Why NFC door locks are replacing Bluetooth and key cards at hotels

A guest steps into a hotel elevator. They want to go to the fourth floor and they need to use their Bluetooth key to activate it. So they pull out their phone, find the hotel app, open it, dig through their reservation for the key button and hold it against the reader. Then they wait. By the time the floor button lights up, someone on the eighth floor has called the elevator and the guest is heading the wrong way. 

That scene, says Tess Mattisson, Vice President and Head of Product for Hospitality at ASSA ABLOY, is the Bluetooth room key in a nutshell. It’s also why more hotels are moving to keys that live in the guest’s phone wallet. 

Tess joined Mews CEO Matthijs Welle on episode 97 of Matt Talks Hospitality to discuss the partnership between Mews and Vingcard, an ASSA ABLOY company, which brings native wallet-based room access to hotels.  

Don't call it a door lock company 

Call ASSA ABLOY a door lock company and Tess will gently correct you. “The magic is in the software,” she says. “What you can do with an access management system has got nothing to do with the handle of the lock.” 

A lock stays on the door for around 15 years. The software keeps moving, connecting it to energy management, guest room management and the network around it. 

That makes the choice of partner matter more than the choice of handle. The hotels getting the most out of access technology, Tess says, “started with choosing partners and not vendors”. 

A second is a lifetime 

In 2010, at Clarion Hotel Stockholm, Tess helped launch the world’s first mobile room key with ASSA ABLOY, using NFC. The technology wasn’t ready, and guests told her what they really wanted was digital check-in. 

The industry then spent a decade on Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE), mostly because NFC wasn’t open to developers on the iPhone. BLE works, but it has to connect first, like wireless earbuds pairing when you open the case. “A second ten years ago was nothing,” Tess says. “Today, it’s a lifetime.” 

Wallet keys skip the wait. The guest can tap their phone on the reader without even needing to unlock it. Because the key lives in Apple Wallet or Google Wallet, it also works for a few hours after the battery dies – as Matt discovered when his flat smartwatch still opened the lock. That peace of mind can be a big deal for guests. 

Do you need to install new locks? 

Probably not as many as you think. If a hotel already has ASSA ABLOY locks with RFID readers, even ten-year-old hardware can usually run wallet keys. Locks closer to 30 years old will need a new electronics platform. 

Anything that’s 10–15 years old or older is worth reassessing anyway, for security and for battery life. ASSA ABLOY’s new electronics platform stretches lock battery life to up to five years. Multiply that by a couple of hundred rooms and the labor saved on battery rounds alone adds up quickly. 

Get your team onboard early 

Do guests actually use wallet keys? Across markets, the deciding factor isn’t how digitally mature the guests are – it’s whether the staff embrace the technology. 

Hesitation is natural. Hoteliers are wired to solve a guest’s problem fast, and the fastest way is the familiar way. Usually, that means cutting a keycard. 

The fix is to invest in the hotel team, not just the locks. Train them and let them be guests, so they’re as confident with a wallet key as with a piece of plastic. 

Mobile app, web or wallet? 

Mews supports both a native digital key app and wallet keys, and Tess has a clear view on when an app earns its place. In her experience, “just having the digital key is not value enough to download an app.” A brand with several properties, where guests can book, rebook and redeem vouchers in one place, has a case. Everyone else is better off with a web flow. 

NFC makes that possible, because the secure element sits in the phone rather than an app. With Mews and Vingcard, guests check in online from an email, add the key to their wallet and get a message when their room has been inspected. On arrival, they go straight to it. Simple, efficient and convenient. 

What’s next for the hotel door? 

PIN codes, which many hoteliers still ask for, suit build-to-rent properties better, where various people may require temporary access. In hotels, the data sits on the key. What about facial recognition? Tess says, “never say never”, but whereas it makes sense at an airport gate is a single fast check, the complexity and cost of installing cameras across a hotel doesn’t make sense – at least for now. 

What excites Tess more is using AI beyond operational efficiency, to turn lock data into better decisions. That could mean assigning rooms to stretch battery life, or predicting maintenance before a guest finds themselves locked out. Whatever comes next, given the pace of change in modern hospitality, it will likely be here soon. 

Watch or listen to the episode of Matt Talks Hospitality with Tess Mattisson for the full conversation. 

Watch the episode