Also
Choose a cosy London capsule hotel in a shared dorm for a sociable vibe, meet like-minded travellers, and swap stories or book out an entire dorm for a private group adventure.
I spent 3 nights and got much better sleep than I would have at a hostel.
My biggest worry about these types of places would be safety. A fire could be horrifying.
I always enjoyed their hotels, and my preference was usually some of the cheaper ones, like the Prince hotels. I have stayed in ones like the fancy Dai Ichi ones, but I felt that they weren't really all that much better than the cheaper ones (but I'm sure there's even fancier ones, for folks that can afford).
Your body measures CO2 (not O2), and will escalate to full-blown panic will before it’s particularly dangerous. You’d leave on your own.
Ventilation for accommodation in the UK is extremely poorly regulated, or not at all, from what I can tell. I've been given rooms with a hermetically sealed window and no A/C unit.
I stayed at a brand new Hyatt the other day and the A/C had no "fan" only option (ie to avoid dry throats), and when off, provided no passive ventilation as far as I could tell. No opening window. And this was an aparthotel with a cooker etc. Absolutely ridiculous.
Premier Inn's budget 'Hub' brand chain have sealed windows and just wall-mounted A/C (not fed fresh air from a central duct). Should be illegal
I think legally they're allowed to use the 1 inch space under the door as ventilation...
You actually need a lot of ventilation in hotels because they often use very harsh chemicals especially in the linen
You might as well say the same thing about any sealed building, like virtually every skyscraper, or honestly most hotels I've stayed in (without exterior windows that you can open).
Buildings have air ducts for forced air flow. This isn't any different. Each capsule has one vent for fresh air, another that removes the air. It's the same way regular rooms work.
And oxygen and CO2 diffuse through air and ducts anyways, passively, even if blower fans fail. Plus there are additional gaps anyways for safety. You're not going to suffocate. They do actually think about these things in building codes. You're not allowed to build rooms that would suffocate someone if mechanical fans failed.
edit: checked wrong location, only 1 of the locations has capsules and it is 27 pounds as advertised
https://zedwellhotels.com/locations/london/piccadilly-circus...
Edit, Jan 1 is £48
> Workers who moved out of London for remote work are under pressure to come back to the office in the city, and some are choosing to stay in Japanese-inspired sleeping pods for just £30 ($40).
People that could be living in human friendly spaces are being pushed to live in a tube for no significant reason other than the whims of the wealthy.
Even setting aside stuff like fire hazards or claustrophobia, notably absent from this is the ability to lead a social life inside: no place to bring a partner or a group of friends.
Your time will be spent at work or recharging for the next work day.
It seems like any low paying job that lets them get back home every evening would be better than this.
I definitely shouldn’t have to pay more for a hotel because other people are claustrophobic. And the fire thing is a red herring, in a modern city there are fire codes and inspections - presumably this is very regulated. You’re almost certainly less safe staying in an unregulated air bnb, people have died in airbnb fires.
See https://montrealgazette.com/news/owner-of-old-montreal-build... for example
The main lobby was nice and a pint was a reasonable price - I sat there after having dinner at work, and read a book, which felt pretty nice to be honest.
The bed was comfy, with clean good smelling sheets.
But there were three issues that meant I went back to relying on friends and family until I got a local job.
1. Someone's feet smelt terrible - so bad it was hard to sleep
2. Someone snored loadly - it was even harder to sleep
3. The shower was grimy. I was lucky to have a ThirdSpace membership so showered there instead
It was a bargain and saved me traveling after a long day of work and having to be social after a very early start to get to London on the Monday. But the better option for me was to find a suitable local job and not do the extra long week commute. (I was also missing my family loads too, so it was never a longer term option for me).
Some of these are better sound-proofed than others. Some even have little TVs or radios inside, but I've never found that worse than traffic or construction noise if you're anyway in the city. There's always earplugs.
Shared bathrooms suck, especially if you need to be out during "rush hour" when everyone else also needs to be out, but for a saving of $100+ per night there's plenty of people who would gladly accept holding their pee for a few minutes and/or getting into an already-steamed-up and damp shower cubicle. Most people gotta work 4 hours to make that kind of money back.
So: X5A hard plastic ear segments between U shaped pillow (the U shape supports your skull, the hard plastic goes between the U) -> then ideally something very soft under the U shaped pillow which buffers between the hard plastic of the X5A and your mattress, so the plastic never fully presses against anything firm (if the plastic of the X5A meets something firm, then your skull is meeting something firm). Very soft memory foam can work great for that, or really anything super soft.
X5A + brown noise = you can't hear alarms, you can't hear dogs barking nearby, you can't hear yelling. All normal noises vanish. So be aware of your surroundings, you won't hear a typical fire alarm either for example.
Some people try to use headphone type noise cancellation, which is mediocre at cancelling most noise. I found instead of using headphone noise cancellation, it was far better in most circumstances to use the X3A + earbuds while working - that tandem was very comfortable to wear for long periods of time. The X5A is not very comfortable, it's just max effective.
I think it’s time for a societal reality-check.
The facility was nice, clean and modern (it is in the Trocadero building, I think they have over 700 rooms when I asked), but the cafe didn't open until something like 9 AM so I had to go out several times in the morning for my coffee. I ended up using the bathroom mirror backlight as a night light, otherwise it is pitch black.
One way to describe it is as a very pleasant jail cell, which (of course) you can leave at will.
Still forcing workers to return to office when they have already gotten used to remote work is so messed up. Capitalism sucks.
Fully agree on forced RTO being evil.
The middle-wealthy landlords are the people profiteering off of normal-people housing, but they are a symptom of not building enough.
"The Prince Charles Cinema near Leicester Square claims Aziz is trying to “bully” it out of its building, while his business has also played a key role in the closure of the world’s first YMCA branch near Tottenham Court Road." https://www.londoncentric.media/p/asif-aziz-delta-point-croy...
"Why does a property company controlled by one of London’s richest men keep leasing expensive shop units to students with no obvious retail experience — only for those students to repeatedly vanish without paying millions of pounds in [property] taxes?" https://www.londoncentric.media/p/asf-aziz-london-candy-shop...
I guess snails were not available at the time https://www.theguardian.com/news/ng-interactive/2025/dec/04/... https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46241159
What you should dream of instead - most jobs becoming remote or physically proximal to where you live.
The problem with capsule hotels is that it attracts the wrong crowd. In Japan it works because they are considerate.
I've used a capsule pod for a week. Drunk people having sex above your head is not fun. Those plastic pods are a bit flimsy.
The last day there was a whole polish work crew that invited there girlfriends. They had no problem walking around in their underwear.
I had this Japanese vibe in mind, but that was quickly gone.
fcpguru•5d ago