iPhone "Keys" Coming to Starwood (Swalphin)?

[ford91exploder]

You go down to the front desk and get a key for your room. This isn't like a phone is the only way in a room. It's not a one-fits-all solution for everyone. It's for people that have Starwood Accounts linked on their compatible smart phone that have no desire to stand at a Check-In-Desk. As far as the key itself, they could very well even have a hard keyhole on the door (Like Disney does) or just have RFID enabled locks as well or even (Not sure why they would want to) keep the old mag stripe system. It's not that hard of a concept to understand, it's actually pretty simple and effective.

Magstripe readers have wear problems, Remember a magstripe is Magnetic Iron Oxide ie RUST it's somewhat abrasive and read heads simply wear out, RFID systems do not have mechanical wear problems.

 

[Darth Sidious]

This isn't to say WDW had to build a CLOSED system.. that couldn't use customer provided devices as an alternative token if the customer had it. But it's entirely a different world to do it the other way.. which is 'customer must provide token'

I meant to write this in my OP. I moreso am surprised that they didn't leave it open for additional/alternative tokens. However, @wdwmagic makes a great point that I failed to consider the revenue streams attached to the bands. I always thought it was a brilliant business idea to get consumers to pay to customize Disney's analytics device.

 

[flynnibus]

and just hope the guests have the phone charged, otherwise they aren't getting into the park or hotel room LOL.

Yeah, part of the 'optimized for your application' point I meant. The extreme battery life of the token is important in this environment... something a full fledged smartphone is always going to struggle with. The more 'inert' the token is.. the better.. and the MB is good for that.

I am suprised though we haven't seen alternate forms of the MB yet. As much as people moan on here about wearing a band.. I would imagine Disney would be hearing that from the test audience as well. And other form factors aren't THAT difficult to implement. I don't think they are as good in many ways... but it would seem giving an alternate form would answer much of that noise.

 

[flynnibus]

This I can see in the not too distant future.

The trade-off being support and test matrices... things the company has already shown they do poorly

I'm not sure 'losing the MB..' for my phone is a high enough gain to justify the expense of development and overhead. Plus of course, it goes against the company centric benefits the active radio in the band gives.

I would expect more variations of the token being available before they give up and let customers BYOT (bring your own token )

 

[ford91exploder]

The trade-off being support and test matrices... things the company has already shown they do poorly

I'm not sure 'losing the MB..' for my phone is a high enough gain to justify the expense of development and overhead. Plus of course, it goes against the company centric benefits the active radio in the band gives.

I would expect more variations of the token being available before they give up and let customers BYOT (bring your own token )

Agree on all points!, however tracking can be done via WiFi, Check out http://www.meridianapps.com, If Disney had used this they would have had an interactive guidemap.

 

[flynnibus]

To the comments about the readers and range..

I can fully get behind the concept behind the placement of the reader and the range choice. But I think what they failed to recognize in the paper design phase is that the wrist is not always 'at the leading surface'... so the problems with getting your band near the door lock in the corner I would classify as a design failure that they failed to identify.

The readers at the park.. could have also been a 'looks good on paper' situation. If you don't account for the offset for materials properly, or account for people having their wrist FLAT against the reader. The relaxed position of your arm is actually rotated in, where your thumb is not paralell to the direction you face, but actually pointed across your body.

Just the simple nature of your wrist in it's natural position can add an inch easy to the distance.

Door badge cards are flat... the reader is flat.. people naturally lay the card up flat against the reader. Your wrist is round.. and the tag is only in one spot. This is probably something they wrote off in early testing as 'people will adapt...' or 'it doesn't add that much more time'. I find it to be a usability problem and less of a 'broke or not' problem. I have to imagine the situation where the head doesn't go green for some variance is far more of an impact.

The problem that everyone is impacted by even ONE person having a problem is far more significant. I don't know the answer to that one tho... how to redesign the queue entrance to eliminate that single point of failure impact. The guy that nails that WITHOUT adding labor costs is the guy who deserves a bonus

 

[ford91exploder]

To the comments about the readers and range..

I can fully get behind the concept behind the placement of the reader and the range choice. But I think what they failed to recognize in the paper design phase is that the wrist is not always 'at the leading surface'... so the problems with getting your band near the door lock in the corner I would classify as a design failure that they failed to identify.

The readers at the park.. could have also been a 'looks good on paper' situation. If you don't account for the offset for materials properly, or account for people having their wrist FLAT against the reader. The relaxed position of your arm is actually rotated in, where your thumb is not paralell to the direction you face, but actually pointed across your body.

Just the simple nature of your wrist in it's natural position can add an inch easy to the distance.

Door badge cards are flat... the reader is flat.. people naturally lay the card up flat against the reader. Your wrist is round.. and the tag is only in one spot. This is probably something they wrote off in early testing as 'people will adapt...' or 'it doesn't add that much more time'. I find it to be a usability problem and less of a 'broke or not' problem. I have to imagine the situation where the head doesn't go green for some variance is far more of an impact.

The problem that everyone is impacted by even ONE person having a problem is far more significant. I don't know the answer to that one tho... how to redesign the queue entrance to eliminate that single point of failure impact. The guy that nails that WITHOUT adding labor costs is the guy who deserves a bonus

The fix that suggests itself of course is boosting the power of the RFID sensor, That's a balancing act because you don't want the read radius more than 3"-6" from Mickey otherwise you will have a false detect scenario where the head may pick up bands/cards other than the target user, This scenario has a high probability of being why the mickey-mickey scenario was used.

