in hotels, if you lose your room key card, how are they able to reprogram the new one so it works and the old one doesn’t?

Question

Is there some system that transmits information to your door card reader on what the new key is, or is it something different entirely?

In: 1028

Answer 1

Simply put… You don’t program the card you just let the lock know what card to expect.

Imagine there are only 100 cards in the world numbered 1-100. When you check in you are given card #8 and the front desk computer tells the lock at your room to accept card #8.

If you lose it, the front desk computer says “forget #8 only take #55 now”