[HN Gopher] Hyatt Hotels are using algorithmic Rest "smoking det...
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Hyatt Hotels are using algorithmic Rest "smoking detectors"
Author : RebeccaTheDev
Score : 680 points
Date : 2025-07-19 04:02 UTC (18 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (twitter.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (twitter.com)
| toomuchtodo wrote:
| https://www.restsensor.com/
| consp wrote:
| Ironic they have plenty of "hotel bad because smoke smell" and
| none of the "hotel bad because of fake smoke detection fine"
| testemonials on the site.
| alanfranz wrote:
| They also cover vaping. While smoking harms are clear and its
| impact on room smell is evident, the connection is pretty weak
| for vaping. Unless it's a crowded bar with lots of vaping
| people, I can't tell if somebody has previously used an
| e-cigarette or vaporized anything in a room, and generally
| speaking I don't find such vapor disturbing (altough the smell
| can be not great).
| yonatan8070 wrote:
| I found that people vaping around me causes minor irritation
| in my eyes, and I also find the smell rather annoying,
| despite my sense of smell being rather weak.
|
| I haven't noticed any long-term effects on rooms with
| frequent vaping though
| CoastalCoder wrote:
| I'm curious how various court systems would handle a person
| suing nearby vape users for (documented) minor irritation
| of eyes and airways.
|
| If such suits were successful, would the newly tested
| liability set larger changes in motion?
|
| I'm similarly curious about being around Amazon Alexa, etc.
| devices in circumstances that require two-party consent for
| recording audio.
| windows2020 wrote:
| A colleague experienced this but I don't recall where. But they
| were furious about it and it was a challenge to get resolved.
| WarOnPrivacy wrote:
| Synopsis and excerpt: [Rest] markets itself as
| a way to "unlock a new revenue stream" with the help of a
| "robust algorithm" for detecting smoking.
|
| Hotels where these sensors are installed rack up complaints and
| negative reviews, after Rest sensors register false positives -
| thereby unlocking that revenue stream for the hotels.
|
| The awesome thing about black-box algorithms is they can't be
| challenged when they're wrong. And errors reliably favor the
| institution that manages (and profits from) them.
| spondylosaurus wrote:
| I scoured their website to look for any clues about how it
| might (allegedly) work and got a fat lot of nothing.
|
| > Rest constantly monitors room air quality, using a
| proprietary algorithm to pinpoint any tobacco, marijuana, or
| nicotine presence.
|
| So a smoke detector with an "algorithm" attached. Uh huh. How
| does that algorithm work?
|
| > By analyzing various factors and patterns[...]
|
| Some cutting edge shit here!
|
| And as for accuracy, they don't even pretend to make promises
| about "99.99% success rates" or anything. This is the most
| detailed they get:
|
| > Q: Is it accurate?
|
| > A: Our sophisticated smoking detection algorithm has been
| tested for accuracy in real-world scenarios, backed by years of
| development, and tens of thousands of hours of rigorous testing
| and validation.
| yjftsjthsd-h wrote:
| > Our sophisticated smoking detection algorithm has been
| tested
|
| Okay, but what were the results? https://xkcd.com/1096/
| thephotonsphere wrote:
| Smokin'!
|
| https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=KONoeHwu2pg&t=50s
| kotaKat wrote:
| It's going to be similar bullshit to what Halo uses in the
| highschool vape sensors. A bunch of particulate sensors for
| like PM1, PM2.5, PM10, sniffing out VOCs, and then they
| consider any tripping of any of that to be a "smoke" sesh.
|
| Edit: Oh. Rest is just NoiseAware. They're just reselling
| NoiseAware sensors which are just - yes - a bunch of
| particulate sensors hooked up to an ESP32 hooked to a web
| dashboard.
| fnordpiglet wrote:
| Yeah the anecdotal evidence leads you to this as well - the
| hair drier usage leading to triggering the sensor. My
| PM/VoC sensors in my bedroom spike when my wife dries her
| hair while my CO/CO2 sensors do not.
| mrb wrote:
| Given that this image: https://cdn.prod.website-
| files.com/653a9fbd1075088b6c8f8bd3/... shows PM2.5 and
| CO2(ppm) it may imply they monitor particles and CO2 levels.
| My guess is it also monitors humidity, and temperature.
| Humidity helps distinguish smoke from water vapor (eg.
| steaming shower).
|
| CO2 sensors are generally pretty accurate, but PM2.5 sensors
| are notoriously prone to false spikes usually caused by dust
| in or around the sensor: https://www.reddit.com/r/Awair/comme
| nts/10r1uyo/inaccurate_p... or
| https://forum.airgradient.com/t/unusual-pm2-5-readings-on-
| ne... or https://community.purpleair.com/t/what-to-do-about-
| incorrect...
|
| My guess is it's likely a sensor in a hotel room accumulates
| dust over time, leading to high PM2.5 measurements maybe when
| something (eg. suitcase) bumps against the case, shaking the
| accumulated dust and releasing it around the sensor.
| microtherion wrote:
| That's awesome for the hotel! The less they dust their
| rooms, the more "smoking fees" they can charge guests.
| boothby wrote:
| Note that pm2.5 will also spike when you've used shampoo,
| perfume, deoderant, lotion, sunblock; if you use dryer
| sheets and you unpack your clothes, etc.
| billyjmc wrote:
| This is news to me, but I'm unsurprised. Why people use
| so much strongly scented products is absolutely baffling
| to me.
| paradox460 wrote:
| Farts will cause it to spike
| mrb wrote:
| Exactly! So many ways to make PM2.5 spike. I didn't even
| know about shampoo and sunblock. I assume for sunblock
| it's the spray kind?
| veeti wrote:
| I wonder if you could set it off by farting too much:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zvB0wRFebus
| Aeolun wrote:
| This is like those 10k bomb detectors that were just a box
| with wires dangling out aren't they?
|
| I do not understand what possesses people to buy this stuff
| without proof.
| cogman10 wrote:
| Because they can charge $500 to almost all occupants
| realizing the likelihood of a repeat visitor is low?
| raverbashing wrote:
| > A: Our sophisticated smoking detection algorithm has been
| tested for accuracy in real-world scenarios, backed by years
| of development, and tens of thousands of hours of rigorous
| testing and validation.
|
| I would be willing to bet a good amount of money they have a
| huge pile of nothing on this
|
| On the other comment they say they monitor PM2.5, CO2 and
| humidity. Congratulations, your hot water shower with hard
| water just triggered the sensor. $500 fee.
| consp wrote:
| > The awesome thing about black-box algorithms is they can't be
| challenged when they're wrong. And errors reliably favor the
| institution that manages (and profits from) them.
|
| Doesn't the US have false advertisement rules/scam prevention?
| Around here one person would have to fight this in court to
| tumble the whole thing down as there is no way Rest can prove
| it's claim is airtight (pun intended) due to simple statistics
| and physics (e.g. hair drying leaves burn particulates as
| well). I doubt it will even come this far as it's obviously a
| money making scheme over the customers back and acts in bad
| faith ("The sensor's don't make mistakes" is a claim to
| innocence where none is valid as almost everyone can smell).
| It's probably fine as an early detection agent but you'd have
| to actually check.
|
| Also the charges are disproportionate to the beach of contract,
| unless they steam clean the room every time they claim the
| money. Which they obviously don't according to the "dirty room"
| comments.
| gorbachev wrote:
| Hotel guests are not buying the sensors. The hotels would
| probably have a claim due to this, but since they're
| "unlocking new revenue streams", they are probably not going
| to bother.
| gamblor956 wrote:
| You're not wrong. A single class action lawsuit would destroy
| Rest as a going concern, assuming there were enough false-
| positives generated to be an issue.
|
| (Rest would have to demonstrate how its technology works in
| court in order to have any hope of defeating such a lawsuit.
| And as the hotel guests don't have contracts with Rest, they
| aren't bound by any arbitration agreements.)
| high_byte wrote:
| "unlocking revenue stream" is wild way to say theft
| adrr wrote:
| I bet it's also a rev share model. Hotel doesn't pay for the
| device but revenue is shared. Like the traffic cameras where
| they shorten yellow light to durations that a car is incapable
| of stopping in time.
| walterbell wrote:
| Primitive contract asset tokenization. What other parts of
| the hotel-customer contract could become zero-capex financial
| instruments powered by ambiguous surveillance data, washed in
| health and safety?
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asset_tokenization
| Asset tokenization refers to the process of converting rights
| to a real-world asset into a digital token on a blockchain or
| distributed ledger. These tokens represent ownership, rights,
| or claims on tangible or intangible assets and can be traded
| or transferred on digital platforms.
|
| https://cointelegraph.com/news/sec-tokenization-exemption-
| ge...
|
| _> SEC.. considering changes that would promote
| tokenization, including an innovation exception that would
| allow for new trading methods and provide targeted relief to
| support the development of a tokenized securities ecosystem
| .. Atkins said the movement of assets onchain is inevitable,
| stating: "If it can be tokenized, it will be tokenized."_
| progbits wrote:
| So aside from Rest being incompetent morons ("temperature
| changes" from smoking??), they now also have incentive to
| make it trigger as much as possible.
| chii wrote:
| > incentive
|
| it's not an incentive, it's a raison d'etre!
| bbarnett wrote:
| So now when I play a game on my laptop, I get charged too??
|
| (People were mentioning hair dryers)
| kotaKat wrote:
| Check the App Store screenshots -
| https://apps.apple.com/us/app/rest-by-
| noiseaware/id644925142...
|
| The app even tracks the whole fee amount in-app being
| collected. "Net charge", "adjusted charge amount" reasons of
| "guest complaint"...
| lxgr wrote:
| Their "NoiseAware" main product line also sounds incredibly
| dystopian. Apparently, that's a "privacy-safe" microphone
| listening in rental properties, to "detect crowds
| gathering"...!?
|
| This type of creepy stuff, together with Airbnb's horrible
| business practices (last time they wanted access to my
| checking account transaction history via Plaid!) and
| enabling scammy hosts, is why I'm back to just staying at
| regular hotels.
|
| Sad to see some of them are now start adopting the same
| type of customer-hostile technology as well.
| egypturnash wrote:
| AirBnB partiers are a real problem, I live in a tourist
| destination and regularly hear horror stories about a
| residential neighborhood suddenly having crowds descend
| on a house that's become a party rental. There's nobody
| to notice it getting out of hand and tell them to chill
| before the neighbors call the cops because the owner is a
| holding company on the other side of the country.
|
| Of course Airbnbs are also a real problem in general with
| the way they increase the scarcity of housing, so I'm
| pretty happy all in all to see you saying you're being
| driven back to hotels.
| HWR_14 wrote:
| I think repeatedly calling the police is the correct way
| to handle an AirBnB party house in your neighborhood. I
| don't want to instead have the unpaid job of monitoring
| the guests for the absentee owner and be responsible for
| telling them to chill.
|
| Of course, a long term neighbor it is different. There
| the police would be a last resort.
| majormajor wrote:
| Feels like a fun opportunity for a jurisdiction to
| legislate and pursue eminent domain seizures of "party
| homes" with absentee landlords.
| vkou wrote:
| > AirBnB partiers are a real problem,
|
| They are, which is why residential properties that are
| used as hotels should be seized and auctioned off.
| const_cast wrote:
| Then don't rent your house. This is a risk of rental
| properties.
|
| Look, if you have a house in a tourist spot and you say
| "no parties!", you're not gonna make any money. And if
| the residents don't like said parties, they can rally
| together to make AirBNBs illegal in their area. That's
| how many (most?) touristy places are.
| vorador wrote:
| This is just pushing the externalities to the residents.
| It takes several months for airbnbs to get banned, and
| it's tough for smaller cities to get the bans enforced.
|
| There must be a better answer than "pass a law so the
| american multinational does a better job at regulating
| its rentals"
| tbrownaw wrote:
| > _Of course Airbnbs are also a real problem in general
| with the way they increase the scarcity of housing,_
|
| What's the actual mechanism for airbnbs to prevent
| housing construction?
| didntcheck wrote:
| I suppose in theory you could have a device which doesn't
| have the storage or bandwidth to record/transmit full
| audio, but does some heuristics on the device and then
| transmits a small payload of flags. But in any case I
| wouldn't want to stay anywhere with an unaccountable
| black box ready to unfalsifiably charge me
|
| The other commenter is absolutely right that partyers in
| AirBnBs cause nuisances for local residents, but the
| owners will have to find another way to sort that out or
| close up shop
| geraldwhen wrote:
| A decibel reader isn't a microphone that records,
| necessarily. Being obnoxiously loud is a societal ill and
| I applaud efforts to reduce this.
|
| No one wants to live next to an Airbnb house blasting
| music at 3am.
| lxgr wrote:
| Sure, but I'll certainly not stay at a place putting me
| under privacy-invading surveillance on the suspicion that
| I don't know basic etiquette.
|
| I'll also consider these things to be microphones unless
| their manufacturer explicitly says otherwise, yet on
| their website I've only seen vague assurances about them
| being privacy-friendly.
|
| For some, "on-device speech recognition that only sends
| voice samples for cloud analysis in exceptional cases"
| would probably also meet that bar, but it doesn't for me.
| jnsie wrote:
| That reminds me - we're staying in an Airbnb later this
| summer and I've been meaning to research gadgets to
| detect hidden cameras. Now I guess I need to look out for
| microphones too. We're going in quite the dystopian
| direction.
| like_any_other wrote:
| > Like the traffic cameras where they shorten yellow light to
| durations that a car is incapable of stopping in time.
|
| One reckless endangerment in the first degree charge per
| every car passing through such an intersection. That is a
| class D felony, with a maximum penalty of 5-10 years prison
| time. Per car.
| RajT88 wrote:
| Hello from Chicago!
| WWLink wrote:
| What's messed up about red light cameras is they can actually
| be useful - if used correctly!
|
| The correct use case is "We seem to have a problem with red
| light runners at this intersection, so let's find out why by
| temporarily deploying red light cameras here."
