Six Essential Technologies for Vacation Rental Hosts

Hosting and managing a vacation rental rental property is a lot of work, with hosts having to make sure guests have the best experience while also ensuring the property remains in good condition. These six essential home technologies help hosts manage their guests and monitor their home, allowing them to rest easy when they’re away from home and their property is booked up. 

Notion – Home Monitoring Sensor

Notion is a home monitoring sensor which allows hosts to easily monitor the safety and security of their home with a variety of sensors. Notion sensors can be placed on doors, garage doors, and windows, sending hosts a notification when they’re opened and closed. These sensors can also be placed in locked liquor cabinets, or gun safes, so hosts can immediately know if guests are accessing off limit areas you have specified. 

Notion sensors protect from more than than just overly curious guests, with detection features for smoke and carbon monoxide alarms, notifying hosts as soon as they go off so they can immediately deal with the problem. Similarly, the Notion sensor can detect water leaks early, helping prevent costly water damage from building up. Along with these features, Notion Sensors also have a built-in thermostat, keeping hosts informed of temperature changes in rooms and making for a handy alternative to a smart thermostat.

Keycafe – Key Exchange and Photo ID Verification

Managing guest check-ins can often be a challenge for vacation rental hosts, as they have to wait for their guests to arrive in order to hand over the home’s keys. Keycafe provides a seamless key exchange and property access management solution, letting hosts store their keys in smart key lockers found in public locations around the world, giving access to guests simply through their email or mobile phone number. Airbnb hosts can connect their Keycafe account to their listing, automating the process of giving access to guests for their booking dates once they’ve confirmed their stay.

Keycafe’s photo ID verification allows hosts to easily verify their guest’s identity before picking up keys. Hosts can request their guests upload a photo of their identification prior to their access being granted.   Optionally, hosts may request a selfie taken in real-time that is cross-checked with the previously uploaded ID for extra reassurance before the keys are released to the guest.  

Nest & Ecobee – Smart Thermostat Systems

Equipping a property with a smart thermostat is a great way for hosts to save on energy bills while being able to remotely monitor and control the temperature in their home. Smart thermostats like Nest and Ecobee allow hosts to set temperature schedules and limits, ensuring that guests don’t run the heating or air conditioning excessively. With the inclusion of temperature sensors, these devices can monitor and control the temperature in various rooms, allowing hosts to keep save on heating or air conditioning in unused rooms. 

These devices can also alert hosts when there are irregular temperatures in their home, allowing them to know early on if their furnace is acting up or if temperatures are low enough that water pipes are at risk of bursting. By being able to control home temperatures from their mobile phone, vacation rental hosts can save money and the environment. 

Fresh Air – Tobacco and Marijuana Smoking Detector

One frustrating issue for property managers is when guests decide to break the rules and smoke indoors. The FreshAir Sensor is a purpose-built solution that monitors and detects tobacco and marijuana smoke within an environment. Connecting via wi-fi to FreshAir’s platform, hosts receive real-time notifications via email, desktop, or mobile app when guests are smoking in the property, with time stamped charts providing proof of smoking so hosts can collect cleaning fees and receive reparations for cleaning and lost revenue due to smoking damage. 

The FreshAir Sensor is specifically built to detect only tobacco and marijuana smoke, and is not tipped off by candles, incense, or vaping products (a vaping detector is in the works). Able to detect smoke in an area of up to 500 square feet, FreshAir Sensors are also tamperproof, with hosts able to immediately able to see if it has been removed from an outlet. 

Autohost – Vacation Rental Guest Screening

While vacation rental hosts can do equip all kinds of technologies to be notified about the status of their home, ultimately nothing can stop an unruly guest from causing damage once they have access to the property. This is why Autohost was created, in order to screen and inspect guests so that vacation rental owners can be more prepared or even turn down high risk guests. With a proprietary algorithm that scans every reservation, Autohost scores each guest reservation to give hosts a complete look at the potential risks they might pose.

Not just looking for party throwers and troublemakers, Autohost runs a complete background check on high risk guests, looking for past criminal activity in over 160,000 databases. Along with this, Autohost checks guests for potential ID, credit card, and rental fraud history, and flags the top risks that a guest might pose. Once Autohost has scanned, the software gives actionable recommendations to hosts, so they can be sure to avoid dangerous or high risk guests.

NoiseAware

Every Airbnb or vacation rental’s host’s nightmare is that their guests throw a wild party as soon as they’re gone, disrupting neighbours, damaging the property, and potentially racking up fines for the host. NoiseAware was created to enable hosts to monitor the noise levels in their home and prevent unruly guests and potentially costly damages or fines early. Equipped with a smart sensor, NoiseAware’s product plugs into any outlet and has a quick installation process, allowing hosts to monitor noise on their property 24/7.

NoiseAware’s indoor sensor features tamper-proof detection technology, allowing hosts to know when guests are trying to disable the system. Hosts can check the noise levels in their home easily using the NoiseAware mobile app, letting them see at a glance if guests are being too noisy. There’s also an outdoor sensor that can be paired with an indoor sensor and is fully waterproof, helping hosts make sure that guests aren’t being too noisy no matter where they are on the property. 

About Keycafe

Keycafe is a technology company modernizing business key management with a cloud-connected SmartBox and accompanying key management software.

In addition to a global Public Network of over 1000 locations for Airbnb users, Keycafe’s Enterprise Solution enables businesses in any industry to manage key access for staff and customers.