While listening to a recent episode of iPad Today, the started talking about the Plaza hotel in New York City. The Plaza has decided to include iPad's in all of their rooms for their guests. What I found interesting is the custom app they will have installed. The app will allow guests to to control their environment in their room - lights, temperature, TV, drapes, fans, etc... - Plaza Hotel iPads. The app also includes options for room service, valet service, weather and more.
What strikes me about this story is how easy it would be to take this to the consumer side of things. While I have no idea the technical specs involved in this (the app is from Intelity and is short on details of how it works), I would assume it works via wi-fi. If someone would make a router that you could hook your devices too - temperature control, lights, tv, etc... then you'd have a device that could control everything in your house.
I can imagine people with physical disabilities, who are able to use an iPad, would relish the ability to have more control over many parts of their life with this type of app. Having everything all in one place would be very convenient. From what they said on iPad today there is no plan to make this app available to the app store in general, but I for one hope that someone sees this opportunity and runs with it!
Patrick
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