|
| I've seen this done and the city in question found out. They
| were able to make some changes to the light timing and at
| several intersections, that caused the amount of red light
| runners to drastically drop. (It was stuff like the left turn
| light not turning green when the straight forward light did).
| olyjohn wrote:
| The only experimentation that you need to to is extend the
| damn yellow lights. Long enough duration of yellow lights
| reduces accidents to nearly zero. This has been proven over
| and over 1000x. The data has been out there for 40+ years.
| There's zero need for red light cameras.
| stogot wrote:
| I assume if it's triggering on car exhaust or something from
| opening room windows
| Proofread0592 wrote:
| Windows at these kinds of hotels usually do not open at all.
| jibe wrote:
| This hotel is a 2-3 story building, with sliding windows,
| and some balconies. There is opportunity for outside air to
| blow into the room.
| grishka wrote:
| Hair dryers are mentioned several times, so I would assume
| one of the things these sensors look for is a rise in the air
| temperature.
| gonzalohm wrote:
| You would need a pretty good sensor to detect a temperature
| increase from lighting a cigarette. Most likely, the hair
| dryer has a hair stuck that gets burnt once turned on
| lstamour wrote:
| Or perhaps formaldehyde release from hair spray and other
| chemicals partly due to the heat of the hair dryer, but
| also released because of the agitation and wind.
|
| Technically I think perfume, sweat and trace amounts of
| smoking residue, including formaldehyde, from personal
| belongings could probably also raise VOCs as hotels often
| have very, very poor airflow by design - open windows and
| balconies have historically encouraged smokers so they
| were removed, but now you can rarely find any hotels with
| fresh air in the rooms, and those you find often smell of
| cigarette smoke for obvious reasons. (Smokers will often
| stay at hotels with airflow or balconies and take
| advantage of these features when they can. Also, airing
| out a room will kill a scent temporarily but only
| cleaning the room or replacing natural textiles will
| permanently remove the scent when the window is closed.)
| Marsymars wrote:
| Hair dryers set off particulate sensors when used to dry
| hair. The air purifier in my upstairs office goes crazy
| when my wife blowdries her hair in the bathroom across the
| hall.
| belorn wrote:
| I would assume it was triggered by insects crossing the
| sensor. Optical smoke detectors are common in hotels.
| yellow_postit wrote:
| Watch it turns out you can tune the FP rate like how casinos
| can set the win rate on slot machines.
| chii wrote:
| > The awesome thing about black-box algorithms is they can't be
| challenged when they're wrong
|
| I want to call this "responsibility laundering". You get money,
| but wash away any responsibility, thus cleaning it.
| wwweston wrote:
| The more stuff is managed by algorithms, the more it'll
| become important that there is a legal right to challenge
| them and even hold those who adopt or implement them _some_
| kind of accountable.
| staplers wrote:
| the more it'll become important that there is a legal right
| to challenge them
|
| Unfortunately, I don't see a political climate capable of
| this for another century or longer..
| a123b456c wrote:
| For now, we have to rely on the social algorithm of
| 'reputation'
| sodality2 wrote:
| There's a great book about this called The Unaccountability
| Machine by Dan Davies.
| RainyDayTmrw wrote:
| "We didn't know our vendor would do so badly." wink wink
| nudge nudge
| lowbloodsugar wrote:
| Sure they can. Sounds like a class action too.
| variadix wrote:
| Trading the long term reputation of your company for short term
| profits. What could go wrong?
| unglaublich wrote:
| Nothing, it's a problem for future leaders. This is how
| modern economy works.
| izacus wrote:
| Nothing, it worked and keeps working for most of the
| companies, especially if they have sufficient market share
| and ability to prevent competition.
| pyman wrote:
| For every bad review, they post ten fake good ones.
| 762236 wrote:
| Is there a way to deactivate the sensor if you find one in your
| room?
| staplers wrote:
| That could open a whole world of legal punishment for you far
| surpassing a small fee on your bill. Fire safety laws and
| such.
|
| Not that I think this is a good thing but the framework is
| there to make your life hell if you were caught doing this.
| varjag wrote:
| Fire sensors and alarm centrals are very regulated
| business. This shit won't pass for one.
| nkrisc wrote:
| Tape a Tupperware container over it like every college
| student does in their dorm.
| const_cast wrote:
| They're disrupting the scam market by creating new and
| innovative ways to scam customers out of their money.
|
| Seriously, why does every company these days seem to be running
| scams? You don't need that! You already make money - just keep
| doing that!
| CommenterPerson wrote:
| This escalated with the Mag 7 and surveillance capitalism.
| Now everyone wants to do it. Good for margins!
| mihaaly wrote:
| Actually when an algorithm results in something false, then you
| do not have to challange it, it is just simply wrong.
|
| Insisting and charging somoking based on implicit and obscure
| ways of a "revenue stream generating" detector is a pure scam
| or fraud. Those involved in this criminal endeavour should be
| procecuted.
|
| I will avoid Hyatt just in case and discourage my social
| circles too, warning them! No-one needs this sleazy treatment.
| alistairSH wrote:
| Does Hyatt corporate have any say in this? Pretty sure many
| hotels are licensing the name, independent managed, etc.
|
| Ie you're just as likely to find these at an other brand
| hotels too.
| xyzal wrote:
| Yet when you try to impose legislation regulating black-box
| algorithms, suddenly it's among the HN crowd the Big Bad EU
| choking businesses and stifling progress, vid the recent AI
| agreement discussion.
| octo888 wrote:
| Looks like hotels looked at the car rental industry and took a
| lot of inspiration.
| burnt-resistor wrote:
| Airlines: "Hold my beer!"
| walterbell wrote:
| _" Delta moves to eliminate set prices, use AI to set your
| personal ticket price"_,
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44596355
| scarface_74 wrote:
| Delta has never had set prices and this is fake outrage.
| Airlines have used algorithms since deregulation in the 70s
| to set prices. The "algorithm" use to be simpler based on
| "fair classes". A fair class is not a simple - Main, C+ and
| FC. Two people sitting in main can have different fair
| classes.
|
| https://www.alternativeairlines.com/fare-basis-codes-
| explain...
|
| Of course as computers have gotten more sophisticated, the
| machine learning/revenue optimization rules have too.
|
| For instance it costs less for me to fly Delta from MCO
| (Orlando) -> ATL -> SJO (San Jose Costa Rica) than it does
| our friends to fly from ATL -> SJO when we are both flying
| the same second leg.
|
| There are other tricks to like booking a Delta flight via
| AirFrance or Virgin Airlines domestically cheaper.
| GuB-42 wrote:
| This is not the same, the airline can set whatever price
| they want, AI or not, but I see the prices and then can
| decide whether I want to buy or not.
|
| Maybe more relevant would be oversize/overweight baggage
| fees. Where there is some fine print about baggage policy
| and you may find yourself paying expensive fees at the gate
| because you didn't realize the weight limit included your
| handbag or that the allowed dimensions are nonstandard.
|
| A hotel charging $500 for smoking that didn't happen is
| worse than all of that, it is just fraud. Personal ticket
| prices is just business, controversial, but they are not
| trying to trick you. The fine print is bad, but at least,
| you can avoid the fees by being careful. Here, you have no
| choice but to pay and maybe hope to get your money back by
| filing a complain.
| hotboxin wrote:
| Looks like nothing a little duct tape couldn't handle.
| nielsbot wrote:
| Why should I have to waste my time and duct tape on their
| shitty scam? :) Easier to just never stay at a Hyatt.
| burnt-resistor wrote:
| Duct tape adhesives (including polyterpene resin) might
| register as VOCs. Now, if you duct taped a piece of absolutely
| clean aluminum foil to it, then that could be fine.
| gblargg wrote:
| I'd take the opposite approach, put something in the room
| that continually triggers it so they keep coming up and then
| just ignore it eventually.
| octo888 wrote:
| "Fire Safety Device Interference Fee: $1,000"
| bell-cot wrote:
| IANAL - but might doing that sift the burden of proof, and
| force Hyatt to show that the Rest device met regulatory
| standards as a fire detector?
| ungreased0675 wrote:
| I bet there are standards about this, and I'd also bet Rest
| has optimized their product for stealing money, not safety.
| anthonyeden wrote:
| I have seen tradies attempt to 'disable' smoke particle
| detectors by putting tape or a rubber glove over the sensor.
| This technique often triggers the alarm almost immediately.
|
| Commercial fire sensors do have plastic caps which block
| airflow without triggering an alarm. They're designed to be
| kept on during construction until each sensor is commissioned.
| rdtsc wrote:
| > I asked Erik if the room needed to be cleaned [...] And he said
| it wasn't needing special cleaning so he offered me $250
|
| Well that sort of says everything we'd want to know. They charged
| the customer $500, like they'll need to tear up the room and
| bring in a large team to clean everything. But they never
| bothered with that because they know it's a scam, and the company
| selling these knows exactly how their customers will use these.
|
| Unsurprisingly, the customers just love this new technology and
| can't get enough of it:
|
| (review from https://www.restsensor.com)
|
| > "Rest's in-room smoking detection service has helped us capture
| a lucrative ancillary revenue stream while also improving our
| guest experience." Kirsten Snyder, Asset Manager, Woodbine
| madaxe_again wrote:
| Wait, woodbine? A hotel literally owned by/named after a
| cigarette brand? You literally couldn't make this up.
| clort wrote:
| Largely a property development company, named after a
| geological feature "Woodbine Sand", in Texas
|
| [1] https://woodbinedevelopment.com/woodbinedevelopment.com/o
| ur-...
| userbinator wrote:
| While we're on that topic of "things that aren't actually
| named after cigarettes":
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marlboro_(disambiguation)
| Animats wrote:
| Here's a "vape detector" with more explaination.[1]
|
| It contains an air particulates detector and a CO2 detector, plus
| humidity, temperature, and noise and light sensors. They're
| probably looking for particulates and CO2 ramp up, hence the
| "algorithm". It's not clear how accurate this is, but it's not
| mysterious.
|
| There's a version sold to schools that adds "bullying detector"
| capability. This adds detection of "keyword calls for help, loud
| sounds, and gunshots."
|
| [1] https://fobsin.com/products/mountable-air-quality-vape-
| detec...
| laborcontract wrote:
| It sounds ludicrous to say out loud, but if you're staying in a
| Hyatt hotel, it's best not to take a hot shower until this
| issue is resolved. The steam from the showers tend to make
| these types of particle sensors go wild.
| amluto wrote:
| Even outdoors, humidity is a problem. Humidity turns little
| particles into bigger, soggier particles that give higher
| readings on optical sensors, which can rather inflate
| readings on cheap sensors in humid or foggy conditions.
| There's a reason that the actual EPA particle counting
| standards involve _drying_ the particles before measurement.
|
| (RIP, EPA.)
| MiddleEndian wrote:
| The smoke detector in my previous condo used to go off all
| the time when I showered. Had to remove it shortly after
| moving in lol
| SoftTalker wrote:
| Must have been placed improperly. They should not be
| installed in kitchens or in or near bathrooms.
|
| But also, you should run the exhaust fan in the bathroom
| when you shower, this removes at least some of the moist
| air and cuts down on the chance for moisture damage and
| mold to develop.
| MiddleEndian wrote:
| It was in the hall right outside the shower, the exhaust
| fan didn't work very well so I left the door open. I live
| in a different place now and no longer have that issue.
|
| But the point is that machines are not particularly good
| at detecting smoke lol
| SoftTalker wrote:
| Smoke detectors detect microparticles in the air. They
| typically don't or can't differentiate between steam and
| smoke, at least not the cheap household type detectors.
| const_cast wrote:
| > They should not be installed in kitchens or in or near
| bathrooms.
|
| But then you can't catch vapers in the most popular
| vaping place: the bathroom. Oh no! Our revenue stream!
| It's broken!
|
| I think, elephant in the room here, smoking is
| conspicuous and does real, tangible damage. Vaping? I'm
| not so sure.
|
| Yeah vaping is lame but does it actually harm properties?
| I mean, if someone vapes 10 feet from me I can't smell
| it. And if I can smell it, it's gone in < 5 seconds.
| There's no smoke in it, it doesn't linger.
| leoedin wrote:
| Why would CO2 be caused by vaping? And surely the amount of CO2
| caused by a cigarette is dwarfed by the amount exhaled by a
| person?
| gpm wrote:
| A person outputs about 1kg of CO2 per day, which is less than
| 1 gram per minute. A cigarette weighs roughly a gram, which
| means it probably emits roughly 3 grams of CO2... or less...
| (The O2 comes from the environment, and weighs 32 to carbons
| 12, but the cigarette isn't actually pure carbon).
|
| I don't know... that's maybe detectable? You'd need a pretty
| sensitive CO2 sensor and to be tying it to other signs to
| avoid "someone else walked into and out of the room"... but
| in principle...
| FireBeyond wrote:
| > A person outputs about 1kg of CO2 per day, which is less
| than 1 gram per minute.
|
| I'm skeptical about this. Normal adult tidal volume is
| about 500mg, with a normal respiratory rate of 12/min, so
| 6L/min. Normal air is about 0.05% CO2, so you're at 3
| grams/minute atmospherically that is inspired and expired.
|
| We actually output closer to 4% CO2. 240ml/minute. With the
| windows and doors closed in my 10x20 living space and 4
| people, CO2 can easily go from a baseline 4-500PPM to over
| 1000 in an hour. That's not 240 grams of CO2 doing that.
|
| https://airly.org/en/the-composition-of-inhaled-and-
| exhaled-...
| gpm wrote:
| For what it's worth here's a NASA document using the same
| 1kg/day number: https://ntrs.nasa.gov/api/citations/20090
| 029352/downloads/20...
|
| I don't know where I originally got that value from, it's
| one that has stuck in my head for years.
| vitus wrote:
| You're mixing your units -- 0.05% of 6L is 3mL. In order
| for that to weigh 3g, atmospheric CO2 would have to be as
| dense as water.
|
| Most figures I see peg 1mL of CO2 at closer to 2mg (it's
| about 50% heavier than the equivalent atmospheric volume,
| since that's mostly N2 with some O2). Your estimate of
| 240 mL / minute is about 346L per day, or about 700g of
| CO2. That's roughly the same order of magnitude as the
| cited 1 kg / person / day.
