Contactless Smart Cards, RFID, Payment, Transit and Security

European hotel guests get room keys on mobile phones thanks to NFC

Thursday, October 5, 2006


After a long flight, you arrive extremely tired at your hotel to find a line of people queued up at the front desk. Then you remember that you are an NFC user … you bypass the front desk and go straight to your room because you already know your room number and the key … in your cell phone.

This is already a reality – at least in pilot-form – in select European hotels and it’s going to be introduced to American audiences soon. The solution is one more exciting capability of Near Field Communications (NFC) … in this iteration an NFC-enabled phone communicates with contactless door locks that are NFC-compatible.

There are 910 words in the rest of this article …

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VingCard Elsafe has announced that the Sheraton Grand Hotel & Spa in Edinburgh, Scotland has installed VingCard’s Signature RFID contactless locking solution.

Replacing the traditional magnetic stripe key card system, the new locks will enable guests to simply tap to enter their room using a contactless card or fob. The system can also be adapted to support NFC technology, allowing guests to used their NFC-enabled mobile phone to check in remotely and receive an encrypted room key through SMS. Guests can go straight to their room and tap the phone against the lock to gain entry.

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ASSA ABLOY, Nordic Choice Hotels, Giesecke & Devrient, TeliaSonera and VingCard Elsafe have completed a pilot project to replace hotel room keys with NFC-enabled mobile phones.

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OpenWays has announced the launch of its “Mobile Key Dual with Pure NFC” hotel check-in and room access solution at Nordic Choice Hotels in Stockholm, Sweden.

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VingCard Elsafe, provider of hospitality security and part of ASSA ABLOY Group, has been selected by Grand Hyatt San Francisco to provide a complete package of VingCard Elsafe solutions for installation as part of the renovation of its 659 guestrooms.

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VingCard Elsafe has announced that its new ASSA ABLOY Mobile Keys Solution has won the Self-Service Products category in Casino Enterprise Management magazine’s second annual Hospitality Operations Technology (HOT) Awards.

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Verizon Wireless is working with two ASSA ABLOY companies – HID Global and Yale Locks & Hardware – to demonstrate the benefits of smart phones carrying mobile keys.

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