NFC Times Exclusive: Several hotel chains are planning to start equipping certain properties with door locks supporting Bluetooth low energy by the early part of next year, or are seriously investigating the technology, which enables guests to enter their rooms with keys stored on their smartphones, Legic Identsystems, one of the technology vendors involved, told NFC Times.

The vendor is part of Switzerland based Kaba Group, which supplies door locks from its Kaba Saflok unit. The locks can support BLE technology, in addition to NFC. Chains are asking for BLE support, however, because a large percentage of their guests carry iPhones that would not be able to support NFC-enabled door keys. 

Although Apple’s new iPhones and its forthcoming Apple Watch support NFC with an embedded chip, that chip is not open to third-party developers and is likely to be used only for payment for now.