined: Wed Oct 01, 2003 10:23 pm
Location: Everett, WA, 2 blocks from where the Green River Killer picked them up

Re: Hotel Butlers in 2021

Post by Casual Observer »

Image

User avatar
Tdarcos
Posts: 9333
Joined: Fri May 16, 2008 9:25 am
Location: Arlington, Virginia
Contact:

Re: Hotel Butlers in 2021

Post by Tdarcos »

This was inevitable once the cost dropped below the ROI (Return on Investment) figure for a reasonable number. For example, installing solar panels at a house produces a "break-even point" at seven years, but with reasonable maintenance, the panels will last twenty, meaning after seven years, your electricity cost is zero for the next 13 years.

So let's examine ROI for this robot.
Say installing sensors and retrofitting floors and elevators costs about a hundred grand. That is a fixed cost no matter how many robots you have. So lets say this robot will last 5 years. And costs $100,000. Let"s say your hotel can use 5 of them to replace ten bellhops. Minimum wage in Los Angeles is $10 an hour, with no reduction for tips paid by customers. So, during the day they can replace say, ten bellhops, and all of them at night (very few customers call for orders from 1—5 am) while most the time they"re recharging. To handle three shifts you might need 10 from 8—8. 5 from 8—midnight, and maybe 2 flom midnight to 8 am. Or 120+20+16 hours of labor a daay, or 156 person—hours a day. Typical overhead is 100% of salary, so human bellhops cost $3120 a day, or $1,138,800.

Let"s say these robots use $100 of electricity per unit. each month. And maintenance is $50,000 a year. This makes the initial invesrment $600,000 and first year cost $56,000, for initial cost of $656,000 meaning the robots pay for themselves in 7 months.. Saving about $400,000. And for the next four years they save rhe hotel over $1 million a year.

Now, I tried skewing rhe cost to make the robot look as expensive as possible, but the fact
remains, each full—time employee costs about $480 per day for a post needing 24-hour coverage, and $160 per 8-hour shift otherwise. That makes a 24-hour covered position cost $175,000 a year. If the net cost of a robot is significantly less. It makes sense ro go to automation.

As with the example of the house above, the only real drawback is the up—front costs, a homeowner might have to finance a $15—20,000 solar panel and cutover system, a hotel chain can afford to spend, say. $600,000 up front, then as the project pays for itself, convert more hotels over to automated guest sevices.

The next step is even more interesting: when you can use the on—screen menu on your TV set to order something and it"s able to pull it off the shelf and deliver it without a human ever seeing the order.
- - - -
Sent from a mobile tablet.
Alan Francis wrote a book containing everything men understand about women. It consisted of 100 blank pages.

User avatar
Jizaboz
Posts: 4811
Joined: Tue Jan 31, 2012 2:00 pm
Location: USA
Contact:

Re: Hotel Butlers in 2021

Post by Jizaboz »

Yeah, I can see these things being more common in Marriot hotels. 2 of my best hotel experiences were in Marriott.

1. The one in Huntsville, Alabama. Went there around the time Ninja Gaiden was big in the arcades for Space Camp. Sure, I recall mom complained that the hot water didn’t work and something else.. but the place had a indoor/outdoor pool you could swim between, arcade, and a snazzy looking bar with a band playing. I was only 11 or 12 but I recall even the latter amazing me.

2. Marriott in San Diego. Awesome pool area. Awesome restaurant called Roy’s attached to it. Tons of bars around. (though I like Ramada in Venice beach better for places to walk) Got to actually hang out in the bar as an adult.. and my party basically prompted it to close after the musician stopped and people got out of control. Met a dude in an outdoor hot tub by the pool area obviously humping his female co-worker that told me he worked for the Rams.

Did a ceiling repair job at the PTI airport Marriott once and it was an easy one.

I like these hotels.
(╯°□°)╯︵ ┻━┻

User avatar
pinback
Posts: 17672
Joined: Sat Apr 27, 2002 3:00 pm
Contact:

Re: Hotel Butlers in 2021

Post by pinback »

Image
I don't have to say anything. I'm a doctor, too.

User avatar
Flack
Posts: 8822
Joined: Tue Nov 18, 2008 3:02 pm
Location: Oklahoma
Contact:

Re: Hotel Butlers in 2021

Post by Flack »

Tdarcos wrote: Tue Feb 23, 2021 11:18 pm This was inevitable once the cost dropped below the ROI (Return on Investment) figure for a reasonable number. For example, installing solar panels at a house produces a "break-even point" at seven years, but with reasonable maintenance, the panels will last twenty, meaning after seven years, your electricity cost is zero for the next 13 years.

