"Marrying  high tech and high touch to transform the hotel experience in many exciting ways" -- Starwood
Stamford, Connecticut( US) November 6 2014: Yet another avatar for  the smart phone. Now it can help you check into a hotel without joining a queue, proceed straight to your room   and  open it by just placing the phone near the door handle! 
US-headquartered Starwood Hotels & Resorts Worldwide  have  introduced   for members of  Starwood Preferred Guest  their loyalty programme, the hospitality industry’s first mobile, keyless entry system: SPG Keyless. All Aloft, Element and W Hotels around the globe will  eventually offer the Keyless service which  is being ro9lled out initially in  10 hotels in Beijing, Hong Kong, New York, Los Angeles and Doha.
SPG Keyless – powered by the SPG app – enables guests to bypass the front desk (where available), go directly to their room and unlock their stay with a simple tap of their bluetooth-enabled smartphone.
“Not only does SPG Keyless alleviate a perennial pain point for travelers, but it also transforms the first interaction with our guests from one that is transactional to something more personal,” said Frits van Paasschen, Starwood’s President & Chief Executive Officer.SPG Keyless  went live yesterday at  : Aloft Beijing, Aloft Cancun, Aloft Cupertino, Aloft Harlem, W Doha, W Hollywood, W Hong Kong, W New York-Downtown, W Singapore and Element Times Square. Starwood will rapidly rollout SPG Keyless with plans for it to be available on 30,000 doors in 150 hotels around the globe by early 2015 across Aloft, Element and W hotels.SPG Keyless is available to SPG members who book a hotel room through one of Starwood’s channels (hotel websites, SPG.com, the SPG app or customer contact centers).

HOW IT WORKS
SPG Members must register their phone once through the SPG App and allow push notifications. After booking a reservation at a keyless hotel and approximately 24 hours before arrival, SPG members are invited to opt-in to SPG Keyless. Guests will receive a push notification noting that they are checked in and the SPG App will update with his/her room number and Bluetooth key when the room is ready. Upon arrival at the hotel, the guest can completely bypass the front desk (where available) and go directly to his/her room. After ensuring his/her Bluetooth is enabled, the guest simply opens the SPG App, holds the smartphone to the door lock, waits for the solid green light and enters the room.
|SPG Keyless is an evolution of Starwood’s Smart Check-In, another industry-first that debuted at Aloft hotels in 2011, allowing guests to bypass traditional check-in and access their rooms with a RFID-equipped key card. Building upon those early learnings to develop SPG Keyless, Starwood tapped the world’s largest lock manufacturer, Assa Abloy, to create an all-new, Bluetooth-enabled lock as well as keyless software, which are designed to securely recognize and connect with a guest’s mobile device.
Link for more information on SPG Keyless here

We have a picture story on how keyless entry works in our Image of the Day section