Experiment · In-room TV
In-room TV
An exploratory prototype for the in-room TV in unmanned serviced apartments — app-based check-in, no reception, nobody on site. Not a funded brief; a conversation with a friend on the operations side of one such operator that turned into something worth arguing about in a room.
Two theses
The screen has no menu — content is indexed by stay phase. Hotel TVs default to categories (Services / Explore / Info / TV). What a guest needs is almost entirely determined by when it is: hours since check-in, time of day, nights remaining. So the surface is a state machine, and the most-needed thing is already the largest object on screen. The guest never navigates to find it.
A TV in a bedroom is a lamp before it is a display. There is no fixed background. The surface warms and cools with the hour and recedes at night. That's what makes "not a black box" a real property rather than decoration.
The prototype
Built in React + Vite, designed at literal 1920×1080 inside a transform-scaled stage so the prototype is pixel-accurate to the real panel. Below is the resting-state curve — live content, then settling, then receding as the room quiets down. Twenty minutes to fade, instant to wake, and a slow burn-in drift on two incommensurate sine periods so the surface reads as breathing rather than frozen.
Hard rules
- Never get between the guest and their own Netflix. The path to streaming is the first affordance, always.
- Wipe all streaming logins at checkout — privacy obligation and a real complaint driver.
- No sound. Ever. No autoplay video, no welcome sting.
- Never display the guest's name in large type, and never the door code. Ground-floor units have windows; cleaners see the screen between stays.
- Never pure white text after dark. Warm it and drop contrast — don't just drop opacity.
- One offer, one moment. The only upsell is late checkout, on departure morning.
- No static high-contrast element in a fixed position. Burn-in across a fleet nobody services is permanent damage.
Stay-phase surface
Arrival shows Wi-Fi at maximum size — the guest's phone just dropped off roaming and everything else depends on it. Evening shrinks Wi-Fi to a line and surfaces what's still open to eat. Night is the hour, dimmed to something legible from the bed. Departure is checkout, one offer, and no other pressure.
