The idea of using your smartphone to unlock a door is one that has been around for years. However it seems that if you are planning on staying in any one of the Starwood hotel group’s hotels, you might be interested to learn that the group has recently upgraded 30,000 room locks in 150 hotels that will allow users to unlock the door using the smartphone.
The locks will rely on Bluetooth technology and not only will it allow users to enter their room by waving their smartphone over the locked door, but it will also save them time from checking in. Guests will need to complete a one-time registration, after which on the day that they are supposed to check in, they will receive a notification telling them their room number.
Once that is done, guests can stroll into the hotel at any given time and go straight to their room. This is great for travellers who might arrive late at night and who just want to hop into the shower and sleep without having to go through the formalities of having to check in, fill out forms, wait for their keys, and whatnot.
Starwood will not be alone in their efforts as the Hilton group of hotels also announced earlier this year that they too will be upgrading their rooms to allow users to unlock their hotel room doors with smartphones as well, although Hilton’s plans appear to be more ambitious as they are aiming for all of its 600,000 rooms. We expect Starwood will eventually roll out the feature to more of its hotels in the future.
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