Soon enough you’ll be able to walk into a hotel, straight past the front desk, and have your door open automatically for you without any extra effort required, thanks to a new pilot project by Starwood Hotels. Two hotels are debuting keyless entry via smartphones that have a companion app installed and can communicate via Bluetooth 4.0, one in Harlem and one in Cupertino, with both set to go live before the end of the first quarter of this year.

Notably, the tech does not use NFC, but rather opts for low-energy Bluetooth, which is available on Apple’s latest iPhone models as well as on most contemporary high-end Android smartphones. The implementation by Starwood would deploy virtual keys via their smartphone app to hotel guests, which would allow the guests to then open their hotel room door simply by tapping or gesturing with their device once they arrive.

Starwood is bullish on the potential of the tech: CEO Frits van Paasschen told the Wall Street Journal that it believes this will be the “new standard” for hotel access, once it gets past the novelty stage. Of course, it has some potential limitations, like how to easily provision multiple keys for guests and their kids, as well as making sure that the tech is secure enough that patrons are comfortable with it.

Plus, unforeseen parts of the check-in experience like arriving hours early are things that are often dealt with on the fly by the people manning the desk […]