So let's examine ROI for this robot.
Say installing sensors and retrofitting floors and elevators costs about a hundred grand. That is a fixed cost no matter how many robots you have. So lets say this robot will last 5 years. And costs $100,000. Let"s say your hotel can use 5 of them to replace ten bellhops. Minimum wage in Los Angeles is $10 an hour, with no reduction for tips paid by customers. So, during the day they can replace say, ten bellhops, and all of them at night (very few customers call for orders from 1—5 am) while most the time they"re recharging. To handle three shifts you might need 10 from 8—8. 5 from 8—midnight, and maybe 2 flom midnight to 8 am. Or 120+20+16 hours of labor a daay, or 156 person—hours a day. Typical overhead is 100% of salary, so human bellhops cost $3120 a day, or $1,138,800.

Let"s say these robots use $100 of electricity per unit. each month. And maintenance is $50,000 a year. This makes the initial invesrment $600,000 and first year cost $56,000, for initial cost of $656,000 meaning the robots pay for themselves in 7 months.. Saving about $400,000. And for the next four years they save rhe hotel over $1 million a year.

Now, I tried skewing rhe cost to make the robot look as expensive as possible, but the fact
remains, each full—time employee costs about $480 per day for a post needing 24-hour coverage, and $160 per 8-hour shift otherwise. That makes a 24-hour covered position cost $175,000 a year. If the net cost of a robot is significantly less. It makes sense ro go to automation.

As with the example of the house above, the only real drawback is the up—front costs, a homeowner might have to finance a $15—20,000 solar panel and cutover system, a hotel chain can afford to spend, say. $600,000 up front, then as the project pays for itself, convert more hotels over to automated guest sevices.

The next step is even more interesting: when you can use the on—screen menu on your TV set to order something and it"s able to pull it off the shelf and deliver it without a human ever seeing the order.
- - - -
Sent from a mobile tablet.
Each Marriott that's part of the program has two robots.

They lease each robot for $2,000/month.
"I failed a savings throw and now I am back."

User avatar
Tdarcos
Posts: 9333
Joined: Fri May 16, 2008 9:25 am
Location: Arlington, Virginia
Contact:

Re: Hotel Butlers in 2021

Post by Tdarcos »

pinback wrote: Wed Feb 24, 2021 5:59 am [Image of meme of South Park character saying "They took our jobs"
Well, of course they did. The only reason anyone has a job is that (1) there is some work that needs to be done; and (2) it is cheaper to use a human to do it than use automation (or automation can"t do the job yet).

Ben, answer this; back around the 1990s and earlier, when most people still had home phones and pay phones were a thing, about how often did you have an operator dial a call for you? Probably never, if it was a local call, and probably extremely rare in the case of a long distance call. The reason was that in 1891 a Kansas City mortitian named Almon Strowgerinvented the automatic switch because he was disgusted that the wife of a competitor, who worked as a phone company operator, was sending all calls for Strowger"s mortuary to her husband"s business. As a result of this, tens of thousands of telephone operators were replaced by machines (automation). But don"t worry, a lot of them probably got jobs in the brand—new profession of elevator operator, created when the elevator safety brake was invented by Mr. Otis.

Buggy—whip makers and blacksmiths were forced out of work when their jobs were auto—mated out of existience by the—you guessed it —automobile.

Excuse me, I have to cut this short. My roommate was extremely angry and threw a bucket of water on me and I need to be changed. This is no joke and I am not kidding.

More later on this breaking story.

— — — —
Sent from a mobile tablet.
Alan Francis wrote a book containing everything men understand about women. It consisted of 100 blank pages.

User avatar
pinback
Posts: 17672
Joined: Sat Apr 27, 2002 3:00 pm
Contact:

Re: Hotel Butlers in 2021

Post by pinback »

DURK ER DURRRR!!!
I don't have to say anything. I'm a doctor, too.

User avatar
pinback
Posts: 17672
Joined: Sat Apr 27, 2002 3:00 pm
Contact:

Re: Hotel Butlers in 2021

Post by pinback »

Why were they angry? Did you do something to upset them? WHAT DID YOU DO? Is there a robot butler who can come clean everything up?
I don't have to say anything. I'm a doctor, too.

User avatar
Ice Cream Jonsey
Posts: 28877
Joined: Sat Apr 27, 2002 2:44 pm
Location: Colorado
Contact:

Re: Hotel Butlers in 2021

Post by Ice Cream Jonsey »

Is your nursing home on the set of You Can't Do That on Television?
the dark and gritty...Ice Cream Jonsey!

Post Reply