InStay Smart TV
InStay is a smart hospitality ecosystem integrating IoT devices, Smart TV, and a remote-control system to enhance the guest experience and streamline property management. Designed for both tenants and owners, it offers intuitive control, energy efficiency, and secure device management within short-term rentals.
Guests face difficulty adjusting lighting and climate, finding essential information, and adapting to unfamiliar systems. Owners deal with wasted energy, device misuse, and limited control over property resources. InStay needed a cohesive, user-friendly solution that works seamlessly across devices while maintaining security and brand identity.
We designed a connected ecosystem uniting Smart TV, IoT devices, and a dedicated remote within a single interface. The Smart TV serves as an intuitive hub for tenants, while owners manage and monitor via an app. Through iterative prototypes, we refined clarity, reduced clicks, and maintained a sense of hospitality. The final UI features a minimal aesthetic, clear iconography, and a soft palette that conveys trust, innovation, and simplicity.
4 months
2024–2025
Always present but invisible
The InStay Smart TV UI turns the television into the guest’s central hub, unifying entertainment, property information, and smart‑home controls in a familiar environment. Guests can access streaming, local TV, Wi‑Fi details, tourist information, and house rules, and control lighting, climate, locks, and more, directly from the TV.
InStay also functions as a central control hub for all smart devices in the home. This includes air conditioners, smart lights, and smart locks.
At each step of the design phase, we confronted our low-fidelity prototypes with user testing. Through iterative testing and feedback, we refined the interface, navigation structure, and visual hierarchy, gradually evolving from simple wireframes to a polished, high-fidelity design that meets both usability standards and aesthetic goals.
The ecosystem
The InStay App is the owner’s central hub for connected hospitality spaces: monitor in real time, control devices remotely, and tailor the Smart TV experience — all from a phone or tablet.
The remote
A single remote that connects, controls, and personalizes the in-room experience.
The InStay Remote is an ergonomic controller that unifies access to all smart devices in a hospitality space. Designed for guests, it keeps interactions simple and familiar, adjust lighting or temperature even with the TV off, trigger overlays without interrupting entertainment, and dock on a decorative charger. Its five-color finish adapts to any interior. Refined through iterative prototypes and user testing, the final design is minimal, elegant, and intuitive.
The research
We backed this ecosystem creation with user testing. Final results on our system showed a 90% success rate on the owner's app. For the Smart TV tests, compared to benchmarks done before, our system performed consistently 40% better in all tests, with an overall result of 87% success rate across 4 different languages.
Project conceived and realized with Mert Güven, Luciano Lettieri Michele, Simona Invitti and Sabrina Maida at Politecnico di Milano.