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[h=1]Soon, You Might Unlock Your Hotel Room With Your Smartphone[/h]
Brian Heater Jan 27, 2014
Also See: good ideas
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As anyone whos spent the night outside their own home in the past two decades can tell you, hotels have been moving away from the whole lock-and-key system, widely adopting keycards as an industry standard.
Now, Starwood, a hotel and resort chain operating more than 1,000 properties worldwide, has been experimenting with some alternative approaches, including a system in which you can open your hotel door with your smartphone.
Heres the history: Back in 2010, Starwood began experimenting with a Netflix-like approach to check-ins, mailing preferred guests keycards that would be activated when their room was ready for check-in upon their arrival.
Fast-forward a few years, and the chain is now skipping the post office, experimenting with phone-based check-ins at Aloft Hotel locations in Harlem and Cupertino. Rather than getting a physical keycard in the mail, a guest receives a virtual one pushed to her Starwood app, letting her forgo the front desk and use the phone as the room key, connecting to the lock via a Bluetooth connection.
The app works on the iPhone 4s and newer and Android handsets running 4.3 or later; Starwood is quick to emphasize, however, that the front desk isnt going anywhere, for flip-phone holdouts and Windows Phone owners.
As for the locks themselves, theyre battery-powered. The upside is that theyll continue to operate should the hotels system go down. The downside is that once the battery dies, theyre pretty much useless thankfully, however, the front desk will get a notification when their juice is running low.
The past year or so has seen a major land rush to produce a so-called smartlock, or a lock that connects to your smartphone and can be opened via an app. Within the past few years, products like Goji, August and Okidokeys (listen, we didnt name em) have battled to replace traditional front door keys with smartphones.
Its an appealing (if potentially risky) proposition for anyone whos ever fished around for a set of keys on a sub-zero day. And lets face it: These days youre a lot more likely to leave behind your keychain (or your hotel keycard) than your smartphone.
You can check out the Starwood keyless entry system in action in the promotional video below:
Yahoo Tech is a brand new tech site from David Pogue and an all-star team of writers. Follow us on Facebook for all the latest.
Source: Soon, You Might Unlock Your Hotel Room With Your Smartphone
Brian Heater Jan 27, 2014
Also See: good ideas
Also See:
Weak Data-Breach Laws Leave Us All In A Compromised Position
 PROMOTED
How CES Has Remained Relevant
Keep Your Kids Safe from the Big Bad Web, No Matter Their Age
Food Porn, A New Kind of Porn That Will Make Your Mouth Water
Review: Beats Music May Just Know What You Want to Listen to Before You Do
As anyone whos spent the night outside their own home in the past two decades can tell you, hotels have been moving away from the whole lock-and-key system, widely adopting keycards as an industry standard.
Now, Starwood, a hotel and resort chain operating more than 1,000 properties worldwide, has been experimenting with some alternative approaches, including a system in which you can open your hotel door with your smartphone.
Heres the history: Back in 2010, Starwood began experimenting with a Netflix-like approach to check-ins, mailing preferred guests keycards that would be activated when their room was ready for check-in upon their arrival.
Fast-forward a few years, and the chain is now skipping the post office, experimenting with phone-based check-ins at Aloft Hotel locations in Harlem and Cupertino. Rather than getting a physical keycard in the mail, a guest receives a virtual one pushed to her Starwood app, letting her forgo the front desk and use the phone as the room key, connecting to the lock via a Bluetooth connection.
The app works on the iPhone 4s and newer and Android handsets running 4.3 or later; Starwood is quick to emphasize, however, that the front desk isnt going anywhere, for flip-phone holdouts and Windows Phone owners.
As for the locks themselves, theyre battery-powered. The upside is that theyll continue to operate should the hotels system go down. The downside is that once the battery dies, theyre pretty much useless thankfully, however, the front desk will get a notification when their juice is running low.
The past year or so has seen a major land rush to produce a so-called smartlock, or a lock that connects to your smartphone and can be opened via an app. Within the past few years, products like Goji, August and Okidokeys (listen, we didnt name em) have battled to replace traditional front door keys with smartphones.
Its an appealing (if potentially risky) proposition for anyone whos ever fished around for a set of keys on a sub-zero day. And lets face it: These days youre a lot more likely to leave behind your keychain (or your hotel keycard) than your smartphone.
You can check out the Starwood keyless entry system in action in the promotional video below:
Yahoo Tech is a brand new tech site from David Pogue and an all-star team of writers. Follow us on Facebook for all the latest.
Source: Soon, You Might Unlock Your Hotel Room With Your Smartphone
