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Do You Even Use The Hotel's Alarm Clock Anymore?

Almost every hotel room, from a no-frills budget shoebox to a luxury suite, comes with one standard amenity, an alarm clock. But do you really use it? Do you even need it?

Times are a-changing and many hotel guests bring along their iPhones, cell phones and other travel-sized timepieces to wake them up. Why waste your time with a foreign contraption whose settings you don't understand when you can just use your tried and true cell phone alarm. For back up, you can just use the hotel's wake-up call service, which have gotten pretty creative in recent years.

It just seems like the room's provided gadget is now unnecessary.

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Hotel Technology / Hotel Amenities / Chicago Hotels / BW Zeppelin / iHome Alarm Clocks / iPod Docks / → All Tags

The iPod Zeppelin Ominously Hones In On the iHome's Territory

Where: 605 N. Michigan Ave [map], Chicago, IL, United States, 60611

Now that hotels are finally getting hip to providing iPod docking stations and speaker systems as standard room amenities, will there be a duel between the old standard iHome and the newer, sleeker Zeppelin? All signs point to 'yes' as the Zeppelin begins to rake in hotel clients from the top tier of luxury properties, elevating this newest of hotel tech gadgets to the big leagues.

Already you may find the curiously oblong, buttonless speaker system within The Carlyle, the Mandarin Oriental Hong Kong, and the Ritz Carlton Atlanta. Its deliberate takeover of luxe night stands will continue this summer with the July opening of the Elysian Hotel Chicago, a property which has marketed itself as a modern version of a grand dame hotel.

In the Elysian setting, the Bowers & Wilkens Zeppelin will hit a higher note than Mariah Carey on your iTunes; it will sync with other tech goodies in the room: "Zeppelin delivers arresting, 'audiophile-class' stereo playback from in-room sources such as cable and on-demand movies and television—as well as from guests’ and residents’ own iPod music and video libraries." They may seek to win over the "audiophiles," but what about us regular hotelphiles? We suppose we'll just to have to retrain ourselves, as adept as we've gotten as setting iHome alarms now.

[Photo: Bowers & Wilkins]

Hotel Amenities / Hotel Technology / Hotel News / iPod Docks / iHome Alarm Clocks / BW Zeppelin / → All Tags

Non-Flying Zeppelin: It's an iPod Docking Station

We thought iPod docking stations were last year's must have amenity and have got a bit over them recently. But this one did catch our eye: it's the Bowers & Wilkins Zeppelin iPod docking station which has won a bunch of innovation and design awards this year.

The Zeppelin, as well as looking pretty cool, is smart because it fits all existing iPods without any adaptors. It's also got a volume-level governor so hotels can set a maximum loudness for the device--you'll be glad of that when the guest in the next room can't play his squealy hip-hop as loud as he wants.

Apparently these Zeppelins are already found in a few hotels including the Mandarin Oriental Hong Kong and the Ritz Carlton Atlanta and no doubt the Bowers & Wilkins gang are pushing hard to get them in a ton more.

We just hope setting the alarm on these bad boys won't be so difficult.

Hotel Technology / Geek Hotels / Hotel Amenities / iHome Alarm Clocks / HOWTO / → All Tags

HOWTO :: Succesfully Set the Hotel Room's iHome Alarm Clock

The ghetto 4-button alarm clock with the red visible-from-space LCD display is on the way out, and the iPod-compatible iHome has taken its place on hotel nightstands everywhere.

So far, we've woken up next to these babies in both big-box hotel chains and boutique hotels alike. In fact, we even awarded it our Must-Have Hotel Amenity Award for 2007.

While it's great to be able to wake up to our iPods, frankly, the damn thing has a whole hell of a lot of buttons. Don't get us wrong -- we are young, tech-savvy folks and all -- but even we had to say a little prayer that the shiny little beast would function as planned the first few times we used it.

Thus, after many close encounters with hotel iHomes and a comfortably intimate relationship with the consumer version (they're a smidge different), we present to you: How to Successfully Set the Hotel Room's #%$@ing iHome Alarm Clock.

Some hotel iHome survival tips after the jump.

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