Originally Posted by FLOIR

I assume this is the deadbolt that is directly on the doorhandle area.

What does a hotel do in the case of an emergency with the other safety bolt? I don't know the exact name for it but it is usually higher on the door. You swing it towards the door and if the door is opened, it catches a little latch on the door itself and keeps the door from only opening an inch or two.

Since that appears to be purely mechanical, how does a hotel undo that in order to open the door?

Originally Posted by tev9999

I'm not worried about personal information, but if there is no connection from the door reader to a central computer, how would they print out the history of who's keys were used? Plug a computer/printer directly into the door? It also seems that a predetermined sequence of codes could be subjet to theft - especially to the programmers who created the computer - kind of like the ones who programmed slot machines to pay out if the correct sequence of "inputs" occured.

I also had an issue several years ago where I could not get back in my room late one night. Went to the front desk and they gave me a new key card. Once I got back to my room I had a voice message from the front desk that my company credit card had been declined and could I please come to the desk to resolve it. I always assumed they intentionally disabled my key so I would have to go to the desk, but the night clerk did not realize it. Would they have done this?

Originally Posted by FLOIR

I assume this is the deadbolt that is directly on the doorhandle area.

What does a hotel do in the case of an emergency with the other safety bolt? I don't know the exact name for it but it is usually higher on the door. You swing it towards the door and if the door is opened, it catches a little latch on the door itself and keeps the door from only opening an inch or two.

Since that appears to be purely mechanical, how does a hotel undo that in order to open the door?

Originally Posted by Foreign Affair

I've always thought those things do more harm than good. People think they can open the door a crack and the chain or swing bar will protect them, but anyone who wants in won't be stopped for a moment by those.

Originally Posted by ByrdluvsAWACO

I've never figured out where the card reader gets its power from.

Originally Posted by chartreuse

I use them soley to stop the maid from walking in on me if I'm e.g. in the shower.

Originally Posted by Foreign Affair

4 AA batteries.

Originally Posted by Foreign Affair

Drawing on my experience as a hotel manager in a previous career, I'd like to debunk this and offer a description of how these systems work.

Quite aside from anything else, theres no reason for the hotel to put your credit card info on a room key card. All it's used for is to open your room door, so why would they put your credit card info on it? Additionally, the key encoding machines are not connected to the hotel's computer system, so there's no way to get CC info onto it.

Originally Posted by Foreign Affair

The only thing on the card key is a rotating code and a serial code of some sort to distinguish one key from another (i.e. two master keys will have the same key code but different serial codes.) When you check in, the clerk puts the key in an encoding machine that records onto it the next sequential code for the lock on your room. When you first enter your room the lock recognizes that the next sequential code is being used and instantly invalidates the previous key. That explains why if you get a second key later for someone else, it often messes up your key - the clerk coded a new key rather than a duplicate. The sequence change means that the previous guest can no longer get into the room.

Originally Posted by brentley

In a early career stop I coded hotel managment software (frontdesk/backoffice stuff) and I can assure you that some cardkey systems do indeed interface with the front desk software. In fact in the late 80s we had the ability to order a key directly from the folio screen on the terminal on the clerks desk (think audit trace etc as being important here). In addition while there are open fields on the mag stripe of the card and any free form data the the hotel wanted could be placed into this field.



yep, this is precisely how it works. Also realize that the locks are time coded etc. and often your key will expire at 3 pm (or whenever the next guest checks into the room) the day you check out. obviously people don't code the key to expire at checkout time (that would be a pain). So when the machine cuts the key it cuts a start time, a finish time (number offset from a known point) and whatever else the hotel wants on the card (usually very little).

It was a pretty fun gig for a youngster makes the checkin process a bit different.

Brentley

Originally Posted by Foreign Affair

The locks by the way are not wired into any system, they have batteries in them

Originally Posted by Doppy

But don't you typically have to give your credit card info over to the hotel at the time of booking?

Originally Posted by AC110

Thanks for the update, a useful addition. I suppose new properties might have some reason to wire the locks in during construction, while it would be far too expensive to wire locks in on an existing property.