However designers probably used cards first which as we all know work 100% with mickey heads and people tend to hold card by edge or end which is completely away from RFID in card, Problem is the human body absorbs RF energy and so in addition to the physical constraints there is less RF energy to activate the tag exacerbating the problem.

 

[PolynesianPrincess]

I can never afford to stay at swan and dolphin but i absolutely love the way the resort looks outside and in

The Swan and Dolphin are actually MUCH cheaper than any of the deluxe resorts on property but within walking distance to MGM and Epcot and right in the middle of the fun Boardwalk area.. The only downfall is no DME. Our family owns points through Starwood so we are able to stay at the Swalphin.

 

[R W B]

You go down to the front desk and get a key for your room. This isn't like a phone is the only way in a room. It's not a one-fits-all solution for everyone. It's for people that have Starwood Accounts linked on their compatible smart phone that have no desire to stand at a Check-In-Desk. As far as the key itself, they could very well even have a hard keyhole on the door (Like Disney does) or just have RFID enabled locks as well or even (Not sure why they would want to) keep the old mag stripe system. It's not that hard of a concept to understand, it's actually pretty simple and effective.

I wast asking questions because I didn't understand it, I just wanted to know about it. I remembered watching the TV show Shark Tank and someone had this idea and they walked out with a $500k investment (actually left a $1 million investment offer on the table).

http://www.unikey.com/

http://sharktanksuccess.blogspot.com/2013/03/unikey-technologies.html

 

[lazyboy97o]

I am suprised though we haven't seen alternate forms of the MB yet. As much as people moan on here about wearing a band.. I would imagine Disney would be hearing that from the test audience as well. And other form factors aren't THAT difficult to implement. I don't think they are as good in many ways... but it would seem giving an alternate form would answer much of that noise.

D-Tech phone cases with MyMagic+. No worries about other/changing standards, but the convenience of integration with the phone. I could see such an option being an attractive choice for Annual Passholders.

 

[englanddg]

D-Tech phone cases with MyMagic+. No worries about other/changing standards, but the convenience of integration with the phone. I could see such an option being an attractive choice for Annual Passholders.

I think that would be an excellent idea!

At the minimum they could put a card holding slot on the back of the case to hold and rfid KTTW card.

 

[luv]

I find is amusingly absurd that Disney is still trying to work the bugs out of their new, billion dollar wristband system and newer, better technology has already arrived.

They better head to the bank for another billion dollars. Can't fall behind!

 

[Darth Sidious]

The Swan and Dolphin are actually MUCH cheaper than any of the deluxe resorts on property but within walking distance to MGM and Epcot and right in the middle of the fun Boardwalk area.. The only downfall is no DME. Our family owns points through Starwood so we are able to stay at the Swalphin.

Swan & Dolphin are the only two resorts I will stay at now after my positive experience there last month.

 

[janoimagine]

I find is amusingly absurd that Disney is still trying to work the bugs out of their new, billion dollar wristband system and newer, better technology has already arrived.

They better head to the bank for another billion dollars. Can't fall behind!

So true ... while Disney 's around with their MyMagic Tether program, I love that beautiful tech like this is being installed on their property ... at hotel's within their 'borders' ... probably for a fraction of the cost.

Our crew had the opportunity to use this at some hotels in Japan and China over the past year ... It is awesome, especially when your hands are full of gear and your trying to get back into your room. But if you want to talk about cool tech in hotel rooms ... the US is still light years behind what is going on over their ... from ambient floor lighting, to the showers, to HVAC systems ... it's sad how far behind places here are.

 

[Darth Sidious]

I find is amusingly absurd that Disney is still trying to work the bugs out of their new, billion dollar wristband system and newer, better technology has already arrived.

They better head to the bank for another billion dollars. Can't fall behind!

Something of this scale was bound to have issues. The issues described here are also ones that aren't necessarily known until you get real world testing. I'd say it is sort of like the video game industry in the sense that these companies will stress test their games to no end to ensure they work as desired, only to discover a slew of problems in a public beta or full launch. This is because in a test environment you won't always be able to predict how end users will truly utilize things. Are there things they should have caught? Yes and the project shouldn't have cost so much. This project seemingly turned out much like a public works transit project. Haha

I'm not justifying the decision to go this route in terms of their CAPEX though.

 

[ford91exploder]

Something of this scale was bound to have issues. The issues described here are also ones that aren't necessarily known until you get real world testing. I'd say it is sort of like the video game industry in the sense that these companies will stress test their games to no end to ensure they work as desired, only to discover a slew of problems in a public beta or full launch. This is because in a test environment you won't always be able to predict how end users will truly utilize things. Are there things they should have caught? Yes and the project shouldn't have cost so much. This project seemingly turned out much like a public works transit project. Haha

I'm not justifying the decision to go this route in terms of their CAPEX though.

Disney's MM+ project has suffered the same failings that all 'God Box' projects do, The hubris that you can design a complex system entirely from a high level perspective, Systems designed in the Boardroom nearly ALWAYS fail because of a lack of understanding of the fundamentals which are always brushed off as 'trivial details'.

Government is full of examples FBI Case file system, IRS upgrade ATC system upgrade - literally hundreds of billions of dollars went into these systems and they have all failed and been cancelled and agencies are running on decades old mainframe systems which WORK. I believe at least for the ATC system upgrade they were able to retire the last of the vacuum tube computers in 1999