Smartphones Will Soon Replace Room Keys at Some Starwood Hotels

Guests at the Aloft Hotels in Manhattan and Cupertino, California will soon be able to use their smartphones as room keys, The Wall Street Journal reports. By the end of the quarter, guests will be able to skip the check-in desk and receive a virtual key through the Starwood app instead. Users can then unlock their door with a tap or twist of their phone, which communicates with special door locks via Bluetooth. According to the report, iPhone 4S and Android 4.3 or newer will be compatible. “We believe this will become the new standard for how people will want to enter a hotel,” Starwood CEO Frits van Paasschen told The Wall Street Journal. “It may be a novelty at first, but we think it will become table stakes for managing a hotel.”

image via Beatrice Murch