Your Hotel Room Keycard Goes Tech

Today's Tech Tool is brought to you courtesy of the Holiday Inn Paris Bastille, where I've been staying while in Paris -- and it's the hotel room keycard.

One of the interesting things about traveling abroad is how what you think should be familiar suddenly becomes somewhat unfamiliar.I have spent a goodly portion of my adult life as a Road Warrior (someone who travels a lot on business) in college admissions and institutional relations, including media and public relations -- that's strategic communications, marketing and public relations in the educational world.

I've stayed in a lot of Holiday Inns over the years in the United States. However, when you stay in Holiday Inn abroad, there are differences due to culture, building codes, laws, etc. And these differences sometimes make you feel as if you are a child again, trying to figure out how everything works.

Case in point for today's Tech Tool. Upon checkin, I received my electronic room keycard from the front desk. The door mechanism was much like that of what is used in the USA. No problem there. In fact, the door had a motion detector that turned on a light right above the doorway as soon as I stood in front of it and turned off once I had entered. Convenient and safe.

The room was full of wonderful fresh morning air from a slightly open window high above a back courtyard, just like a stereotypical Parisian garret. What a treat! I set about unpacking and getting things setup for my stay.

One of the first things that I like to do when in a hotel in a new city -- especially when abroad -- is to turn on the TV and let it play so that I can get a sense of television programming, language (even if I don't understand it) and culture in my current location.

The TV remote was easy to understand, but the TV didn't seem to want to turn on. And then I noticed that while the entry lights worked, I couldn't turn on any other lights, such as the desk lamp or the bathroom. I started looking around.

Just inside the entry door, I found this little square device that said "Hotelcard" and had an arrow pointing toward a slot just the width of my room keycard. So I took my keycard and placed it in the slot.

Voila! The lights turned on, the TV worked as did the air conditioner! Likewise, when I removed the card, everything in the room immediately turned off.

Brilliant! While you're in the room, the hotel keycard is safely ensconced in a little holder right by the door. It's impossible to misplace or lose while in the room because it is by the front door, controlling the electrical power.

When you leave, for any reason, you simply take it out and everything, including power to electrical outlets, turns off -- except for the entry light that can be left on. When you renter, the lights that you had on before immediately come on again -- but the TV has automatically reset itself to the opening "Holiday Inn Welcome Channel."

Now, if you go in and out of your room within the hotel a lot (for example, to get ice or to run down to the front desk), it might get a bit annoying to have to come back in and reset your preferred TV channel. And you can't recharge electrical devices while you're absent, so you need to plan to do this while you're in the room, perhaps overnight. For short absences, my computer simply used battery power and immediately started recharging as soon as the keycard was in place.

However, these are minor inconveniences that can be dealt with easily when compared to the benefits for the customer as well as the obvious energy savings for the hotel.

Now I'm hoping we'll see this kind of technology implemented in USA hotels. I can see all sorts of practical applications -- and not just in hotels. Imagine using these in college dorm rooms, bathrooms in locations protected by keycards, etc.

A simple tool that helps save energy and improves the environment. C'est si bon!

Tagged as: Europe08