Wednesday, November 21, 2018

A WeChat-powered hotel in China lets you check in, enter your room, and get breakfast through your phone

China’s biggest app, WeChat, partnered with InterContinental to open a smart hotel in Shanghai that lets users book rooms, remotely check in, and use their phones as key cards — all without requiring human assistance. Once they’ve completed their reservation, travelers verify their identity at the hotel through facial recognition and collect their digital key card. Although the hotel is 88 feet underground, it’s connected enough to provide quick internet services, according to a press release it shared with The Verge.

WeChat and its parent company Tencent have been working on developing smart hotel experiences since 2014, but now it’s added facial recognition into the mix for faster identity checks. Traditionally, hotels in China require...

Continue reading…

Disqus Comments