|
| edit: Another way of thinking about it: if you scale up
| your numbers to grams per day, you'd end up with a
| ludicrous 346 kg / human / day. Multiply that by 12/44
| (mass of Carbon-12 vs CO2), and that's the equivalent of
| a human shedding 100kg of carbon every day from just
| breathing. Most humans don't even weigh that much.
| FireBeyond wrote:
| You're absolutely right, I apologize - I did mix units,
| and my thoughts collapse from there.
| whycome wrote:
| (Smoking) computer says no.
| 4b11b4 wrote:
| This reminds me of Hertz new "AI" camera based damage
| detection... Although much less effort... This is the end. May
| _progress_ have mercy on our souls.
| burnt-resistor wrote:
| Hertz is a running joke meme on Steve Lehto's channel, an
| automotive Lemon Law lawyer Youtuber.
| octo888 wrote:
| Knowing Hertz, the 360 degree camera scan still won't be proof
| that you didn't steal the vehicle from them
| tgsovlerkhgsel wrote:
| I think both of these "innovations" will be short lived once
| companies recognize that reputation is still a thing, and once
| you build a reputation of scamming your customers, it's very
| hard to recover from it and the revenue from the scams isn't
| enough to make up for the revenue lost because nobody wants to
| deal with your company anymore.
| kayodelycaon wrote:
| People still use Hertz despite them reporting cars as stolen
| and having their customers arrested.
| tcoff91 wrote:
| At this point if you still use Hertz you are just a dumbass
| straight up.
| jdenning wrote:
| This seems like outright fraud - how can they charge a cleaning
| fee and then perform no cleaning?
| octo888 wrote:
| Just like how car rental companies can charge damage fees and
| not repair it (thus charging it multiple times for multiple
| customers!)
| deanc wrote:
| Time for the EU to legislate on this. Car rental companies
| should be required to provide a detailed report to the
| customer on the damage allowing the customer to challenge any
| potential cost estimation (with reason) that the rental car
| company provides. Then the rental companies should be
| required to prove to the customer the damage was fixed and
| provide the invoice.
| octo888 wrote:
| Careful what you wish for. What you may get in one hand
| they'll take in another. They're pulling other crap like
| cleaning fees for a grain or two of sand too. Should the EU
| our saviour protect us against that?
|
| Plenty alternatives to renting a car in Europe. Hit them
| where it hertz. Take a punt on smaller companies that are
| competing with eg total all inclusive insurance. Yup
| they're a bit more expensive sometimes but can result in an
| better overall experience (there are lots of scammy local
| companies too)
| deanc wrote:
| This could all be covered under legislation. If the EU
| can finally get airlines to agree on hand luggage
| standardisation I'm fairly sure they could agree that any
| additional cleaning or repairs must come with receipts.
| This makes it a lot easier for CC disputes at that point.
| lxgr wrote:
| Yes, laws should generally protect consumers against
| predatory business practices, even if it affects the
| businesses' bottom line.
|
| I'd rather be charged a bit more upfront than to see
| mystery charges showing up on my card after I check out
| or return a car in the same condition I received it.
|
| Allowing this type of stuff to go unpunished also just
| hurts honest businesses and distorts the market, since in
| travel search aggregators, the primary sorting criterion
| is price.
| burnt-resistor wrote:
| Or apartment managers charge a "cleaning fee" when it was
| already proven clean.
| yonatan8070 wrote:
| Exactly my thinking. If I get this smoking charge but haven't
| smoked, I should be able to go to my credit card provider and
| tell them to get me my 500$ back
| tialaramex wrote:
| Leases often work this way. In theory it's illegal in the UK
| (for a home, businesses are assumed to be big boys who can
| negotiate on equal footing) but it's still pretty common to be
| charged when you move out. Specifically UK law says "reasonable
| wear and tear" is just an expected cost of people living in a
| house you let to them - so e.g. they're going to wear out
| carpet after some years, but a cigar burn is not OK, the walls
| won't look pristine but there shouldn't be graffiti, that sort
| of thing. They should vacuum floors but it's not reasonable to
| expect dust to magically vanish from every nook.
|
| In practice in many cases you move out leaving the place very
| habitable, you get told they "had" to clean up your mess, and
| it's a suspiciously round number like PS80 and they have plenty
| more "necessary" charges like this. In theory in the UK they're
| required to provide receipts showing their actual expense, but
| in practice they're looking at this as free revenue and most of
| their clients can't fight back.
|
| I was buying, freeing me from the obvious revenge if I say
| "Fuck you" but there were a lot of other things to do for the
| move and having fought them down from the original outrageous
| fees they wanted I gave up although I did get as far as
| reporting them to their regulator and threatening legal action.
| In hindsight I'm quite sure I _could_ have got to $0 and
| possibly also got the most senior woman who was straight up
| lying and clearly had done all this many times removed from the
| register of people fit to let out properties, but I didn 't and
| I feel bad about that.
| jplrssn wrote:
| They absolutely prey on people not being having the
| time/resources to fight back.
|
| A friend in the UK had his deposit withheld as "mail charges"
| by his landlord upon moving out. Turned out the fine print in
| his lease said that he wasn't allowed to receive mail at the
| house he was legally renting.
| hdgvhicv wrote:
| I have no idea what "mail" is, but I'd love to see the
| result of the outcome when they issues a challenge at the
| deposit protection company.
| jplrssn wrote:
| > I have no idea what "mail" is
|
| Not a native speaker. How do you refer to the pieces of
| paper that the Royal Mail sometimes drop through your
| letterbox?
| Macha wrote:
| Ironically, despite the company being called the Royal
| Mail, the letters it delivers are referred to as "post".
|
| This is unlike the US Postal Service, which delivers
| "mail".
| jplrssn wrote:
| Interesting! Thanks.
| dwroberts wrote:
| > his lease said that he wasn't allowed to receive mail at
| the house he was legally renting.
|
| Pretty sure that is not a stipulation you can legally put
| in a tenancy contract. Because both parties have to be able
| to serve notice on the other via post in writing. Same
| reason you are legally entitled to know the postal address
| of the landlord.
| jplrssn wrote:
| I'm sure you are right, but that didn't stop the landlord
| from trying their luck. Your observation about serving
| notice is on point, because in the end the deposit was
| returned only after my friend filed a small claims case
| against them.
| FireBeyond wrote:
| I had friends whose landlord attempted to charge them
| cleaning fees for an apartment that they were renovating down
| to the studs (and had told them that, etc. They'd been
| working through the complex.
|
| They had to go to small claims. You can't claim a repair fee
| for some scratches and dents in drywall that you had
| crowbarred out the day after vacation of the property.
| pixl97 wrote:
| Always take full pictures of a unit the day you move in
| before any items are in, and the day you move out after
| cleaning. That's already saved me once when a property
| manager tried to do this to us.
| FireBeyond wrote:
| Hah, an apartment complex I was at had me go sit in the
| PM's office _prior_ to our move out inspection. "She'll
| be with you in a minute". Without snooping (I just caught
| my name on a form on her desk out of the corner of my
| eye), I noticed that it was my move out inspection form.
|
| It already had remarks on it like "blinds dirty, need
| professional cleaning", "scuffs on drywall, needs
| painting", "carpet stains, need professional cleaning".
|
| Huh.
|
| She comes in, grabs the paperwork from her desk and says
| "Alright, let's do this". "Actually, I couldn't help but
| notice you'd already started charging me for things
| before we've even inspected the apartment". Cue some
| stammering. "Oh... uhh... that's strange. That must have
| already been on the form when I copied it from someone
| else's" (Oh, really, the printed form with my info with
| blue pen writing?).
|
| And then there was the time that I needed a six month
| lease, but the PM company didn't want to do less than 12.
| I said "what it I pay the six months in full, up front,
| and the lease has no extension, so you know that I'll be
| gone and you can be planning for the next tenant in
| advance?". They talk to the owner, sure, that will work.
| I write a check for $14,000, six months rent at
| $2,000/mo, plus a security deposit. "That will be
| $18,000, actually." Huh? "We also need first and last
| month." Uhhh, what? It took far too long to explain to
| them that they were getting first, last, and the
| intermediary in the form of $12K. And got the distinct
| impression, from the stubborn inability to "comprehend"
| and "explain" that they thought that I wouldn't question
| it and just hand over another $4,000.
| heisenbit wrote:
| Lost my deposit in the U.K. way back so it is not a new
| phenomenon. Landlords were lawyers so I figured it is not
| worth fighting especially from abroad.
| hdgvhicv wrote:
| Far better with the deposit protection. You aren't tying to
| get money back from a landlord, they're trying yo get you
| to agree to release some of it, it's effectively held in
| escrow.
| Symbiote wrote:
| I've received thousands of pounds back twice, by arguing my
| case with the Deposit Protection Scheme.
|
| It wasn't difficult, though it helped that I'd taken lots of
| pictures on the day I moved out
| IncreasePosts wrote:
| Do you know they don't do cleaning? They might bring an ozone
| machine into the room or something
|
| Maybe it should be called an accelerated asset deprecation fee.
| dawnerd wrote:
| I bet Rest just uses a cheap voc sensor and triggers when a set
| threshold is hit. I doubt there's any algorithm involved.
| burnt-resistor wrote:
| Yep. And these things trigger from things including hairspray,
| nail polish remover, nail polish, microwaved food, and more.
| I'm constantly watching "VOCs" on a cheapo Amazon AQM change
| whenever I cook.
| ekidd wrote:
| Yeah, stovetop cooking makes your VOC and particulate numbers
| look like a bad day on an LA freeway.
|
| The other thing that's surprisingly nasty for air quality is
| incense. You might live in the woods with excellent air
| quality, but burn some incense and suddenly all the VOC and
| particulate numbers look like downtown Manhattan. It's ironic
| that incense is a massive air pollutant, but not really
| surprising.
| amluto wrote:
| Having played with an SGP41 (a current-gen VOC sensor), you
| _cannot_ correctly do anything involving a threshold. The
| sensor has a couple of nasty properties, all well documented in
| the datasheet:
|
| - It has a lot of low frequency noise (timescale of hours to
| days), so you need to do some sort of high pass filter.
|
| - The responses to different VOC compounds don't even
| necessarily have the same _sign_.
|
| So the sensor gives you a "raw" reading that you are supposed
| to post-process with a specific algorithm to produce a "VOC
| index" that, under steady state conditions, is a constant
| irrespective of the actual VOC level. And then you look at it
| over time and it will go to a higher value to indicate
| something like "it's probably stinkier now than it was half an
| hour ago".
|
| This, of course, cannot distinguish smoking from perfume or
| from anything else, nor is it even particularly reliable at
| indicating anything at all.
|
| Modern PM2.5 meters are actually pretty good, although they
| struggle in high humidity conditions. But they still can't
| distinguish smoking from other sources on fine particles.
| jojobas wrote:
| >some sort of high pass filter
|
| Quite some algorithm you got there!
| amluto wrote:
| There is a concrete algorithm, IIRC complete with
| pseudocode, in the datasheet. You can find open source
| implementations in various places. And you can have your
| own opinion about whether the algorithm is fit for your
| particular purpose.
| jddj wrote:
| Yeah, since 2023 or thereabouts all of these chips claim AI
| anyway.
| serf wrote:
| if you think a 'cheap sensor' is doing much of anything without
| the involvement of an algorithm somewhere then might I suggest
| you try to use (any) cheap sensor.
|
| algorithms are one of the only things that make cheap equipment
| usable. That cheap voc sensor is going to be a noisy mess on
| the line.
| dawnerd wrote:
| I do use them throughout the house and I didn't have to write
| a single algorithm because the libraries available handle
| that for you. What I was meaning was they don't have any
| magic sauce. The most I can see them doing is maybe est voc
| greater than x for y duration.
|
| I guess you could pedantically say see that's an algorithm!
| But you know what they're heavily implying in their
| marketing...
| whatever1 wrote:
| What if the product is just a random number generator?
| SoftTalker wrote:
| Probably detecting the VOC from the synthetic carpet and
| mattress.
| const_cast wrote:
| It would be more profitable, and honestly probably more
| accurate, if the sensor was just a plastic box and then the app
| rolled a random number.
| chneu wrote:
| Tire shops do this by siping your tires and then offering you a
| refund if you complain that you never wanted it. But they do it
| without asking to everyone and then charge $60 hoping nobody
| notices.
| octo888 wrote:
| Unbelievably brazen to not bother trying to push an upsell, and
| just charge it without authorisation. Crazy
| lisper wrote:
| Siping?
| shawn_w wrote:
| Cutting into a tire to improve traction.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siping_(rubber)
| ralferoo wrote:
| Just from the description, that sounds like a case could be
| made for willful property damage if they did it without
| authorisation.
| BlackFly wrote:
| I'd refuse to pay the charge on check out. If they charged my
| card anyways I would demand a refund and inform the consumer
| protection agency, wait 30 days and issue the chargeback. Luckily
| these things work well in my nation.
| sneak wrote:
| AmEx used to be good about doing chargebacks generally, but
| they once sided with the merchant during covid when I was sold
| an impossible itinerary and cost me $2k.
|
| Since then I realized that I won't always be able to do a
| chargeback, and I am much more cautious with vendors.
| wombat-man wrote:
| Chase was really weird about doing a chargeback for me when a
| restaurant charged me a second time under a different name a
| month after my visit. It took several phone calls and they
| eventually credited my account but they would not do a
| chargeback. Two identical charges a month apart. I could show
| that I wasn't even in the same state for the second one.
| giraffe_lady wrote:
| Yeah the frequent advice to just do a chargeback as a
| consumer protection action is out of date. It is quite hard
| to get a bank or CC company to do one now even if you have
| solid evidence you're in the right. I don't really know
| when this changed, I guess over the last 5-8 years.
| csomar wrote:
| I think there are exceptions about "exigent circumstances"
| and COVID was considered one. My EU flight was not refunded
| as well despite the EU having strong protections. The
| airlines, at the time, were given a life-line.
