corporate-wage-slave

Broadly speaking, if you apply for the digital key you will get a notification when the room is ready - this could be several hours before the advertised check-in time in some cases - and yes you are free to head straight to your room. If there is a elevator key process (etc) then there should be an option to unlock that too. The one thing you may miss is the snack + drink allowance if your status allows this; in some Hamptons they do put these in the room for you, particularly the water, but that's the exception. So what I do is if the front desk is clear on arrival is pick them up at that point, or later on if they are busy. Using the digital key also allows you to check-out electronically too, so long as you're not after a late check-out.

You will find several other threads in this forum on different people's experiences, both positive and negative. The first time you use a Digital Key it may fall over, since in the background there are some things set up with credit cards which seem to fall over occasionally. A few jurisdictions require you to add ID information into your profile the first time you use the Key.