RoomNetTV
Reinventing the Entertainment Factor in Hotels

Technology has always been the driving force of the hospitality industry and with features like flexible online-booking, remote check-in and checkout, smart appliances and video-on-demand, hotels serve a diversity of travelers every day.

As a frequent traveler himself—Darren King, CEO, RoomNetTV believes that the major challenge today’s hotel guests face is poor Wi-Fi and internet connectivity. Delivering a superlative user experience, RoomNetTV focuses on helping hotels offer a range of Wi-Fi network and entertainment solutions. “We are a hybrid provider of technology solutions and system integrations, which are guest-focused, consistently responsive, with an easy-to-use design,” establishes King.

Noting the growing demand for free Wi-Fi, hotels have to find a way of creating value from this essential utility service. Harnessing the power of IoT and social media, RoomNetTV enables the hotel management to gain insights into guests’ preferences and send them customized marketing messages. They also ensure that in the process of gathering data, there is no invasion of the guest’s privacy. “If you know a guest is not visiting the bar in your hotel, you can send a message as soon as they enter the room on the ‘happy hour’ in the bar, but only if the guest opts-in first, as there’s nothing more annoying than invasive, repetitive or irrelevant marketing,” notes King.

Beyond Wi-Fi, RoomNetTV’s primary focus is encouraging BYOC (Bring Your own Content) for guests, so that they can share their favorite movies, games and applications from their tablet or smart phone with the hotel TV. In doing so, RoomNetTV introduced their unique solution, combining Cloud-based SMART TV with Apple TV.

“Android and Apple devices have been known to face compatibility issues and hotel managers have struggled to address this, which has taken a toll on the guest experience,” explains King. The popular android streaming method, Miracast, which is embedded in most Smart TVs, does not work well with Apple devices due to Apple’s proprietary DRM (Digital Rights Management), which encrypts all iTunes video content. RoomNetTV offers a combined, remedial approach towards this. Most modern Smart TVs already offer built-in Miracast, which uses a peer-to-peer connection for a native Android experience.

We are a hybrid provider of technology solutions and system integrations, which are guest-focused, consistently responsive, with an easy-to-use design

“Secondly, we deploy an Apple TV behind the Smart TV and make it easily navigable within the Smart TV’s interface.” Additionally, to simplify and avoid displaying all the other Apple TV devices on the network, RoomNetTV provides a Private Area Network (PAN) to each user’s hotel room. This environment ensures that each guest’s streaming remains private to them and that their Apple TV is not accessible by any other guests in the hotel. It also simplifies the guest streaming process, so that it is truly a home away from home entertainment experience.

King highlights the example of CitizenM—a millennial hotel group. The client originally deployed Android tablets in every guestroom to serve as a single interface for all in-room services. Continuing their advancement of the guest experience, the system has recently been replaced with iPads and upgraded to include Apple TVs in all rooms, throughout all CitizenM’s hotels. CitizenM was seeking the right partner to furnish the hotel with Airplay support and iPads and chose RoomNetTV. “We supplied iPads, pre-built with the client’s third party custom software to control the in-room experience and the Apple TV. It was a resounding success and hotel guests can now control various amenities in the room using the iPad whilst having personalized content delivered on Apple TVs via their own device, so they can now watch what they want, when they want on the hotel room TV,” extols King.

With a vision to become a global leader in hotel guest room entertainment solutions, King says, “We will enable consumers to experience technology as they do at home, in a private, simple-to-use environment that enriches their hotel experience.”