Hotel lock innovation paused in the past 20 years, Can you believe that?
You might think I’m joking.
You might say that hotel locks nowadays look much different from those 20 years ago.
That is because you a new guy in this field.You know nothing about it.
I’m telling you seriously — hotel locks have lacked innovation for a very very long time, and this is a fact.
Before analyzing this issue, let’s first understand what the essence is and what is appearance.
What’s Essence and Appearance
Essence—the internal content of an object（hotel lock）—represents the unity of all the manifold and contradictory forms of an object’s being.
Appearance -any particular manifestation of an object(hotel lock)—namely（whatever they are called）, the external forms of its existence(whatever they looks like, the narrow, the wide, the split, etc).
In Greek and Roman philosophy, essence was regarded as the fundamental principle for comprehending things and simultaneously as the origin of their actual emergence.
In contrast, appearance was considered the overt yet illusory manifestation of things or that which exists merely as an object of subjective perception.
Immanuel Kant was an 18th-century German philosopher and the founder of German classical philosophy.
Kant employed the concept of “thing-in-itself” to acknowledge the objectivity of essence. He posited that appearances do not serve as expressions of objective essence; rather, they are nothing more than subjective constructs triggered by the underlying essence.
G. Hegel thought that essence is existing, while appearance is the appearance of essence.
Basically, philosophers all believe that essence is the most fundamental way to understand things.
Why can Elon Musk, the ‘Iron Man ’, almost redefined the rocket?
The first principle Elon Musk advocated is boil things down to the most fundamental truth. This is very similar to knows and use the essense of stuffs.
If NASA(National Aeronautics and Space Administration) doesn’t do well, will there be no one else who can do better?
Elon always pursues the essence and truth of things. If he were deceived by appearances, he would observe how others build rockets and just copy their solutions. In that case, his SpaceX won’t success.
What an amazing thing this is.
Hotel lock only changes Appearance in the past 20 years
Sadly, there is no Elon Musk in the hotel lock industry. Hotel locks problem is not that expensive and un-recyclable.
Hotel locks problem now is just change the appearance.
As the flag, vingcard established several categories.
Then the global all hotel locks study it and make many many similar models.
Other styles of vingcard will also become objects of imitation.
Vingcard all models becomes the standard model.
Vingcard can not jump out the Essence it has defined hotel lock.
Because everybody is just watching what vingcard do. So, if vingcard don’t have new action, everybody don’t have new action.
But vingcard don’t need more innovation.
The above defines the functional boundaries of the hotel door lock product.No one dares to challenge it.
In the past 30 years those behind VingCard have been busy following it to get on board.
Companies in a leading position or those that have achieved a monopoly will face the following situations:
The dominant department in the company is no longer the product department, but the marketing department.
Hotel Door lock’s 3 elements
Let’s analyze these three points, which made up of the essence of the hotel lock.
Mortise lock-There are many types of door lock. And mortise lock is just one type of them.
The lock must be mortise lock that means. there is a lockcase put inside door.
When install it, you must drill a pocket on the door.
There is a type door locks called rim lock. Rim lock is a surface mounted lock.
Mortise lock also has many standards. The standards vary in different regions. The main difference lies in the size.
There are US standard
AU standard
EU standard
China standard
Powered by battery-Modern Hotel use door lock is a electronic door lock. Its main function locking and unlocking needs a a series of devices to complete.
Including following two parts.
Motor-Inside moritse, or on front panel.
Card reading logic PCB
Please note that not 100% of hotel locks are battery-powered .
There are always some exceptions.
For example some locks uses code on card, the lock is pure mechanical. The lock read the code to identify it is correct or not.Vingcard mechanical Original series locks is working on this way.
But these locks can not limit use time. So they can’t be modern hotel locks.
So we won’t discuss these niche things here.
Use programmable card as key- that means there is a card programming device, or machine, and software, no matter built-in machine,or separate windows application. These tools allow hotel program (save) the room number and use valid time into card.
This point will bring 3 things. The card programming device, software, and card reading logic PCB on lock.
Market sales hotel lock are mostly like below.
Aand there are a lots of ‘new look’ hotel lock sinnce 2019.
They are usually
-use Aluminum alloy as the material
-CNC cut panel.
-black color
-no plastic housing for PCB (put behind the panel)
They looks ‘new’, but it just the game old wine put in new bottles.
Looking at the models of vingcard again, they all have the frame above.
The only real different model is Allure, it bring new experiences.
And since vingcard is the teacher of many hotel lock manufacturers, the all hotel locks market product are almost same.
Changing does not equal to innovation.
So we can see that after more than 20 years of growing, the appearance of hotel locks has become very different, but the essence of hotel lock never changed .
Many so-called innovations are merely patchwork on the existing things.
3 elements never changed.
And that also means a very important thing, and it is a disaster.
-Customer never have new and fresh experience for 20 years!
As a result, hotel locks have become a boring product, and the hotel lock business has turned into a difficult business.
