The next time you give in, do it, and order room service, it might not be a squeaky voiced teen delivering your food and beverage, but a robot. Are you ready for a mechanical maid? Near the technological epicentre of California, one hotel is trying something a little different and in line with what the futuristic development that the Silicon Valley is all about. If you stay at the Crowne Plaza in Silicon Valley and order room service, instead of a happy attendant delivering snacks and amenities, you may find a robot waiting for you outside your door named “Dash”. One of the first of its kind, Dash is a robot measuring around 90cm design to move at walking pace and capable of carrying small amounts of goods up to rooms so a human doesn’t have to. In a way, Dash kind of looks like a robotic garbage bin, except it carries things you’ll want — not garbage — and is WiFi controlled, moving along the ground by itself and even able to call for an elevator, relying on a link to the hotel to find out where it should be delivering items to. “We expect our guests to be impressed by the technological sophistication of Dash and its ability to deliver the quality service they’ve come to expect from the brand,” said Crowne Plaza’s Gina LaBarre. “Crowne Plaza hotel team members are also excited to explore new, innovative ways to serve our guests using Dash.” Dash is one of the first times we’ve seen a robot arrive in the hospitality space, working in a real-life environment and guests, who will be able to order things and then interact with the robot as it arrives outside their door, before sending itself on its merry way before it returns to the front desk and recharges itself. Checking with Crowne’s people, we were told that Australia might see the robot in the future, but it wouldn’t be immediately, advising “should testing be successful, it’s not impossible for Dash to be rolled out down under”. That means for now, your room service will still come courtesy of a smiling human individual, but wait a few years and that might change.
The Crowne Plaza hotel in Silicon Valley is using a WiFi controlled robot named Dash to carry out room service tasks. Photograph: