Why have hotel room light switches gotten SO complicated? Travelers complain about bizarre switch placement and bulbs that are too dull or too bright

Travelers complain that hotels nowadays overcomplicate the light switches and that the brightness of the lamps is never quite right.

Hotels try to please their guests and outperform the competition by going above and beyond in the lighting department. The establishments are constantly improving the lighting features and styling the lamps and features on display.

Chelsea Zeferina uploaded a video of herself ranting about her hotel’s light fixtures on TikTok, a video that received nearly 4,000 likes.

“Any rational person would think that this switch under the light turns off this lamp,” she said, gesturing to a button directly under the bedside lamp.

‘No! This light makes the hallway light flash like it’s in a horror movie,” she complained.

She then walked over to a light switch mounted on the wall and demonstrated how, for some bizarre reason, the button controlled the lamp under a random couch on the other side of the room.

Finally, she showed how an eight-foot switch on a wall in the bathroom connected to the bedside lamp for some strange reason.

“Hotels should include a manual that specifically states which switch should be on which light,” one user noted.

Zeferina isn’t the only person who has had trouble navigating their complex hotel room lighting system lately.

Ken McLain, president of a regional bank and seasoned hotel guest, discovered during a recent stay in Boise, Idaho, that the switch by the door actually turned on a small minibar light.

After fumbling around in the darkness, McLain was eventually able to find a hidden tiny switch on the lamp… far away from the light bulb.

“I think they’re trying to use style points to hide that switch,” he told the station Wall Street Journal.

Hotel guests are tired of dealing with the lighting situation in their rooms.

Whether there are too many or too few lighting fixtures, or whether the switches are too complicated or hidden, as is often the case… travelers around the world struggle with the simple act of turning a light on and off.

“Nothing else drives me crazy like the lighting,” Steve McDuffie, a Washington state scientist who often travels for his job in nuclear waste management, told the Wall Street Journal.

The problems arise when hotels try to hide basic lighting supplies, such as switches, for stylistic and decorative purposes.

Problems also arise when hotels get creative with the lighting they install, including reading lights, vanity mirrors and headboard panels.

These fancy additions only complicate matters, especially when these companies try to update older buildings while faced with the economic realities of running a hotel.

“It’s harder to get the same functionality as when you do a new construction project,” says Sarah Churchill, director of business development for Benjamin West, a Colorado company that buys furniture, fixtures and equipment for hotels.

Churchill said she had to ask her boss last fall to show her where the toggle switch was on a desk lamp in New York City.

She says her coworker didn’t know how to turn off the headlight at a Salt Lake City hotel, so she slept all night with a washcloth over her head to block out the light.

Even hotel managers themselves cannot cope with the impossible feat of turning on the lights during their stay.

Marriott International Chief Executive Tony Capuano says he stayed at the London Edition hotel, a luxury boutique hotel designed by Ian Schrager.

Capuano says he still doesn’t know how the hotel’s fancy light switches work.

“They are charming, but we chose form over function,” he says.

Eric Roberts, a competitor at Squid Games, uploaded a TikTok to his account showing his own struggles with a hotel’s lighting system, captioning it, “Why is it so hard?”

Users flocked to the comments to agree. ‘Correct. “When you think you’ve done it, blindly toddle into bed, turn on the nightlight and the parking lot lights up,” one TikToker joked.

“It’s like a damn light puzzle before bed,” said another.

Another asked, “Why are the switches always so far away from the actual light?”

Kellie Sirna, who designs hotels in Dallas, says lighting is one of the three most important features hotel guests care about, along with a good mattress and a functional space.

Sirna says, “A room that is too dark or too bright is a mood killer and can kill an experience.”

According to Sirna, hotels must find a perfect balance between lighting functions that we are used to in our own homes and lighting that is affordable, sustainable and not too difficult to use.