|
| I think these once in-a-decade or more events can be
| swallowed. But wouldn't be happy with a regular occurrence.
| jml78 wrote:
| Which is crazy to me. I had purchased international airline
| tickets 9 months prior to COVID.
|
| Covid happened and everything was cancelled. The airline
| refused to refund, only give credit. The issue is that it
| was on an airline that was useless to me because this trip
| was cancelled and we were going to be rescheduling.
|
| Did a chargeback with Apple even though I was past the
| date, they still gave me my money back. I was shocked
| lxgr wrote:
| That's just credit (and for that matter most debit) cards
| working as designed. A card payment is only considered
| final once goods or services have been delivered on the
| agreed-upon date. For travel, this can well be months
| after the actual transaction date, but doesn't change
| anything about your dispute rights.
|
| Unfortunately some European banks aren't too familiar
| with these rules, especially when bankruptcy law is
| involved.
| dilyevsky wrote:
| Ive had good experiences with Apple doing chargebacks
| although my cases were pretty open and shut. Can't say
| that about other issuers though including amex
| surprisingly
| progbits wrote:
| Yes they should be swallowed, but by the business/card
| company, not the consumer. They can decide if they want to
| get insured for that or not. It's ridiculous to subsidize
| their business risks.
| lxgr wrote:
| Was the flight canceled or were you not able to go due to
| travel restrictions?
|
| If it's the former, then your bank didn't properly handle
| your chargeback case. There was no Covid exemption for
| regular "goods/services not provided" chargebacks, which
| includes canceled flights.
|
| You not being able to take a flight due to travel
| restrictions (even if imposed after booking) is usually not
| covered under that, though.
| rendaw wrote:
| GP said impossible itinerary though, not that it was
| unexpectedly canceled due to the pandemic.
| hdgvhicv wrote:
| Impossible for what reason. Sounds like the airline would
| be happy to adjust if things like minimum connection
| times changed, but the flights still ran (or maybe a
| minor timing change)
|
| If the country entry requirements changed, that's not the
| airline that's liable - just like if the country
| cancelled your visa. Talk to your insurance company.
| dangus wrote:
| Well the point is you can't really refuse it. They won't rent
| you the room unless you have a card on file authorized to make
| charges for incidentals.
| blibble wrote:
| the fact they have a card on file is irrelevant
|
| they're not allowed to make up charges wherever they feel
| like it just because they have your card details
|
| the payment doesn't settle for something like 6 months anyway
| dangus wrote:
| But of course you sign a contract upon check-in that says
| you will pay a fee if you're caught smoking, and they're
| paying a service to make a paper trail to that effect.
| jzwinck wrote:
| Not about smoking but I recently stayed at a W hotel and was
| woken in the middle of the night by the room lights turning on.
| They used electronic push buttons and I turned them off. Seconds
| later they turned on again. This repeated several times until I
| was fully awake and called the front desk.
|
| "We can come put tape on the sensors."
|
| "What sensors?"
|
| "There are sensors under the bed."
|
| "Oh, so you already know about this problem but haven't fixed it.
| Thanks, please don't send anyone."
|
| I then looked under the bed and sure enough there was a motion
| detector on each side. I removed these from their brackets and
| let them dangle facing the floor instead of outward. This blinded
| them and solved the problem. I guess they were malfunctioning or
| they were able to detect motion above the bed via reflections.
|
| The next day I reported this to the front desk, who were
| unsympathetic and unhelpful. They told me it was for my own
| safety. Apparently at other hotels I have just been incredibly
| lucky not to have fallen down when getting out of bed.
|
| I will not stay at a W hotel again unless I can confirm in
| advance that they do not have motion detectors under the bed
| which spuriously turn the lights on at night. Maybe I'll add
| Hyatt to the no-go list.
| em-bee wrote:
| there was a monster under your bed...
| tehwebguy wrote:
| Stayed at a Hilton owned property recently and the fan / light
| used a wireless controller and someone else's room was
| controlling mine!
| netsharc wrote:
| All these gadgetry.. seems like we'll need to bring an EMP
| blaster to hotels to "sanitize" the room..
| card_zero wrote:
| Strange choice, fitting rooms with a novel device to annoy
| guests. Do you suppose it's because somebody fell out of bed
| and sued? And then maybe some other people thought that was a
| good idea, and they fell out of bed too, and now the hotels
| have to have the annoying thing.
| jzwinck wrote:
| I find it somewhat unlikely, as this particular W hotel was
| not in a country known for personal injury lawsuits.
|
| More likely it was sold to them by some interior design firm
| as a luxury feature. Unfortunately it's only helpful if
| you're alone--even if it worked correctly you wouldn't want
| the room lights turning on just because your spouse got up.
| Scoundreller wrote:
| Can easily see this as another profit centre. If you paid
| for single occupancy and call down because the lights come
| on every time your partner gets up, hit 'em with a big
| fine.
| SilasX wrote:
| Oh wow I ran into problems with those too. When I brought my
| cats to a Hilton, they would get the zoomies and run around at
| random in the middle of the night, which would make the lights
| turn on. I think I found some way to block the sensor.
| quickthrowman wrote:
| Why the hell would they put occupancy sensors below the bed
| that trigger the overhead lights, that's an absurd solution to
| people tripping and falling at night, provide a nightlight that
| costs $2 instead of (2) $100 occ sensor/relays.
|
| Possibly the issue was they used PIR/ultrasonic (aka dual-tech)
| sensors and the ultrasonic one was picking up vibrations, I've
| seen that happen in tenant spaces before and turning down the
| ultrasonic sensitivity fixed it.
|
| I run electrical work and if I was asked to install these, I
| would've written a sarcastic RFI to make sure the customer
| actually wanted to do something this stupid and expensive vs a
| $2 nightlight in a receptacle.
| Marsymars wrote:
| I don't know about $2, but for $35 you can get some nice
| motion-sensing nightlights, e.g.
| https://casper.com/products/glow-nightlight
| dreamcompiler wrote:
| Stayed at a Marriott property in Germany that had these. Got up
| in the middle of the night to pee and the automatic lights woke
| up my partner.
|
| I carry black electrical tape whenever I travel. It's marvelous
| for disabling sensors and covering up too-bright LEDs that
| light up the room all night.
| Marsymars wrote:
| Do you take the tape off when you leave?
| dreamcompiler wrote:
| Yes.
|
| One could argue that I shouldn't because I'm "improving"
| their property but reasonable people could disagree about
| the definition of "improving." Bottom line is that it's
| their property and their rules but if I can make a
| nondestructive change to make the place more comfortable
| while I'm staying there, I will.
| abbadadda wrote:
| This is a microcosm for enshittification writ large. If no one
| cares about your individual complaint you're fucked. Only in
| numbers do consumers wield any power. The 48 Laws of Power says,
| "what is unseen counts for nothing." So make it seen. Make
| bullshit like this visible. And vote with your dollars. Better
| yet sue the smoke detector company. Make them demonstrate their
| flawless false positive rate in court. Bullshit, grifting
| companies keep getting away with stuff like this because there
| are no consequences. Make them feel it where it hurts the most:
| their bank account.
| datahack wrote:
| I have a startup idea for you my friend...
| walterbell wrote:
| Paging DoNotPay.com bots..
| ddingus wrote:
| "enshittification writ large."
|
| Good grief! We are actually going to have a shit list now:
|
| Hertz, Hyatt are the first two entries in this historic
| development..
| neonate wrote:
| https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1945959030851035223.html
| cpard wrote:
| From their FAQ: "Is it worth the investment?
|
| Absolutely. Hotels equipped with Rest have seen an 84x increase
| in smoking fine collection. Plus, our smoking detection
| technology helps prevent damage to rooms and reduce a number of
| future violations."
|
| Apparently there are way more people smoking than we thought
| there are or the sensor just generates a lot of false positives.
|
| The language they are using all over the site is very interesting
| though, see here an example:
|
| From how it works:
|
| "Automatically charge
|
| If smoking is detected, your staff gets notified, simplifying the
| process of charging smoking fees."
|
| With a system with false positives, it makes total sense to use
| real time notifications to staff to go and check what's going on,
| that would be legit, but then on top saying that you
| automatically charge?
|
| It almost feels like they are selling a way to fraud to their
| customers while covering themselves against any litigation by
| using the right copy in there to support that it's the
| responsibility of the Hotel staff to go and check in real time
| that the violation is actually happening.
| jfengel wrote:
| Is there that much smoking in hotels? Do they charge more for
| smoking rooms?
|
| A number like 84x suggests that it's basically zero now. That
| kinda makes sense. The only one who would notice is the
| cleaning staff, and relying on their word for "it smelled like
| smoke" sounds like a way to get a chargeback. They'd call you
| on it only if they were forced to take the room out of rotation
| to air it out.
|
| So maybe there are a lot of people smoking just a little
| (perhaps a joint), and getting away with it. That might make a
| number like 84x work.
| vkou wrote:
| A number like 84x implies that it's almost entirely false
| positives.
| gpm wrote:
| No... it could be false positives, it could also be that
| almost no one (~1%) of smokers were caught before and this
| is actually a miracle technology that detects smoking.
|
| Frankly it tracks that almost no one was caught before.
| vkou wrote:
| The hotels don't ever catch people in the act, they just
| let housekeeping report that the room smells like smoke
| and they take the fine out of your deposit.
|
| That's _why_ they demand a deposit (or a card), by the
| way.
| SoftTalker wrote:
| Leave a $20 for the housekeeper and you won't get
| reported.
| const_cast wrote:
| > Frankly it tracks that almost no one was caught before.
|
| How? How does this track?
|
| Cigarette smoking is very conspicuous. I know, I used to
| smoke. It's not easy to hide!
|
| If you smoke inside, _it will smell like smoke_. Fabric
| and even plaster in walls will hold onto smoke for a long
| time. Not to mention the smoke smell goes under doors,
| too, so someone outside the room could smell it.
|
| If someone smokes in a room and you walk in any time in
| the next 12 hours, you will be able to tell. That means
| the cleaning staff should be able to detect smoke very
| well. Keep in mind, this is assuming you don't set off
| the smoke alarms, which is ALSO very easy to do in a
| hotel room because the ceilings are very low!
|
| The only way around this is smoking outside, like on a
| balcony. Which, I'm sure, is against the rules too - but
| it doesn't harm anyone if you can't even detect it, so
| I'm not sure it's a problem.
| aerostable_slug wrote:
| They might be trying to indirectly generate revenue from
| legal marijuana.
|
| Places like Vegas have a huge amount of recreational
| sales to tourists. They're clearly smoking the product
| somewhere, and it's not on the casino floor. One might
| bet they are engaging in some amount of activity with the
| potential to generate revenue for the hotel.
| gpm wrote:
| Eh, just because most people don't report most rule
| violations... And on the flip side most organizations
| don't really encourage their employees to report rule
| violations.
|
| Hotel cleaning staff could be an exception, I don't know,
| it would strike me as a mildly but not hugely surprising
| one.
| john-h-k wrote:
| It doesn't imply that. I'm pretty sure it _is_ all false
| positives, but that number does not imply that. It could
| simply be that only ~1 in 84 smokers was being fined before
| jfengel wrote:
| A large number of false positives would likely show up as
| a deluge of negative reviews. "They charged me $500 and
| I've never smoked in my life". Surely some of those would
| be lies, and you'd have to dig them out from the existing
| pile of petty grievances that result in bad reviews. But
| I suspect it would still be pretty clear if there were
| that many false positives.
| hinkley wrote:
| No, this is a statistics trope. "Our revenue has grown
| 50x this year" always means "our revenue was <something
| laughable like $100> and now it's <something still
| laughable like $5000>"
|
| Because when your revenue goes from $10 million to half a
| billion, you just say that. Percentages are papering over
| bad initial or final conditions.
| SoftTalker wrote:
| Drug companies do it all the time. They market something
| as providing a "50% reduction" in some metric and in the
| fine print you find it's a change from 0.5% to 0.25% in
| occurrence.
| hinkley wrote:
| 50% reduction in death rate sounds impressive until you
| find out it's 3 out of 8 billion people, true.
| ludicrousdispla wrote:
| The last time I walked into a hotel room that smelled like
| cigarette smoke was in 1998, so I would think this is very
| uncommon.
| zeroonetwothree wrote:
| I had one in 2022. I immediately asked for a different
| room.
| jfengel wrote:
| I can't recall the last time. Smoking in the US is way, way
| down. Not gone, to be sure, but it was crashing even before
| vapes.
| Marsymars wrote:
| In particular, it's way, way down among the cohort of the
| population that have lifestyles amenable to staying in
| hotel rooms.
| SoftTalker wrote:
| Truck drivers and lots of trades crews (e.g. linesmen)
| stay in hotels all the time. But typically they are not
| staying at the Hyatt.
|
| There is a whole tier of hotels and other services
| targeted at the traveling working class which you won't
| encounter as a highly paid tech professional simply
| because your company won't book you there.
| aerostable_slug wrote:
| I chatted with a motel owner in the middle of nowhere,
| Arizona who made his yearly nut off seasonal melon
| pickers, usually Mexican nationals on agricultural work
| visas. They need a place to stay, too. Otherwise, he had
| the kind of quiet, far out of the way old motel you see
| in horror movies (which I particularly love) and the odd
| foreign film set in America.
|
| I ran into traveling road crews (as in CalTrans
| contractors building highways) visiting a facility for my
| current employer. Interesting crowd. The pay is good, and
| the only real requirements seem to be the willingness to
| wake up early, work hard, and not be insufferable to work
| with.
| SoftTalker wrote:
| When you just need a shower and a bed there's nothing
| wrong with the old roadside motel, the kind where each
| room opens directly to the outside and you park right in
| front of the door. Mostly long gone, though a few remain
| here and there.
| asdff wrote:
| I wouldn't be so quick to say that. Depends on the
| pricepoint of the hotel, the cohort with lifestyles
| amenable to staying in hotel rooms varies from business
| travel to escorts and drug dealers.
