System for voice control of devices at hospitality establishment and method and control server thereof

A control server for supporting voice control of devices at a hospitality establishment, the control server comprising:

• a network interface for coupling to a computer network of the hospitality establishment;
• a storage device;
• and
• one or more processors coupled to the network interface and the storage device;
• wherein, by the one or more processors executing software instructions loaded from the storage device, the one or more processors are configured to:
• send a first message to a user device operated by a guest of the hospitality establishment in response to a first trigger, the first message causing a predetermined software application on the user device to temporarily register itself with a pre-existing voice assistant software running on the user device thereby causing the pre-existing voice assistant software to pass one or more voice-to-text transcripts to the predetermined software application, wherein the pre-existing voice assistant software only passes the voice-to-text transcripts to the predetermined software application while the predetermined software application is registered with the pre-existing voice assistant;
• receive a command from the predetermined software application running on the user device, the command corresponding to a text transcript passed to the predetermined software application by the pre-existing voice assistant software running on the user device;
• determine a particular room of the hospitality establishment with which the user device is currently associated;
• determine one or more target in-room controllable devices of the particular room to which the command pertains;
• send one or more network messages to the one or more target in-room controllable devices thereby causing the one or more target in-room controllable devices to carry out the command;
• and
• send a second message to the user device in response to a second trigger, the second message causing the predetermined software application on the user device to deregister itself with the pre-existing voice assistant software running on the user device.

A method of supporting voice control of devices at a hospitality establishment, the method comprising:

• sending, by one or more computer servers, a first message to a user device operated by a guest of the hospitality establishment in response to a first trigger, the first message causing a predetermined software application on the user device to temporarily register itself with a pre-existing voice assistant software running on the user device thereby causing the pre-existing voice assistant software to pass one or more voice-to-text transcripts to the predetermined software application, wherein the pre-existing voice assistant software only passes the voice-to-text transcripts to the predetermined software application while the predetermined software application is registered with the pre-existing voice assistant;
• receiving, by the one or more computer servers, a command from the predetermined software application running on the user device, the command corresponding to a text transcript passed to the predetermined software application by the pre-existing voice assistant software running on the user device;
• determining, by the one or more computer servers, a particular room of the hospitality establishment with which the user device is currently associated;
• determining, by the one or more computer servers, one or more target in-room controllable devices of the particular room to which the command pertains;
• sending, by the one or more computer servers, one or more network messages to the one or more target in-room controllable devices thereby causing the one or more target in-room controllable devices to carry out the command;
• and
• sending, by the one or more computer servers, a second message to the user device in response to a second trigger, the second message causing the predetermined software application on the user device to deregister itself with the pre-existing voice assistant software running on the user device.