If VingCard, the hospitality unit of Assa Abloy, achieves its goal, the ubiquitous magnetic-stripe key card that hotels issue to guests will soon be a thing of the past. The company says its Signature RFID contactless door-locking system--which it launched in 2006--is its fastest-growing product launch in recent history, with orders up 200 percent for 2008 compared with those from the year prior.
The plastic cards that guests receive upon check-in very much resemble the magnetic-stripe cards issued by most hotels, except that they lack a magnetic stripe and are more rugged, because they need to last longer than mag-stripe cards--and because the housing must protect each card's embedded high-frequency RFID inlay.
To open their room door, guests hold the card up to the lock. That is the extent of the card's usefulness now, but future possibilities include accessing many services offered by hotels.
Source: RFID Journal