It’s an easy hack to make your room cooler than normally possible by overriding the hotel thermostat in your room to help in hot cities.

Hotels don’t let you normally access the full temperature range

Whether it’s simply the standard functionality established by the manufacturer or that the hotel wants to save money by restricting you to a low of 65°F, there is an artificial limit established on the low end. There very well may be an artificial limit on the high end as well, but not many want it that hot in their room.

You might wonder why this matters because 65°F can be cool enough under most circumstances. However, there are some instances where it helps to make the room cooler.

• The displayed temperature feels inconsistent with the actual room temperature
• You’re in a city experiencing a heat wave (or you’re in a desert like Las Vegas)
• You like it cold when you sleep
• Direct sunlight in the afternoon warms the room up to uncomfortable temperatures

Well, if your hotel thermostat looks like the one depicted above, you’re in luck because you can easily hack it to allow temperatures down to 60°F. It’s not that much lower than 65°F, but sometimes every little bit helps.

How to hack your hotel thermostat

Let’s take it step by step.

1. Press and hold the Display key

You’ll be holding this down during the next two actions, so don’t lift your finger prematurely. It’s fine if the display changes while holding this.

2. While holding Display, tap the Off/Auto button

It’s a little easier if you do this with two hands but I had to use one for the sake of taking pictures while doing it. Once you tap the Off/Auto button, you’ll see a countdown begin–ignore that. You’ll be done with the hack long before it reaches zero.

3. While still holding Display, tap the Up button

The countdown will cease once you tap the Up button. There will otherwise be no indication yet that you did anything correctly.

4. Release the Display button

You may now release the Display button and it should now say “Len” on the hotel thermostat. If you see those words, it means you’re good to go. If not, double-check the above steps. After several attempts, if you don’t see any indication that the thermostat is responding, it could be that the model in your room isn’t the correct one for this trick.

5. Lower the temperature to your desired level

As mentioned, you can now lower the temperature down to 60°F. Even if you raise the temperature back above 65°F, you can lower it again to 60°F without needing to perform the hack again.

This won’t change the speed the room gets colder

I just want to offer a reminder that when you tell the room to cool down on the hotel thermostat (or your car for that matter), setting a lower temperature doesn’t mean the room gets colder faster. It just means it will stop pumping in more A/C when it reaches the desired temperature. In other words, if the room temperature is 72°F and you want to lower it to 65°, changing it to 60°F won’t make it reach 65° faster.

This trick is just meant to set a lower absolute temperature in the room.

Have you tinkered with your hotel thermostat before?

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