The thermostat in your hotel room may be rigged

A NEW study has confirmed what you may have already suspected about the air conditioning in your hotel room: it’s a trick.

A NEW study confirms what many frequent flyers have long suspected about the air conditioning in their hotel room.

A report by the Wall Street Journal suggests many hotel thermostats only give the appearance of allowing guests to raise or lower the temperature — and actually do nothing at all.

The investigation by the WSJ’s Scott McCartney found thermostats that allowed guests to adjust settings for heat or air conditioning were, in many cases, preset for optimum economy — or at the very least dependent on sensors that limited how warm or how cool a room got, no matter what temperature the thermostat read.

Chances are many hotel guests are given the illusion of in-room climate control, with the actual temperature preset or controlled from elsewhere. Picture: iStock

A large number of properties were also said to employ motion detectors to save energy when rooms are unoccupied, however briefly.

“The humble hotel wall thermostat, once just a mechanical temperature sensor and fan-speed switch, has become an infra-red heat and motion detector wirelessly networked into building controls that cut costs by reducing energy consumption,” McCartney explained in the report.

“Many are tied to door switches, shutting off when people leave the room or even open a window or balcony door.”

According to the research, more and more thermostats were being retrofitted to pry control away from guests, and instead obey a series of protocols determined by hotel management.

But good news: there’s also a handy hack.

As might be expected, the growing trend towards computer-controlled, rather than human-controlled, climate settings was very much inspired by the quest for a healthy bottom line.

After Hilton adopted the practice in many of its properties more than five years ago, energy use decreased by nearly 15 per cent.

But there is good news for tech-savvy travellers: a Google search of the thermostat model will, in some cases, reveal a workaround to allow guests to input their own preferred temperature settings and reassert dominance over the aircon.

This article originally appeared on Flyer Talk.