If you’re like most people, you probably keep your iPhone and Apple Watch in your pocket or purse. But if you’re a hotel guest, now you can use them as hotel keys. Apple has announced that it is working with Marriott International to offer the feature. Marriott is the world’s largest hotel chain and it offers rooms with air conditioning, cable TV, and free breakfast. The company says that using an iPhone or Apple Watch as a key will make sure that guests have access to their room at any time of day or night. The feature is available now through the Marriott app and through the website www.marriott.com/keycodes/.
“Hyatt Hotels Corporation announced today the introduction of room keys in Apple Wallet across the first six participating U.S. hotels: Andaz Maui at Wailea Resort, Hyatt Centric Key West Resort & Spa, Hyatt House Chicago/West Loop-Fulton Market, Hyatt House Dallas/Richardson, Hyatt Place Fremont/Silicon Valley and Hyatt Regency Long Beach,” the hotel chain said in a press release.
Not only will your iPhone or Apple Watch be able to unlock your room, but it’ll open other key card-protected common areas like gyms, pools, and elevators, so there’s no reason you’ll need to use an actual keycard to get around.
For the time being, the feature is only enabled at the hotels listed above, so this isn’t something you’ll be able to take advantage of at all Hyatt hotels (or hotels from other companies). You’ll also need to have iOS 15 or above on iPhone and watchOS 8 or newer on your Apple Watch.
Apple first previewed this feature at WWDC 2021 with its digital ID feature, and hopefully, we’ll see more hotel chains jump on board, as it’s pretty useful for those who travel frequently. Whenever you can have one less thing to keep track of, that’s a positive.