| satellite2 wrote:
| Using an ozone generator you can remove all odors in a
| medium sized room in less than 30min. Only poorly organized
| cleaning staff would have this issue.
| drawnwren wrote:
| Which makes me ask why we even need smoking fees then?
| rrrrrrrrrrrryan wrote:
| I thought it was a little tougher than that? I know it
| costs at least a few hundred bucks and takes a day or two
| to ozone a small apartment, which would roughly line up
| with the $500 fine this hotel charges.
| userbinator wrote:
| An ozone generator itself doesn't cost much and the only
| recurring cost is the power it draws, which is also low
| (dozens of watts).
| kjkjadksj wrote:
| Last time this happened for me was 2024. Note to self,
| don't buy the cheapest hotel possible. It will smell like a
| blunt wrap.
| BeFlatXIII wrote:
| I can't imagine people getting charged by this system not
| doing chargebacks.
| gamblor956 wrote:
| _Is there that much smoking in hotels?_
|
| Surprisingly, yes. Smoking experienced a significant uptick
| during COVID.
|
| Post-COVID, a lot of the housekeeping staff wear masks when
| cleaning guest rooms, so they're not always able to notice
| the smells that a guest would notice upon first entering the
| room.
|
| I've had to get 3 out of my last 10 hotel rooms changed
| because the previous occupant smoked. On my last business
| trip, this resulted in an upgrade to a suite because they had
| no more regular rooms available.
| UltraSane wrote:
| This is Fraud as a Service.
| palmfacehn wrote:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ADE_651
| amelius wrote:
| Hanlon's razor doesn't cut it anymore.
| hiatus wrote:
| I personally believe Hanlon's razor should never be applied to
| corporations. A solitary person, sure, but when multiple people
| are involved it tends more to malice than ignorance.
| xnx wrote:
| Next step: Hertz installs these in their cars.
| justlikereddit wrote:
| The MBA way to earn money of AI and automation.
|
| "Computer says pay me $$$"
|
| "Why"
|
| "AI demands it!"
| lcnPylGDnU4H9OF wrote:
| So someone does not smoke in their room but they're charged for
| cleaning anyway because a third party (Rest) told the hotel that
| they smoked in their room. What sort of evidence should one
| gather during their stay to make the strongest possible
| (defamation? fraud?) case against Rest? (Not that anyone wants to
| do that on their trip, just curious about the legal
| implications.)
| jfengel wrote:
| Would it work if it were real time? You light up, and five
| minutes later a manager knocks.
|
| Dunno about the legality of refusing to open the door, but it
| does sound like a way to get banned from a hotel chain.
| lcnPylGDnU4H9OF wrote:
| Yeah, that's totally fair. At least they'll have testimony
| that the smoking was actually witnessed. Most people aren't
| going to even bother fighting that since it actually
| happened. I just worry about abuse cases and the most obvious
| one here is false positives being assumed true by everyone
| who profits from them.
|
| Edit:
|
| Sorry, that's from the wrong point of view but I don't think
| the answer changes. It seems Rest will have to change a lot
| of their marketing language to really avoid liability but if
| someone is actually caught smoking then it's not likely to
| manifest.
| jfengel wrote:
| The great thing about that kind of human validation is that
| if they get a lot of false positives, the managers will
| start ignoring all of the alerts.
|
| It would be unfair to charge people with just a black box
| algorithm. But a few door knocks could fix that, one way or
| the other.
| zeroonetwothree wrote:
| Generally you have no rights in a hotel to prevent entry.
| goopypoop wrote:
| Is it reasonable to make "use your body to test for
| carcinogens" part of the manager's job description?
| xg15 wrote:
| From the thread, it sounds as if they don't even pretend this
| is about cleaning, they're just saying "we're a smoke-free
| hotel, so smoking costs $500 as a punitive measure, period".
|
| I wonder if they could legally separate this from any real-
| world activities completely? During check-in, put a clause in
| the contract "if our partner company says so, you have to pay
| $500 extra. By signing, you agree to that" - without any
| reference to smoking at all.
|
| I hope this wouldn't be legal, but it sounds like it could be.
| DudeOpotomus wrote:
| Religious freedom may come into play here. Incense and
| candles are a basis for many faiths so assigning a fee on
| people practicing their faith will cost them in court and in
| payouts.
| redserk wrote:
| Not unless the hotel is government owned or fall into a few
| very specific carveouts.
| DudeOpotomus wrote:
| If I got one of these I'd pay it and never, ever, ever stay at
| any hotel owned by the entity again. Being that I spend $25k-50k
| a year on hotels, their loss is a small hotel's gain.
|
| In fact, whoever does this will lose my business ahead of time as
| I will never stay at any hotel that uses this service. A few
| minutes on Tripadvisor and you'll know.
|
| Such incredible business myopia. Hotels are one of the few
| businesses that loyalty is not only a boon, but a necessity for
| survival. Without brand loyalty, hotels suffer.
| vintermann wrote:
| Often I wonder if some scammers (and this is totally a scam)
| basically pay a premium to feel like they've outsmarted people,
| or for the smirking satisfaction that their victims can't do
| anything about it. Some scams are so much work for so little
| gain, or so obviously counterproductive in anything but the
| short term, that it seems like that.
| DudeOpotomus wrote:
| No, it's just stupidity and myopia. Like those screens that
| replaced glass beverage cases in liquor stores a few years
| ago. Not one customer liked them. Not one customer wanted
| them and the results were beyond terrible. People literally
| stopped buying. But people actually invested millions into
| that company and other people actually bought their products
| and thought "gee this is great". Imagine how disconnected you
| have to be from your customers to make such an investment
| and/or installation for a few bucks? Stupid is as stupid
| does...
| egypturnash wrote:
| I seem to recall hearing that there was a person high up in
| the management of at least one of the store chains that did
| this who had a ton of financial interest in the company
| that made those door-screens.
| kirubakaran wrote:
| Whenever some decision doesn't make sense, you can count
| on corruption (self-dealing, nepotism, kick-backs, or
| plain old embezzlement).
|
| Never attribute to stupidity that which is adequately
| explained by grift.
| SoftTalker wrote:
| Maybe I don't go to liquor stores often enough but I can't
| imagine what you are talking about.
| archagon wrote:
| https://amp.cnn.com/cnn/2022/03/12/business/walgreens-
| freeze...
| SoftTalker wrote:
| LOL. Screens as in video. I was imagining wire mesh. I
| guess that shows my age.
|
| But no, I have not seen the coolers with video screens
| for doors anywhere around here either.
| eszed wrote:
| LOL! I'd never seen those, either. Must not be a priority
| in my region, or I haven't been to a Walgreens recently.
| But, here's the reason:
|
| > front-facing sensors used to anonymously track shoppers
| interacting with the platform
|
| From my (albeit limited) experience with tech platforms
| like this, it probably is anonymous - but they're scary
| good at identifying your age and gender, and what you
| look at before you buy. That's the data they're
| immediately after.
|
| Of course, they've probably already built a "shadow"
| profile of you based on your mobile phone identity, so
| they could cross-reference that if they cared to, and
| then a loyalty profile they could connect to that. So,
| yeah... The fridge data is _technically_ anonymous, but,
| you know, data can be connected together in all sorts of
| ways. Privacy is dead.
| badc0ffee wrote:
| > Like those screens that replaced glass beverage cases in
| liquor stores a few years ago.
|
| The what now?
| mindslight wrote:
| For what it's worth, when I run into trash like that, I
| just open the door(s) and eave/prop them open while I
| browse. The entire point of having glass was so that people
| could browse without having to open the door, but
| apparently that doesn't matter to them any more.
| NewJazz wrote:
| The hotel chain probably had no input into the decision to add
| this. Hyatt is just a franchise for many hotels. Call up /email
| the chain's corporate folks and tell them about the charge and
| that you'll not stay in their chain of hotels unless they can
| guarantee the devices are banned from the franchise. If you
| really spend that much on hotels every year your demand would
| at least raise some eyebrows.
| zeroonetwothree wrote:
| It's tricky because the chains (like "Hyatt") don't actually
| own any hotels. They are generally owned by local ownership
| groups and it can be hard to figure out the real owner.
|
| That's also why one Hyatt could be 5/5 and another 1/5. The
| chains don't do a great job of quality control.
| hn_throwaway_99 wrote:
| That's a cop out. What's the point of a brand if quality
| control is all over the place?
|
| Most McDonald's are franchises, and they famously give very
| similar experiences wherever you are. Not identical,
| obviously, but a Big Mac is a Big Mac.
|
| This is absolutely on Hyatt corporate. They should have
| policies regulating these types of detection systems.
| dhalsten wrote:
| I agree that Hyatt needs to take some responsibility, but
| not all franchises are equal, e.g. prior to inflation it
| was ~1-2M USD investment average to startup a McDonalds,
| you still must follow their rules, and it's not hands-off.
| inetknght wrote:
| > _What 's the point of a brand if quality control is all
| over the place?_
|
| Extracting rents comes in all shapes and sizes.
| lblume wrote:
| But in that case brand association is an empty signal. As
| a paying customer, I can't meaningfully infer anything
| from it, and would thus best disregard it entirely.
| asdff wrote:
| They lock you in mostly with loyalty incentives vs brand
| recognition. Ask any of your friends who travels for work
| frequently where they stay and why. The answer always has
| to do with the points on offer not the experience which
| is more or less the same across most hotels and
| pricepoints until you reach a very very high pricepoint.
| DudeOpotomus wrote:
| This isnt exactly true. They do not own the property but
| their contracts give them full ownership over policies and
| processes of the location. It's an essential part of their
| brand by the way, to assure continuity.
| ndkap wrote:
| If Hyatt is providing its name for a fee, then Hyatt indeed
| has responsibility for this incident
| photonthug wrote:
| > Without brand loyalty, hotels suffer.
|
| Executive decision makers won't though. It's clear that
| consolidation in many sectors has gotten to the point that
| consumer power is an absolute joke and "ignore them, abuse
| them, and just defraud them" is a standard business model. Even
| if there's litigation.. this crap just overwhelms services so
| that basically the public pays twice. Witness the situation
| where various attorney generals have said that Facebook
| outsources customer support to the taxpayer when the attitude
| for handling everything is simply "don't like it? so sue us,
| good luck"
|
| For anything smaller than Facebook though, it's hard to
| understand why brands/investors/business owners tolerate their
| decision makers encouraging wild abuse and short-term thinking
| like this, knowing that after brand loyalty is destroyed the
| Hyatt leadership will still get a bonus and fail upwards to
| another position at another company after claiming they helped
| to "modernize" a legacy brand. Is the thinking just that
| destroying everything is fine, because investors in the know
| will all exit before a crash and leave someone else holding the
| bag? With leadership and investors taking this attitude, I
| think it's natural that more and more workers get onboard with
| their own petty exploitation and whatever sabotage they can
| manage (hanging up on customers, quiet-quitting to defraud
| their bosses, etc). And that's how/why the social contract is
| just broken now at almost every level.
| DudeOpotomus wrote:
| This is what actually kills brands. The funny thing is our
| collective memory is short, so a brand killed by poor product
| and bad decisions is often revitalized by PE a few years
| later, because of brand recognition.
| photonthug wrote:
| Actually I think the public tends to generalize their
| complaints/injuries and act in the most spiteful ways that
| are available to them. For example, decades of bad
| experiences at the DMV translates into cries that we should
| defund the post-office, NSF, etc, no matter how irrational
| that is.
|
| But capital has a playbook now that's pretty effective at
| dodging this kind of backlash, like the "advertising
| without signal" thing that's also on the front page right
| now is pointing out. That article mentions "Disposable
| brand identities" which does seem relevant here even if
| that piece is mainly talking about the relationship between
| amazon/manufacturers/consumers. Part of what PE is
| accomplishing is brand/liability laundering, but brands
| head in this direction anyway before they fail. Consumers
| can't typically look at list of 10-20 "different" hotel
| brands and really tell which are under the same umbrella.
|
| And all this is kind of assuming consumer choice exists and
| is still meaningful, but when you need a hotel you need a
| hotel. If Hyatt gets away with this abuse, every hotel will
| do it soon, and capital can just wait out any boycott.
| MichaelZuo wrote:
| The only reason any businesses using tricks can get away
| with it, for any significant time, is because their
| customers rather pay less and endure some tricks than pay
| more to the honest upright folks elsewhere.
|
| So it's the customers themselves intentionally seeking
| out less than completely honest businesses to spend their
| money at because it's X% cheaper.
|
| Hyatt is typically considered an above average chain but
| I don't think any HN reader would have thought them to be
| 100% honest and straightforward in 100% of locations.
| bbarnett wrote:
| I wonder if the company making the detectors, pitched them on a
| free install.
|
| They sound networked, so what if they only get cash, every time
| there is a hit? So the hotel is getting 1/2.
|
| And with contracts like these, come with hefty fines if people
| back out. Even if the hotel now realises it's too sensitive,
| lots of false positives, the hotel now has to _prove_ it, or
| pay big.
|
| If the hotel refunds the guest, the hotel still owes the fee!
|
| Quite the trap for the hotel.
| mrandish wrote:
| Sounds similar to the red light traffic camera revenue
| sharing scam. Free or discounted install and then revenue
| share. Both the supplier and location owner have every
| incentive to trigger false positives to make more money. In
| both cases this 'business model' is exploiting asymmetry in
| power dynamics.
|
| Also, in both cases it's subverting and abusing a cost-
| effective technology which, if used appropriately, could be
| beneficial and all-around positive. If it was really about
| stopping illicit smoking in hotels, preventing annoying other
| guests with the smell and potential extra cleaning, the front
| desk would just call the room and say they got an alert on
| the smoke detector and will have to send someone up if it
| triggers again. If people are smoking/vaping, they'll very
| likely stop. Problem solved. Instead they silently stick a
| charge on the bill received at check out, proving what they
| really care about.
