Regardless what time of year you’re traveling, hotel rooms can often feel hot and stuffy. If you find yourself in a hotel room that you just can’t make cold enough for your liking, it’s most likely because the hotel set the thermostat to save money. I personally can’t blame them and if I ran a hotel, I would probably do the same thing, especially when guests aren’t even in the room. But if you want to learn how to change the hotel thermostat settings yourself, read on. RELATED: How much to tip housekeeping … and how to make sure they actually get it
I wrote about this travel hack back in 2016 but I saw that my buddy, Scott Mayerowitz posted a quick video (see below) about it on Instagram. It’s such a great tip that he inspired me to share it again.
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As Scott says: “A lot of times you check into a hotel room, it’s just hot, stuffy and your thermostat won’t go low enough. I’m going to teach you a little trick today to override that thermostat. Shh! Take a look. Here is the INNCOM, one of the most popular thermostats out there. A lot of travel experts will know the VIP Mode. It’s actually been renamed LEN, it actually means Limited Energy Management, I guess they couldn’t get an M, so they went with an N. Let me show you how to get to it. First, hold down the display button, then the off/auto button, then the up temperature (all at the same time). You will see LEN popup and then you can make it as cold as you want in your room. Enjoy!”
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I didn’t know that the function had been renamed LEN, so thanks Scott for the 411! If you’ve tried this hack let me know how it worked for you.
How to change the hotel thermostat:
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I have somewhat of a different viewpoint. I almost never use air conditioning, and I’ve noticed that in the US, almost every hotel room I get to has the air conditioning is on and it’s freezing. Why do hotels have to do this? I thought everybody was trying to concentrate on being green.
There are probably millions of hotel rooms in the US, and if every one has their air conditioning on all the time, that’s horrific for the environment. I don’t think it’s too much to ask to leave the air conditioning off and let the guest turn it on if they want it, which is what they do in Europe and Asia. I can’t imagine it would take that long to cool down a one-room hotel room.
I was in a hotel room the other day where it was impossible turn off the air conditioning, despite a visit from the engineer, so I asked for another room.
And now hotels have lights and the TV on with a welcome message on the TV screen. Why is this necessary?
Dee – there can be a way on some TVs but it takes a little effort. Samsung TVs have a very detailed hidden menu. On most recent Samsung sets you can access it by, on the remote, pressing Mute, 1-1-9 and Enter (or Select). There should be a setting for MAX VOLUME. Increase it to 100, then power down (turn off) the TV. Wait a few seconds, then turn it back on.
Note: there are many settings on that menu, and changing some of them can make the TV not work. In that case, call Housekeeping and say your TV doesn’t work and don’t tell them what you did! It’s easy for their technician to reset it!
If you’re not comfortable with this, ask a teenager for help!
I have run into a similar situation with the hotel TV. I am rather hard of hearing, but I could not turn up the volume loud enough for me to hear it comfortably. I certainly wasn’t trying to get it loud enough to disturb the neighbors but it seemed to me to be set at a fairly low limit for volume. I’ve run into those twice now at different hotels I did go through all the TV settings, looking for a solution without success. Anybody else encounter this situation?