When Google Wallet relaunched in 2022, Google set out to replace your physical wallet and work towards that continues with support for hotel keys.
Once saved to your Android phone, Google Wallet lets you “safely and securely use your hotel keys to access your Hotels, guestrooms and key card-protected common areas like gyms, pools, and elevators throughout the duration of your stay.”
The set-up process is similar to other passes, like airline tickets, with an “Add to Google Wallet” button on the hotel website, app, or email. Reservation details will be listed in Google Wallet, while “you must check in and be assigned to a room to activate your hotel key.” However, you can add it ahead of time.
To use, “wake and unlock your phone” — though “some hotels allow you to use your hotel key without unlocking” — and hold the back of your device (NFC antenna) near the door handle. There is a “Require device unlock to use” setting by opening the key and tapping the overflow menu in the top-right corner of Google Wallet.
The first hotel to add Google Wallet support is the Clarion Hotel Post in Gothenburg, Sweden.
For comparison, Apple Wallet launched similar support at the end of 2021 for the iPhone and Watch. Other hotel chains also offer hotel keys through their own apps.
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