|
| Because of this scummy money-grabbing misuse of the tech, it
| will get a terrible reputation and consumer push back like
| boycotts, lawsuits, regulation or banning will eventually
| lead to it being restricted even for appropriate, beneficial
| applications. The same thing happened with red light traffic
| cameras. My city banned them without ever adopting them
| because of the abusive scams happening in other cities. It's
| sad because when someone blows through a red light at high
| speed long after the light changed to red, it can kill
| people. Fortunately, that's quite rare but it does happen.
| Since the potentially life-saving use was too rare to be a
| big revenue opportunity, those cameras became all about
| catching someone trying to slide through a yellow light a
| quarter second after it turned to red, which happens more
| frequently (especially when the company shortened the yellow
| light time) but is also almost never a serious risk of
| injuring anyone since cross traffic is still stopped or not
| in the intersection yet. And now we lost the potentially
| life-saving beneficial application due to some assholes
| trying to scam people.
| HWR_14 wrote:
| It's not myopia. The hotel owner only owns one or two
| locations. They damage the national brand but they make more
| money for themselves. As long as new people loyal to Hyatt keep
| coming to their location, they are fine.
|
| Of course, that's why Hyatt imposes standards on their hotels
| to keep the name.
| NewJazz wrote:
| And those standards always need updating to keep up with
| social norms, new technologies, consumer expectations, et
| cetera. Hence my recommendation to start by communicating
| with Hyatt or whatever franchise.
| dangus wrote:
| I saw a little quote about the modern business landscape that
| seems to apply here:
|
| "Save a few pennies by destroying trust."
|
| The Hyatt franchise needs to shut this down ASAP. Most hotels are
| independently operated or operated by franchise groups. Not many
| hotel brands actually own the hotels and essentially act as
| marketing firms.
|
| If I were to give this the "never assign malice to that which can
| be adequately explained by incompetence" benefit of the doubt, I
| think some bozo hotel manager got sold this innovative "solution"
| and implemented it without thinking much about it. Then they got
| their revenue and probably thought to themselves "Wow I knew the
| smoking problem was bad but I didn't know it was this bad!!"
|
| Meanwhile they are slow rolling the death of their location by
| tainting guest reviews, which are the lifeblood by which you
| justify your room rates.
| mouse_ wrote:
| Never assign incompetence to that which can be adequately
| explained by greed.
| octo888 wrote:
| My new favourite saying!
| dreamcompiler wrote:
| Remember when hotels charged outrageous fees to make a phone call
| from your room? That scam no longer works because everybody has a
| cell phone. Then they tried charging high fees for watching
| movies on the room's TV, and high fees for wifi. Those no longer
| work because everybody expects hotel wifi to be free and
| unlimited LTE is a thing now and nobody uses the TV in a hotel
| room any more.
|
| Obviously this is just the latest such scam. Accuse people of
| smoking, refuse to show them the evidence, and charge them $500
| to be split between the hotel and the sensor company.
|
| Reminds me of the UK post office scandal where hundreds of
| innocent people went to prison because of software errors when
| the powers that be insisted the software was perfect and no
| auditing was possible.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Post_Office_scandal
|
| Yet again we have normies believing marketing bullshit that says
| "our proprietary algorithms are foolproof." We need laws that say
| any algorithm that can accuse a person of wrongdoing must be
| auditable and if it harms innocent people, the CEO of the company
| is both civilly _and_ criminally liable.
| jasonjayr wrote:
| "A computer can never be held accountable, therefore a computer
| must never make a management decision."
| CamperBob2 wrote:
| I've never understood this old saw. The computer is just a
| tool. Somebody owns the computer, somebody installed it,
| somebody loaded software onto it. That's who should be held
| accountable.
|
| Taken at face value, you couldn't even use a pocket
| calculator to back up a management decision.
| EliRivers wrote:
| "Taken at face value, you couldn't even use a pocket
| calculator to back up a management decision."
|
| That makes no sense. I am the manager. I make the decision.
| The calculator gives me some numbers but I am still the
| manager, still the decision maker, and I can use any tools
| appropriate to inform my decisions. Even a calculator.
| Taken at face value, that's what it says. That the
| calculator doesn't make the management decision; a person
| does.
| CamperBob2 wrote:
| That's exactly what I'm saying. So what earthly point is
| there in saying, "A computer can't make management
| decisions, because it can't take responsibility?"
|
| It's a content-free sentence. There is nothing special
| about a computer in that regard. It's a tool... a tool
| wielded by a human somewhere. Anyone who tries to blame
| "the computer" should not be allowed to do so, and it's
| weird that it ever occurred to anyone to try that.
| blantonl wrote:
| Between this and Hertz's new AI damage detection models, we're
| seeing the enshitification of business travel reaching a new
| level, and also doing a great job of really ticking off a group
| of customers (business travelers) who are already irritated
| enough.
|
| Rest markets itself as a way to "unlock a new revenue stream"
|
| Leave it to the bean counters to see this as an opportunity to
| generate new revenue streams from customers while
| _simultaneously_ pissing them off.
| washadjeffmad wrote:
| There have always been attempts to launder fraud through
| intermediaries - computerized, bureaucratic, or otherwise. They
| think (well, know) if they abstract or obfuscate things in a
| novel way, that they'll have enough time to hit markets across
| states without sophisticated legislation before the legal
| immune systems can respond, potentially years later.
|
| This type of algorithmic grift is transparent to judges and
| people with common sense, but there doesn't seem to be a lot of
| interest at or outside of the federal level through regulators
| like the FTC to prevent it, just curtail certain circumstances.
| Havoc wrote:
| > "unlock a new revenue stream"
|
| Monetizing fire safety. Lovely.
|
| Appears this company rebranded from NoiseAware. More tech to
| monitor "valued" guests...this time on noise levels
| andrepd wrote:
| It's the consequence of growth capitalism. When it's not enough
| to make money, you have to make _more money_ this quarter than
| you did last, then it 's really only a matter of time until
| everything is monetised under the exclusive logic of greed,
| devoid of any other considerations of a moral or human order.
| Public goods, water fountains, libraries, beaches, forests.
| Basic state functions. Your attention, at every moment. On it
| marches.
| hdgvhicv wrote:
| The stock market grows by 10% a year. Worker income only
| grows 2% a year. Those aren't sustainable.
| rsync wrote:
| "It's the consequence of growth capitalism. When it's not
| enough to make money, you have to make more money this
| quarter than you did last, then it's really only a matter of
| time ..."
|
| Agreed.
|
| An environment of increasing interest rates exacerbates this.
| quickthrowman wrote:
| Vape and smoke detection is not fire safety. Hotel rooms have
| 2-4 hour fire rated partitions (unsure on duration), typically
| have their own HVAC not linked to outside the room (and if
| there is central HVAC the supply and return ducts have fire
| smoke dampers), and are usually sprinkled.
| toast0 wrote:
| I guess there's some aspect of fire safety, because cigarettes
| are smoldering and can start fires. But I've been in hotel
| rooms where a previous occupant was smoking enough that the
| room smells, and it's not pleasant. It doesn't happen often now
| that most hotels are declared non-smoking, at least in my
| experience.
|
| I don't think I'm in favor of black box smoking detectors
| either. I'd guess housekeeping reporting the room for smoking
| during cleaning and a 2nd person verifying would be enough to
| bill a smoking fee and that would drive compliance. Sometimes
| you miss a room, and customers complain, and you deal with it
| then. Better than the sensors said X and we didn't follow up
| with our noses.
| kittikitti wrote:
| I don't understand why so many commentators are acting surprised
| at this morally dubious company. Many if not most companies
| coming out of YCombinator are just as bad. Just one case is
| uBiome. In fact, I would argue that YCombinator and the startup
| culture they create directly enabled companies to do exactly
| this.
| lxgr wrote:
| There has got to be a way to penalize companies for attempting
| this kind of thing. Even just removing the charge without
| discussion isn't enough, as some people will be traveling on a
| corporate card they don't necessarily monitor closely, will
| confuse the charge for something else etc.
|
| Otherwise, I'd love to be able to preemptively and without any
| prior communication charge (way in excess of the room rate, of
| course!) hotels for broken appliances, poor cleanliness etc., and
| put the burden of proof that everything was fine on them.
| hansvm wrote:
| The big problem is the power imbalance. There's a reason they
| start your stay by putting a hold on a credit card. And even if
| you could charge them, they can afford a legal battle better
| than you.
| lxgr wrote:
| Oh, that's a common misunderstanding, but they can't sue me
| in court - by accepting me as a customer, they accepted my
| binding arbitration agreement! It clearly said so on my
| luggage tag their authorized agent (i.e. the bellboy) handled
| as part of check-in.
| Der_Einzige wrote:
| This is exactly the kind of subversive stuff I live for.
| refulgentis wrote:
| _Live_ for?
|
| Or fantasize about? :)
|
| It's a fun fantasy, but the fact we're happy to see it
| highlights our impotency - even a line worker sympathetic
| to the power imbalance would be left at "Anyways, we'll
| charge the fee to your card on file"
| lxgr wrote:
| I wonder if there's a business model for a "robo-lawyer"
| paired with a travel agency here: "Stay at one of these
| hotels using this credit card issued by us, sign this
| contract promising that you won't smoke there, and if the
| hotel tries anything funny, we'll reward you with the
| room rate back and a bonus" :)
| altairprime wrote:
| The company that issues cards to be provided to phone
| phishers understands this perfectly :)
| nine_zeros wrote:
| >Oh, that's a common misunderstanding, but they can't sue
| me in court - by accepting me as a customer, they accepted
| my binding arbitration agreement! It clearly said so on my
| luggage tag their authorized agent (i.e. the bellboy)
| handled as part of check-in.
|
| Why can't there be a human membership union that sets these
| automatic binding arbitration agreements on service
| providers on behalf of members? Is there any law preventing
| a class of people from creating such a customer's union?
| vkou wrote:
| > Why can't there be a human membership union that sets
| these automatic binding arbitration agreements on service
| providers on behalf of members?
|
| Those already exist, we call those things 'governments'.
| idiotsecant wrote:
| I think we got some wires crossed somewhere, my
| government is helping them beat me up more ...
| vkou wrote:
| It takes constant vigilance to prevent that union from
| being captured by management.
| delusional wrote:
| Assuming you live in a democracy (we'll see if America
| still counts in 3 years), elect a better one.
| gblargg wrote:
| Thankfully America is not a democracy, and never was.
| scoofy wrote:
| Yes it is. "Democracy" from the Greek: "common people
| rule" and "Republic" from the Latin: "the thing, public."
|
| Republic and democracy mean the same damn thing, rule by
| the people as opposed to rule by a monarch.
| pksebben wrote:
| In what way is this country ruled by the people? You're
| periodically given a non-choice between two options that
| have equal disdain for your actual concerns, who then go
| on to play games to see who can get the most bajiliionare
| backing for reelection, and if you don't like what
| they're doing you're perfectly free to vote for the OTHER
| jerk who also doesn't give a shit about you.
|
| This is oligarchy. The 'democratic' process is a
| smokescreen, and an increasingly thin one.
|
| Look up 'liquid democracy'. It's the best example of what
| an actual democracy might look like if we did it. We
| won't, but I also enjoy Blade Runner and Star Trek, so
| there's no harm in fiction.
| scoofy wrote:
| Oh, god, this tired nonsense. Yes, obviously, it's ruled
| by the people. We have parties, we vote, anyone can run
| for office. Anyone can vote third party, and they
| occasionally even win. That your neighbors don't share
| your views does not make it undemocratic. It's not
| perfect, but it's democratic.
|
| It's like people can no longer imagine living under a
| totalitarian state... where you don't even get a vote,
| and if you don't like what's happening and you say
| something about it, you're shot. That's literally the way
| things were done before democracies and republics
| existed... it's still the way things are done in places
| like North Korea.
| pksebben wrote:
| So we ought to be thankful we're not in NK. Got it. Glad
| your bar is so high. It's apparent that you're decided
| but other folks will read this so let's break it down
| barney style.
|
| The 'third parties' argument is a painful joke,
| statistically speaking [0 1 2]. You can make all sorts of
| arguments as to why but the fact is that without support
| from D or R you can go get fucked.
|
| This raises the question - are there only two opinions?
| With the obvious answer - of course not. We could say
| 'well, maybe people fall generally into two camps', but
| that doesn't really pass muster either, does it? I have
| friends on both sides of the aisle and I agree with all
| of them on _some things_. This is evidenced by the amount
| of voters registered third party despite the abysmal
| election numbers [3].
|
| So what's going on here? Well, people are being
| strategic. We're on first-past-the-post in most places.
| This means you're typically voting not for what you want
| but for what you don't want. That is not a system of
| representation, it's a sports game where the prize is
| some cosmetic social program changes and not much else.
|
| Mamdani is an excellent example of what this system does
| to third party candidates. As soon as there's a
| legitimate threat to the entrenched parties, fundraising
| spikes massively for the opposition [4].
|
| Not getting a vote under this system wouldn't be more
| totalitarian, it would be more honest.
|
| 0 -https://pressgallery.house.gov/member-data/party-
| breakdown
|
| 1 - https://www.senate.gov/senators/SenatorsRepresentingT
| hirdorM...
|
| 2 - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Third-
| party_and_independent_me...
|
| 3 - https://usafacts.org/articles/how-many-voters-have-a-
| party-a...
|
| 4 - https://www.nytimes.com/2025/07/16/nyregion/mamdani-
| adams-do...
| dboreham wrote:
| > totalitarian state... where you don't even get a vote
|
| Quick note that totalitarian states often have elections
| in which the population is allowed to vote.
| cyanydeez wrote:
| That's because another group of people made a pact with
| the devil, and a third group just shrugged their
| shoulders when everyone had a chance to nullify that
| pact....
| newAccount2025 wrote:
| Can't you do a charge back? Isn't this a key kind of
| protection that credit cards give you?
| yubiox wrote:
| Only if you want to get banned from ever staying in a hotel
| again
| criley2 wrote:
| Obviously charging back Hyatt won't get you banned from
| Hilton. And the response question would be: Why would you
| returned to a hotel chain that scammed you?
| sixothree wrote:
| Because that's where you job books when you travel?
