[gnarbarian]

Now you make me want to try and design a self cleaning hotel room.

I think the trickier aspects of hotel room cleaning could be mitigated by creative design of the accommodations.

If it was a stark room with a bed a couple tables and a flat screen there would be little to knock off tables or break.

Make the whole bathroom operate like a giant dishwasher and come up with a more robot friendly fitted bedsheet then use some kind of industrial roomba.

It wouldn't be cheap but it can be done.

Depending on how far you are willing to stretch your definition of hotel room I bet we could automate the cleaning of those Japanese pod/tube hotel rooms right now.

[seren]

The automatically cleanable bathroom already exists. I have used them years ago in cheap hotels. After taking a shower, it locked the door once you exit and it rinses the whole room with some detergent and water for 30 seconds.

[Razengan]

I just had a mental image of it bugging out and flooding the room with detergent with an occupant still inside...

[kimburgess]

Self-cleaning public toilets, that worked exactly like this, went through a bit of a phase in Australia 10-20 years ago. They started decommissioning them after they began trapping children during the cleaning cycle: http://www.theage.com.au/news/national/auto-toilets-a-flush-....

[EwanG]

Heinlein in the 60's suggested rooms that would have a daily "wind" cycle to blow off any accumulated dust and anything loose would be forced to one area where it could be picked up to place back in the room, recycled, or disposed of.