Airports are using ‘smart glass’ to make you spend more money

Bloomberg

There are many depictions of a future in which we’ve mastered the art of manipulating the opacity of glass. Even in real life, sunglasses can adapt to the intensity of sunlight. So why, one might ask, can’t we have that in our homes, or at work?
The wait may soon be over. The tinted world of tomorrow is coming, and airports—mini-cities of steel, concrete and lots and lots of glass—are interested. In a test last fall, Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport outfitted one of its gates with a new type of “smart glass” that can adjust for sunlight exposure. The obvious point is to keep travellers from getting overheated—but the exercise also brought a more lucrative benefit.
The test was designed to see if the product, called View Dynamic Glass, might improve passenger satisfaction along a small stretch of terminal real estate—specifically, gate seating at A28 and a burger restaurant’s east-facing bar, one regularly torched by the Texas sun.
For years, airport executives have analysed the links between travellers’ impressions and their spending, with terminal “dwell time” the critical link: People tend to hustle through New York’s dreaded LaGuardia as rapidly as possible while lingering in acclaimed venues such as those in Seoul, Singapore and Munich. Travellers who are relaxed after emerging from security tend to spend more money while waiting for their flights. As the fourth-busiest US airport, DFW could benefit from this dynamic, its officials concluded.
“We definitely see the impact,” said Casey Norton, a DFW Airport spokesman. The restaurant had
approached the airport about its lagging sales, he said.
The glass used in Dallas is manufactured by View Inc., a 10-year-old Silicon Valley company that targets commercial offices, hospitals, higher education facilities, airports and other places where customer satisfaction is a priority. French materials giant Compagnie de Saint-Gobain SA has a similar electrochromatic product called SageGlass.
The technology is intended to reduce light by activating internal shading and, by extension, reducing the ambient temperature. It works somewhat like the windows on a Boeing Co. 787 Dreamliner; a button to lower or raises opacity.
“We spend 90 percent of our time indoors,” said Rahul Bammi, View’s chief business officer. “The things that really matter are light, air quality, temperature and sound. We impact at least three of those in a positive way.”
The study at DFW, conducted by a Cornell University design professor, also found that surface temperatures on seats and carpeting near the new gate glass were 10F to 15F lower, boosting dwell time by 53 percent over that at a nearby gate with regular glass. Spending around the cooler gate rose as well.
The additional revenue may come at exactly the right time for America’s airports. Such glass could boost food and retail sales at a time when airports have been taking a financial hit.
View’s “smart” glass installations all have Internet protocol and electrical power connections to allow for adjustments and programming.