| lxgr wrote:
| Then that sounds like the employers problem, though.
| Hopefully they audit their expense accounts for stunts
| like that.
| WaxProlix wrote:
| So they check the bill and see that you incurred a $500
| fine for smoking in the room they paid for? How does this
| help :(
| lxgr wrote:
| Hopefully hotels don't yet have an industry-wide "do not
| host" list without any appeal process...?
| nordsieck wrote:
| > Hopefully hotels don't yet have an industry-wide "do
| not host" list without any appeal process...?
|
| There are lots of small operators, so I doubt that
| there's some industry wide list.
|
| But there are only a few large operators. I'd be shocked
| if some of them didn't share info.
| dilyevsky wrote:
| Hyatt and Marriott share their info with everybody every
| few years when they get hacked
| CalChris wrote:
| "A hotel" ? Unlikely.
| loloquwowndueo wrote:
| Are chargebacks useless now since they usually lead to
| being banned from that provider/vendor? Do a chargeback
| for a scammy App Store app, get your 1k smartphone
| bricked and your emails locked out?
| tedivm wrote:
| It's always been the case that if you refuse to pay a
| bill the other party can refuse to do service with you.
| grishka wrote:
| Do hotels in the US not allow you to pay with cash any more?
| What if you don't have an internationally accepted card?
| jmb99 wrote:
| Generally speaking, no. Most major hotel chains require a
| credit card.
| SoftTalker wrote:
| Credit card is a proxy for an acceptable credit score.
| It's a filter so they can exclude irresponsible people
| without exposing themselves to claims of discrimination
| or racism.
|
| Unfortunately people who simply choose to live without
| using credit are caught up in that too.
| lxgr wrote:
| I've seen some hotels actually take out an authorization
| hold for the deposit. That can be done on debit and
| credit cards.
| maccard wrote:
| In Europe, UK and Ireland it's not an actual credit card
| - a debit card is perfectly acceptable and normal.
| lxgr wrote:
| I believe many US hotels won't let you check in without at
| least a debit card these days.
|
| Possibly you can also put down the same amount they take as
| a hold on the card in cash, but I've never tried it.
| grishka wrote:
| I've stayed at a hotel in UAE that took a deposit that
| they returned on check out. They were perfectly fine with
| it in cash.
|
| Last time I visited the US was in 2016 and back then my
| country wasn't an international outcast so I had a debit
| card that counted as credit in the system. I'm just
| curious what people like me would do these days. Or maybe
| the hotels I stayed at were too cheap.
| vkou wrote:
| You either need a card + ID, or a ~$300 cash deposit and
| ID.
| hansvm wrote:
| You can pay with cash. You usually can't stay without a
| credit card. Even debit often doesn't suffice.
| dreamcompiler wrote:
| 30 years ago it was possible to check into a good US hotel
| with cash under an assumed name. That is pretty much
| impossible now; they want to see your ID and a credit card.
|
| It might still be possible to pay cash in fleabag hotels; I
| don't know.
| btilly wrote:
| That was not my experience 30 years ago.
|
| I know that because the experience of being turned away
| from hotels while driving across country was why I
| applied for my first credit card.
| bluGill wrote:
| Try 60 years ago. I'm not sure when the change happened
| but 30 years ago cards were required. In 60+ year old
| books it is common for the 'dective' to look in the hotel
| book and find a false name.
| jimt1234 wrote:
| I worked at a small hotel during college. A couple of girls
| wanted to rent a room, but they didn't have a credit card.
| We didn't rent rooms without credit cards, but I made an
| exception. They paid for the room in cash and provided a
| small deposit. The girls were so sweet, how could anything
| go wrong? Well, they threw a party and completely trashed
| the room. Lots of damage. The police eventually showed up,
| but the girls were gone. The ID they provided turned out to
| be a fugazi. They played me.
| Terr_ wrote:
| It feels like if nobody proactively creates a privacy-
| preserving solution, exploitable ones arise into the
| vacuum. Or, as a more-depressing thought, they win out
| anyway.
| MichaelZuo wrote:
| At least the bottom quarter of the American population in
| terms of virtue would run away in situations like that.
| There are a lot of scoundrels.
|
| Maybe even more... so what kind of cash based solution
| could there be? (that's not physically preventing them
| from ever travelling)
| torlok wrote:
| Is this a US thing? I stay at hotels from time to time across
| Europe, and I always pay a fixed price either when booking or
| at arrival for the whole stay. Never had to enter credit card
| information anywhere, and I never would precisely for this
| reason. I put my credit card information once when booking a
| car at an airport and was scammed with random scratches being
| found at return. Can't imagine ever going through that again.
| One of the worst and most infuriating money exchange
| experiences in my life.
| ericmay wrote:
| No, it's a common practice in most western countries and
| can confirm for you a list of a dozen or more hotels
| ranging from $100/night to $1000/night that do this in
| countries ranging from Ireland to France to Japan. It's
| really no big deal and is extremely common. In fact, France
| as I discovered does this at the gas stations where they
| put $200 or so authorizations on your card for absolutely
| no good reason.
|
| There are various scenarios but I think the one you are
| thinking of is you show up to the hotel, hand them your
| cash, and pay at the desk. Often times, though I have not
| been in a hotel that will not ask for a card, they ask you
| for a credit card and put an authorization on there in case
| you smoke in the room, or maybe turn it into spaghetti or
| any other random incidentals.
|
| An authorization is basically the hotel telling the credit
| card that they're "reserving space" so to speak on your
| credit limit on the card.
|
| Regarding your rental car experience, that's a common scam
| and again moreso seen in Europe, but not really anything to
| do with the method of payment. They would have just mailed
| you a bill for the damages instead. I guess you could
| ignore it.
| seszett wrote:
| > _France as I discovered does this at the gas stations
| where they put $200 or so authorizations on your card for
| absolutely no good reason._
|
| It's the same here but I'm not sure how it could work
| another way? They have to make sure you have the money to
| pay for the fuel you're pumping, it doesn't seem weird to
| me.
|
| I can't imagine a pump that allows you to pump as you
| wish and then just begs you to pay. That works for the
| manned stations with low traffic only.
| maccard wrote:
| That's how it works if I choose "pay at cashier" - if I
| walk up and don't have the money the fuel is already in
| my car.
| ericmay wrote:
| I think maybe what happens is they tap your cards fully
| possible authorization limit and if you end up trying to
| get gas multiple times in a short time period (24/48
| hours) you can't use your card because they can't hit it
| for the full limit.
| pyman wrote:
| I stopped using Airbnb because of the ridiculous "cleaning"
| fees and happily went back to hotels. But what Hyatt did in
| the US is shameful. The government should investigate, and
| the CEO should probably step down.
| rconti wrote:
| No, it's not. I just checked into 6 hotels across 5
| countries in both Eastern and Western Europe last month,
| and every single one needed a tapped physical credit card
| for a deposit on top of my pre-paid booking (sometimes via
| booking.com, sometimes direct with the hotel).
|
| I can't remember ever NOT having to leave a CC for a
| deposit in any hotel I've ever stayed at in any country in
| my life. I'm sure it's happened, but it sure isn't
| remarkable when they DO require a card.
| blibble wrote:
| what power imbalance?
|
| obviously if you give them cash deposit there's not much you
| can do, but with a credit card you can easily dispute the
| transaction
|
| I always pay my bills in full and on time, but if a merchant
| tries giving me the run around I will simply dispute the
| transaction and then the pain moves entirely to them
|
| with a credit card the power imbalance is entirely in the
| consumer's favour
| abtinf wrote:
| Seems like a candidate for class action lawsuits against the
| hotel, the brand, and the sensor company?
| mindslight wrote:
| Class action lawsuits are a boon for corpos. They take what
| should be many separate instances of fraud with unknown
| unknowns and tie them all off in one small garbage bag. Half
| the money goes to the attorneys and the other half is a token
| payment or even just funds a coupon to encourage doing more
| business with the perpetrator.
|
| I'd really like to see some service that facilitates you
| opting out of a class action, and then comes in later
| representing you for your own individual case (at scale)
| based on the implicit admission of wrongdoing from the
| settlement plus documenting actual damages.
| yladiz wrote:
| Was it necessary to make your point in a very snarky
| manner?
|
| Edit: For context, the first sentence of the version I
| commented on was "You do realize that class action lawsuits
| are a boon for corpos, right?", which comes across as quite
| snarky. It was edited at some point.
| mindslight wrote:
| Yes, I edited it out. You were right, and I figured it
| better for the conversation to just not start off with
| that phrasing. Sorry for not seeing a way to make that
| apparent while also not growing accidental complexity.
| bdangubic wrote:
| good luck with that lol
| wcunning wrote:
| There was a big thing about this a few years ago --
| companies didn't want class actions (too expensive in
| lawyers, primarily), so they forced binding arbitration
| agreements into their EULA. Then a big law firm filed
| _thousands_ of binding arbitrations on behalf of what was
| basically the class. The company had to pay $1000
| 's/arbitration in fees to the arbitration company, which
| also didn't have an incentive to reduce the number of
| arbitrations when the company tried to get out of it.
| Turned into an incentive to not put binding arbitration
| clauses in agreements...
| margalabargala wrote:
| They're a boom compared the the impossible ideal world
| where every instance is prosecuted separately, but barring
| the superhuman feat of getting thousands of individuals to
| show up to court, they are certainly far worse for
| corporations than any realistic alternate scenario.
| mindslight wrote:
| One alternative scenario is for courts to start
| recognizing administrative runaround as actual damages.
| It sounds like there is a lot of back and forth to
| correct these fraudulent bills, so estimating maybe 4
| days of 4 hours of paralegal-equivalent time ~ $1600. But
| then additional legal fees on top of that for having to
| press the matter, so ~$5000? Whereas a class action
| lawsuit would net like maybe $20 token payment to
| victims, so $40 cost to company. So perhaps only 1 out of
| 100 people who were wronged would have to actually sue to
| make it just as bad for the corpo. Never mind getting
| into things like treble damages as these corpos are
| deliberately committing these frauds.
| lxgr wrote:
| One alternative is having consumer protection laws with
| teeth and state-sponsored consumer protection agencies
| pursuing lawsuits to enforce their boundaries. It works
| fairly well that way in some European countries.
| mindslight wrote:
| It's called the criminal justice system, specifically the
| longstanding laws against fraud. But it requires effective
| government to implement, and government has been becoming ever
| less effective at such things (it tends to give corpos a pass
| based on diffusing responsibility rather than properly charging
| everyone involved with criminal conspiracy)
|
| Another pillar of the problem is the corpos having excepted
| themselves from basic libel/slander laws through the "Fair"
| Credit Reporting Act. The common response should be one round
| of "piss off, prove it", with then a high barrier for the
| fraudster to substantiate such a debt in a court of law.
| Instead people are put on the defensive by the thought of such
| lies going on their permanent surveillance records, and perhaps
| becoming some kind of problem in the future.
| dangoodmanUT wrote:
| Yes it's called a lawsuit for defrauding consumers. Hopefully
| someone actually does it though
| pyman wrote:
| I'm sure the hotel will blame the company that sold them the
| sensors, and the company that built them will blame some
| developer who changed the sensitivity value from 6 to 8.
| Everyone will act shocked, the developer will get fired, and
| the new revenue stream will be called "customers who visited
| adult websites on a shared private network." I doubt that
| will end up on TikTok :)
| bgilly wrote:
| There is a way. Don't give them any of your money.
| mindslight wrote:
| So now the debt they claim you owe is partially valid...
|
| (Yes, I'm being obtuse. In response to a simplistically
| obtuse point)
| pluc wrote:
| > There has got to be a way to penalize companies for
| attempting this kind of thing
|
| Yes, don't go to them.
|
| Love,
|
| Canada
| chrismsimpson wrote:
| Yeah, it's called regulation and consumer protection.
| ysofunny wrote:
| > put the burden of proof that everything was fine on them.
|
| as if they need more incentives to surveil everything
| northhnbesthn wrote:
| Oh yeah I have one of these installed at my place. Every time I
| walk in I hear a _cha-ching_ from their mobile app. Another $250!
| It's like free money in my pocket.
| heisenbit wrote:
| Looking at one of these pictures it seems the device is not
| fitted to the ceiling but 30cm above ground. So not the best
| place to pick up CO or to detect fire.
| toast0 wrote:
| CO disperses well, so there's no need for a CO detector to be
| mounted at any particular height. They're now commonly sold as
| combination smoke and CO detectors, so placing them at ceiling
| height is appropriate.
|
| I don't think this thing has a smoke detector though?
| Zigurd wrote:
| Hotels don't want to be left out of the enshittification that
| Airbnb seems to have turned into an artform. In the travel
| industry, your customers are nearly captives to your whims. And
| if your whims are not profitable enough, the tech bros are here
| to make you the money while saving you the effort.
|
| I predict that Rest will merge with Axon so that after they get a
| false positive in your room, a cop can barge in and taser you on
| body cam.
| blackhaj7 wrote:
| In the US, it feels like there is little recourse for these sorts
| of changes.
|
| Consumer protections are not like in other places
| Drunk_Engineer wrote:
| https://www.wsbtv.com/news/local/cobb-county/marietta-hotel-...
| hinkley wrote:
| Reminds me of cities shortening yellow lights to make money off
| of red light cameras.
|
| The thing is that the cameras are supposed to make the public
| safer. That's what they are meant to do. But they're so expensive
| that you need a certain number of tickets to offset them (but
| whoever heard of public safety being a profit center instead of a
| loss leader?).
|
| It's a proven fact that short yellows lead to more accidents. So
| these red light cameras make everyone _less_ safe. Public
| endangerment to try to balance a budget.
| Eisenstein wrote:
| Markets are efficient at extracting value from things, but what
| that value is needs to be determined before we blindly create a
| market for it. In the traffic light case you mention the value
| is money, when it should be safety. Traffic lights are
| installed to ensure traffic flow and safety, so getting a
| monetary return on a safety device should be non-sensical, but
| here we are.
