Use 'cricket' instead of the hotel room key

Guests arriving at a hotel room may soon be able to quickly bypass the registration process at the counter and directly unlock the room with a digital key sent directly to the iPhone application.

The program is being tested at two Starwood Aloft hotels, one at Halerm in Manhattan and the other at Apple's headquarters in Cupertino, California.

Turn smartphone into key room - (Photo: gigaom.com)

The locks on the hotels will use the Bluetooth key , similar to Bluetooth- based locks available on the market.

Starwood says the system is compatible with Apple's iPhone as well as new Android devices.

The technology that turns smart phones into self-service keys will be a weapon of mass promotion for hotels in the future, according to The Wall Street Journal.

"We believe this will be the new standard that customers want to come to the hotel ," said Starwood CEO Frits van Paasschen.

Following the test run, Starwood will be rolling out the system at more than 100 locations throughout the United States by the end of 2014.