I'm Sorry Dave, I'm afraid I can't let you go to sleep - Citizen M Hotel London

Wow. Amazing hotel, fantastic room, impressive technology, but... and it is a massive but, none of it worked.  

I stayed here while on a work trip to London. An über cool hotel, brave new world utopian vision of what hotel stays should be like in the 21st century?  The creative and innovative use of space in its narrow rooms did not feel at all cramped. They are of a modern design with huge double bed- the width of the room and up against the window, and lots of pillows. 

It soon turned into a dystopian hell. Rather like in 2001 a Space Odyssey, where the computer HAL turns against the astronauts and things start to go awry - the same happened with me.

Everything in the room is controlled by Samsung Galaxy tab 7" tablet. The lights, the mood lighting, the television, the air conditioning, the blinds, curtains - everything is controlled by the Galaxy tab.  As tablets go Samsung Galaxy tab is pretty good - perhaps not quite as good as an Apple iPad but nevertheless it is a rather decent tablet. It uses the Android operating system and is generally very stable. 

I had arrived late at the hotel, and went straight to to my room around 12 o'clock but I have to be up early for a meeting in central London near Trafalgar Square, so I had no time to avail myself of any of the free movies (or the free porn) that was so boldly promised on the huge widescreen TV which hung above my bed.

  

I set about trying to use the tablet unfortunately, it did not work.  It was locked in a Google maps app. So I had no means of controlling the lights (switching them off was my main aim at that time of night), controlling the air conditioning or watching TV.

I attempted to ring reception on a number of occasions but the phone refused to dial out.  I attempted to go to sleep with all the lights on, but to no avail; so eventually got dressed and went down to reception.  The receptionist said that the tablet would have to be reset.  Apparently, the room telephone was also part of the same system which prevented any communication between reception and my room. 

This didn't work and I was told that the room itself would have to be rebooted, which was then done.  The lights went off and I lay in darkness for 5 minutes. When the lights returned, I was able to switch the lights on and off, but still nothing else worked, but by that time all I was interested in was switching the lights off and getting some sleep.

I had a pleasant sleep, but awoke feeling cold. The air conditioning was blasting out cold air and there were no means controlling it - other than the faulty tab.