|
| We should not be involving private market players as partners
| in 'investments' with public organizations tasked with public
| good, or else we get misaligned incentives since the partners
| both expect different types of returns.
| lblume wrote:
| How do you actually create aligned incentives though?
| Goodhard's law, cobra effects and generalized coordination
| problems really do seem pervasive.
| asdff wrote:
| I don't think it can be done without a sort of benevolent
| authoritarian which is sort of scary because of how much
| power and implicit trust is behind that. I wish we had a
| better signal to actually identify these people and elevate
| them into positions of power. They are readily identifiable
| in our own life ironically, I can think if plenty of people
| I know who I would say are trustworthy to do the right
| thing and not be blinded by profit. Just that for the
| subset of people who do want to make a buck on bad ideas
| saddled on top of people, incentives are very strong for
| them to get into influence, and there is no such mechanism
| to incentivize your good natured friend with no big profit
| seeking aspirations to that level. You need significant
| access to capital just to play in this league of getting
| elected or getting your company into the bidding process.
|
| I think it comes down to the fact that we still don't have
| a meritocracy. It is still very much who you know from you
| getting a job to a company securing a contract with
| government, vs anything based on actual merit or ideas that
| are collectively beneficial vs selectively beneficial. Same
| old roman republic today: making favors to enrich the
| senators, making spectacles to distract the masses from the
| senators picking the public pocket. We haven't really
| changed the paradigm since it was established thousands of
| years ago with our first chieftans and shamans and their
| friends elevated above the rest of the tribe.
| ndkap wrote:
| Any efforts to veer the incentive of the market from profit
| towards vague things like safety or others (DEI, ESG) has
| been criticized and rolled so far. Can we really make the
| market prioritize anything other than profit?
| Eisenstein wrote:
| Safety is not vague. You quantify difference before and
| after to determine if they are safer or not, same as if you
| end up with more or less money.
|
| We can't make a market do anything. But we can at least not
| do stupid things tasking a private enterprise which has a
| duty to make profits for investors to be in charge of
| things which lose money if done correctly. The purpose of
| fines is to discourage bad behavior -- if fewer people do
| the bad behavior then that leads to lower income. Any
| profit motive for collecting fines leads to the opposite of
| the desired outcome.
| RainyDayTmrw wrote:
| What's that famous quote? First as tragedy, and then as farce? If
| the British Post Office Horizon was the tragedy, this may be the
| farce.
| dbg31415 wrote:
| Man, I hate when companies do this kind of thing.
|
| Also...
|
| Man, I really hate checking into a hotel room and getting hit
| with that unmistakable "someone vaped in here" smell.
|
| It was so nice traveling in parts of Asia where vaping is banned.
| I'd honestly rather deal with cigarette smoke outside, where I
| expect it, than that overly sweet, plasticky vape air inside.
| It's like someone boiled a Jolly Rancher in a humidifier.
| bjt12345 wrote:
| I kept finding my balcony door ajar in my hotel room - an
| employee was smoking on my balcony.
| pknomad wrote:
| I wonder if this is an actual Hyatt owned and managed property or
| is it a hotel brand associated with Hyatt. I also wonder what
| category of hotel it is.
|
| Before we call it enshittification of the Hyatt brand as a whole,
| I am kinda curious for more details.
|
| I would be very surprised if this happened on places like the
| Andaz or Park Hyatt but would not be surprised if it was like at
| a House or Place.
| schneems wrote:
| As a FYI: This is unreadable by me and anyone without an X
| account. I see the first post and that's it.
| agent327 wrote:
| Since we are talking about hotel-related scams, I might as well
| mention getaroom.com and hotelreservations.com. These scum
| duplicate entire hotel websites (including logos and everything),
| and will claim to reserve a room, but when you click on the "go
| to confirmation page" link, they will quickly up-charge you by
| hundreds or even thousands of dollars - and they will charge that
| before you have a chance to confirm. And while some people
| apparently managed to get a reservation this way, there are also
| reports of people ending up without any reservation. In other
| words, they are a full-on scum. Check trustpilot if you don't
| believe me.
|
| So to summarize:
|
| - Massive unexpected up-charge. - Credit card gets charged before
| you even click the final confirmation button. - Doubtful if you
| even get a reservation.
|
| Stay away from these sites, and others like them, at all cost.
|
| In case you wonder how my adventure ended: they added $800 to a
| $1600 reservation. I complained, and was eventually told that
| they would refund me, _if_ I did not do a charge-back on my
| credit card. A few days later they, amazingly, kept their word,
| so I didn't lose any money.
| crmd wrote:
| In a healthy marketplace, customers stop using merchants that
| abuse customers, until they change their practices or go out of
| business and are replaced by more customer-responsive
| competitors.
|
| Here in the US, however, 5 hotel brands have been allowed to
| control over 70% of hotel rooms nationwide. This means a dispute
| with even one will cause big problems for business travelers.
|
| Same thing with Ticketmaster/Live Nation, Google, Amazon, etc.
|
| This extreme consolidation of market power seems to me like a
| degenerate form of capitalism that breaks my libertarian
| idealism.
| dv_dt wrote:
| If there is a fire in the building does every single guest get a
| smoking fine?
|
| Or if there is a prolific smoking guest can they set off
| detections in neighboring rooms? Hmm
|
| Also this seems like any excuse for hotel management to avoid
| having real interactions conversations with the cleaning staff
| who are perfectly competent to discover if a room has been
| contaminated by smoke.
| breppp wrote:
| this is going to be a bad decade for the 1% false positives of a
| 99% accurate neural net
| recipe19 wrote:
| It reminds me of a hotel I stayed at that had a stocked mini-
| fridge. Removing any item from the fridge resulted in an
| automatic, silent charge. Putting it back did not remove the
| charge. So if you simply took something out to check it in, or if
| you wanted to chill your own beverage, they counted that as
| consuming the item.
|
| They removed the charges if you checked the bill and objected at
| checkout. But how many people don't look? I'm sure it generated
| enough revenue to pay for the sensors. No one is going to say it
| out loud, but false positives _are_ the point.
| nickdothutton wrote:
| Got billed (via corporate) for this because I put my own coke
| in a beer can slot and found myself in an interview with HR
| about it later, very strict no alcohol policy on company
| expenses. At the time I was tea total.
| mr_toad wrote:
| teetotal.
| hackyhacky wrote:
| > tea total.
|
| If it was totally tea, why were you drinking coke?
| orochimaaru wrote:
| Most hotels that have this will tell you this at check in.
| That's the refrigerator is the mini bar/snack bar and don't use
| it for personal items.
| breakingcups wrote:
| What they don't tell you is that you can request/demand a
| second fridge for medical reasons and don't have to explain
| any further. Take that for what you want.
| WWLink wrote:
| Those things should just be illegal. I can't even imagine how
| much energy and plastic/paper/food goes to waste in those damn
| things.
| mustyoshi wrote:
| An entire hotel probably wastes less from the mini fridge
| specifically than a family of 4 for a year.
| grues-dinner wrote:
| It's in the ballpark if you include all energy source for
| the family.
|
| 100 rooms times, say, 50W (5kW) is 43,000kWh. That's over
| 10 UK families of 4-5 (4100kWh/yr) for electricity, or 2 if
| you include gas usage. So for Americans, it's probably must
| closer to parity.
|
| The fridge does dump heat into the room, so it has a small
| additional penalty for the aircon in hot countries, but a
| small, but inefficient compared to a heat-pump, heating
| offset in cold countries.
| schwartzworld wrote:
| I was at a hotel recently with packaged snacks on a tray,
| cookies crackers etc. There was a sign clearly explaining that
| moving anything off the tray results in an automatic charge.
| Thank god we didn't have the kids with us.
| scoofy wrote:
| This kind of thing is so penny smart, pound foolish. If I
| ever see that sign, it's immediately going on my Instagram,
| telling everyone I know to never stay at such a place.
|
| I'm still never staying at AirBnB's when it actually matters
| because they completely screwed over my gf when she booked a
| bachelorette party and the owner _literally sold the
| property_ without cancelling the reservation and the new
| owner rebooked the same site, _also using AirBnB._ AirBnB
| just offered a refund, even though the monetary damages were
| easily 10x the cost of the reservation and obviously
| permanent in the fact that in ruined a major life event.
|
| Say what you want about the amount of money your company will
| make. Reputations take a lifetime to build, and most people
| have a grim trigger when it comes to being screwed over.
| ValentineC wrote:
| Some hotels let you call and request for the items to be
| removed, to avoid trouble at check out.
| rrrrrrrrrrrryan wrote:
| That's pretty standard in American hotels these days though.
| You don't touch anything you don't intend to pay for. It's to
| prevent people from drinking the booze and refilling it with
| water.
|
| There are always signs, but if you goof they'll always take the
| charge off, but you do have to be upfront about it and tell
| them before checking out, otherwise you'll be charged.
| northern-lights wrote:
| Seems like this is standard for every hotel in Vegas.
| jwr wrote:
| I am amazed that hotels are still stuck in this old mindset of
| charging exorbitant amounts to some customers (unpleasant to
| customers) rather than providing a good service to all
| customers (good for customers).
|
| If I knew that a hotel chain will have my room fridge stocked
| with beer at reasonable prices (small markup or even no markup,
| because this does not need to be a revenue stream!), I would
| pick that hotel every time. Just for the convenience, and the
| nice feeling of not walking a minefield.
| jmbwell wrote:
| I once had hotel staff show up right after I checked in saying
| they needed to check on my fridge. They spent a weird amount of
| time going over it. I hadn't even looked at it, but it turned
| out to be one of these. Later I began to suspect they suspected
| me of messing with it. Now I kinda wish I had been
| bloomingeek wrote:
| Outrageous! We always stay, if we don't pull our travel trailer,
| in $100 a night hotels when on the road in the states. They will
| take cash for the room, but require a debit or credit card in
| case there's damage or fridge items usage. Neither of us smoke
| and always ask for a non-smoking room. To think this could happen
| is other worldly.
| tushar-r wrote:
| I'll probably pay 10 - 20% more for an "old school" hotel room
| with a clock radio and standard phone to call the front desk. No
| other "non-essential" electronics other than multiple well-placed
| power points. No TV, Coffee Machine either.
|
| The number of bright screens on random "smart" controls that I'm
| trying very hard to hide before sleeping are too much.
| userbinator wrote:
| A traditional motel may be suitable, and even cheaper.
| spuz wrote:
| And you will because "entrepreneurial" chains like Hyatt will
| lower their prices thanks to the additional revenue they get
| from this and other unexpected charges in order to attract more
| customers.
| mgraczyk wrote:
| The reality is that most people who smoke/vape indoors will lie
| about it. I've witnessed this hundreds of times from hundreds of
| people. In every place I have lived I had neighbors who smoked
| (illegally) and lied about it to my face until I saw them doing
| it. I would bet that the system is 98%+ accurate and we are
| seeing the (many) false positives.
|
| Obviously hotels should not use these unless there is some higher
| accuracy appeals process, but as a nonsmoker I do wish that there
| were universal and near certain fines for smoking indoors.
| Simon_O_Rourke wrote:
| Very scummy behavior from Hyatt hotels. I'd always check out the
| negative reviews of hotels before booking, and this might have
| caught it
| siliconc0w wrote:
| Always check the bill, there are a slew of bullshit dark park-
| patterns here like charging you for stuff in the mini-bar you
| didn't take or pay-per-view you didn't watch.
|
| In a normal market system, you'd think a business that routines
| tries to fraudulently charge their guests would be punished but
| either by the government or the customer but due to consolidation
| or just the total acquiescence of customers to this kind of abuse
| it's just business as usual.
| pnw wrote:
| https://www.restsensor.com/ is the new name for
| https://noiseaware.com. They got started making a 'noisy party'
| sensor that is monitoring the audio in your hotel room or AirBNB.
| You can see the Noiseaware branding on the sensor in that X
| thread.
|
| So it's not just a $500 scam, it's also a privacy issue. I had no
| idea these audio sensors were even a thing.
| strathmeyer wrote:
| Whenever someone charges me a smoking fee I assume they are just
| saying they don't want me staying there. I'll find some place
| either much better or much shittier that is appreciative of my
| business. The Hilton Garden Inn in Princeton NJ has charged both
| my and my wife a smoking fee on different dates because we were
| hiking. In Denver you aren't allowed to smoke on the streets,
| there's no terraces in the hotel, so we were charged a smoking
| fee after hot boxing our car. They aren't cleaning the room. It's
| ten cents of spray and an open window at most. I've stayed at
| hotels where they Febreeze every room daily. What a scumbag thing
| to do to your customers.
| Mistletoe wrote:
| All I can say is I will never stay at a Hyatt from reading this,
| so Hyatt and Rest and whoever owns that hotel can sort it all
| out. I don't smoke.
| mmmpetrichor wrote:
| It would be cool if we had real journalism these days instead of
| having to find these type of reports on social media.
| fortran77 wrote:
| I see in Yelp reviews from other hotels that this is a very
| common problem now.
|
| https://www.tripadvisor.com/ShowUserReviews-g60763-d93520-r9...
|
| Look at this review from the "Park Central" in NY. The Management
| responded that the person agreed to this policy so it's tough
| luck:
|
| > Thank you for sharing your feedback. It's concerning to hear
| about the experience you described. Park Central Hotel New York
| is dedicated to maintaining a smoke-free environment for all our
| guests. As per our website, smoking tobacco, pipes, vapes,
| e-cigarettes and marijuana are strictly prohibited within the
| hotel. NoiseAware is a smart device that allows hotel management
| to respond to smoking events without disrupting your stay. You
| hereby agree and consent to the use of such sensor in your room
| and acknowledge and agree that it is 100% privacy compliant and
| required by the hotel. By acknowledging the foregoing, you agree
| to waive any future claims related to the presence of the sensor
| in a room you may book. Tampering with the sensor is strictly
| prohibited. A non-refundable $500 smoking fee will apply should a
| smoking event occur inside the hotel guestroom. We regret that
| this policy did not meet your expectations. The consistency in
| handling such situations is important to us, and your experience
| will be reviewed to improve our protocols.
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