Starting today, users will be able to use their smartphone to open doors at certain Starwood Hotels, such as Aloft, Element and W, by using a keyless entry application.
The keyless entry app is convenient since it’s harder to lose a cell phone than a plastic room key and the smartphones cannot be demagnetized like the swipe cards. Hotel customers can also skip the check-in and check-out processes – everything will be taken care of on the smart phones.
The process of using this new app is simple. “You enroll your phone by installing an app. On the day of your stay at the hotel, a “key” (some kind of encrypted code) is sent to your phone via a push notification, along with a message telling you which room number you’ll be staying in. Then, you just hold your phone near your hotel room door, and voila — it unlocks. In this case, the app is Starwood Preferred Guest (SPG) — a loyalty scheme for its Aloft, Element, and W hotel chains,” according to the company.
By early 2015 these hotels hope to have 30,000 rooms set up for keyless entry and by the end of 2016 the Hilton plans on having 600,000 rooms set up for keyless entry.
