Your hotel lobby, front desk reception, and guest rooms all set the tone for your guests’ experience, and they all share a property asset that has a surprisingly large impact on that experience: your electronic hotel door locks.
Is there a line for your guests to obtain their key? Do the electronic locks complement the hotel’s interior style or stand out as bulky and out of place? Is the security of the keycards guaranteed? Is it true that they work every time?
Returning to the front desk to replace a faulty keycard is a sure way to make a poor first impression. The hotel sector is increasingly implementing contactless keyless entry systems, allowing visitors to bypass the front desk entirely and access their rooms via their mobile devices. In other words, if your hotel visitors have to think twice about locking the doors, that’s two times too many.
Upgrading your locks is a once-in-a-decade expenditure for many hotel owners, so selecting the correct match is critical. We’ve put up an overview of lock technology, varieties, and major providers to help you navigate through your options and decide which is best for your property – and your visitors.
Anything that goes beyond the typical metal key and lock’s physical access methods will use technology. This technology authenticates the key, causing the hotel door lock to open and close. The various choices differ primarily in how the “key” is encoded and subsequently communicates with the hotel room lock’s reader.
Each choice has its own set of benefits and drawbacks. However, the locking system you select will decide the types and providers of smart locks available to you, so this is the ideal place to start.
Magnetic key card technology first appeared in the 1970s, and it constituted a significant advancement in lock technology. This small, plastic keycard features a magnetic stripe that is encoded to function with a specific guestroom lock, similar to a credit card. When a magnetic key card is swiped in the magstripe reader on the correct guestroom door, the door is unlocked for a certain amount of time, usually several seconds. The magstripe scanner, like other electronic hotel locks, is powered by batteries, which normally last 12-18 months before needing to be replaced.
Advantages:
At their pricing point, magstripe keycards can be single-use, and they’ve been the industry standard electronic locking system for decades. This option is likely to be well-known among your guests.
Disadvantages:
Demagnetization is a common occurrence. If a guest inserts a magnetic key card near an electromagnetic field (such as a smartphone or television), the encoding may be damaged, resulting in a failure (and a trip to the front desk for a replacement). Dirt and dust collection in the card reader slot can potentially impede lock operation. Magstripe cards are rarely reused by hotels, resulting in an unnecessary recurring expense and environmental issues.
RFID keycards hotel door lock employing Mifare technology just need to be held up within a few inches of the lock to get entry. The electronic locks have an RFID module that broadcasts a signal over modulated radio waves that triggers an in-range keycard to submit its unique encoded guest access information, which the module then authenticates to unlock the door.
Advantages:
RFID keycards and locks were created to eliminate the drawbacks of magstripe locking systems. Hotels can also re-use RFID keycards.
Disadvantages:
RFID keycards are expensive for replacing keycards that are not returned, misplaced, or stolen (which can also pose a threat to guestroom and hotel security).
Today’s mobile key solutions are powered by BLE technology. These locks, like RFID and NFC locks, constantly broadcast a signal that awaits interaction with an encoded key, though the key is digital in this case. Initially, however, Bluetooth locks were ineffective for hotels, necessitating battery replacement every six months.
Advantages:
BLE locks have a battery life of 12-18 months and have both BLE and RFID modules, allowing them to be operated using a proximity card or a digital key. With BLE module lock modifications, RFID-only locks can also be readily and economically fitted. With BLE, hotels don’t have to replace keycards as frequently, and visitors spend less time waiting at the front desk because mobile keys allow for contactless check-in. Guests can also use hotel mobile apps to get digital keys, which provides a direct marketing channel for hotels to generate more revenue.
Disadvantages:
Hotels had a hard time convincing customer to download their hotel mobile app for digital key access for the first few years with BLE locks and digital keys.
Hotel guest door locks have come a long way from the mechanical lock and metal key of the past. Hotel door lock technologies and hardware available today can dramatically improve your hotel’s visitor experience — one door lock at a time.
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