If you find yourself inside a hotel room at the Wynn this year, make sure you spend some extra time getting acquainted with Alexa. Who, you ask? She’s the “brain” behind the Amazon Echo, the hands-free voice-controlled speaker Wynn aims to install in all of its hotel rooms by midyear, says Amazon spokesperson Kinley Pearsall.
With seven microphones and something called “beam-forming technology,” Alexa can hear your commands from across the room, assisting you in simple tasks, like giving you weather updates, to more difficult ones—like settling your dispute with your significant other over where to eat.
Soon, guests will be able to use Alexa for all sorts of clever things. Ask her to find the best steakhouse or sushi spot in Las Vegas, and she’ll reference Yelp to find hungry tourists a top-notch spot.
That’s in addition to Amazon Echo’s other features. Don’t want to get up to turn off your lights? Alexa’s got it. Having a meetup in your room? Connect your phone to Echo via Bluetooth and play your favorite Spotify playlists with a simple voice command.
Alexa might really save the day with its to-do list feature. Drank too much last night? Alexa can quickly run through your itinerary so you don’t forget about those pricey Cher tickets you bought last month, your spa reservation or that Neon Museum tour in the morning.
Pearsall wouldn’t speculate on future plans for the Amazon-Wynn partnership, but she did say Amazon will add new skills to Echo every week. “We are working closely with the Wynn to continue to enable new experiences for their guests,” she says.
For now, Wynn is leading the in-room voice-control trend, but it might only be a matter of time before Alexa—or something like it—becomes the industry-wide standard.
