Is this the future for accessing hotel rooms?
A new video from Apple Inside shows how you can use a digital room key stored in Apple Wallet to access your hotel room. It looks to work a charm but they do warn that you shouldn’t expect to be able to open your hotel room door with your iPhone everywhere just yet.
The 56-second clip, posted by tech reporter Rich DeMuro to YouTube this week shows the process of adding a Hyatt room key to your Apple Wallet on an iPhone. It also demonstrates how this digital key can be used to unlock floor access in the lift and to unlock an actual hotel room.
By using Express Mode, which is on by default, the user can unlock their hotel room even in stand-by mode just by placing their iPhone near the appropriate smart lock without unlocking the device. This technology was first unveiled at Apple’s WWDC 2021 event. By December of that year, Hyatt — the hotel used in the clip — began rolling out support for the feature at six hotel locations in Illinois, Florida, Hawaii, Texas and California.
Although many hotel chains use digital room keys attached to their own apps, Hyatt is the first to do so with the support of Apple Wallet. Could this be the future for accessing hotel rooms?
How often have got to your hotel room, after a long day, to find that the door card doesn’t work Then you have to trudge down to reception to get a new card “cut”. The Apple Wallet hotel key, is a huge advance for humanity, in my humble opinion.
You may find it hard to believe but I’m staying in a hotel where the key’s on a huge ball. Every time you leave the hotel you have to drop it into reception. I’m quite liking it as it creates a nice relationship with the reception staff. Maybe digital isn’t always the way forward.