Smart Home Tech For Vacation Rentals
At the same time that Property Management Systems (PMS) and Channel Managers have revolutionized how vacation rentals are managed on the back-end, there has been an explosion in smart home tech for vacation rentals. Using a suite of different vacation rental tech tool property managers can increase efficiency, lower costs, and improve the guest experience.
In this article, we will cover the best smart home tech for vacation rentals on the market in 2020. If we miss any that you love and use, please add it to the comments so we can update this article with new finds and innovative vacation rental technology.
Here are the major categories we will cover in this article
Branded Guest WiFi
StayFi is bringing the guest WiFi technology travelers have used in airports and hotels to vacation rental properties. Because OTAs like Airbnb and Vrbo make it so challenging to acquire guest data like emails, StayFi seamlessly collects the emails of every guest that uses the WiFi. Collecting guest data is a key part to developing a successful direct booking strategy for vacation rentals.
StayFi’s easy to use customer portal allows vacation rental managers to customize branded splash pages for each property. In addition, because StayFi is a WiFi-based technology, StayFi also provides remote monitoring and cloud-management of WiFi networks.
Pricing: Available Here
Learn More: Schedule A Demo
Noise Monitoring
Minut provides smart home monitoring through their sleek looking device. In addition to noise monitoring, Minut also provides temperature, motion, alarm sound recognition and other alerting features.
One great feature about Minut is that it can send a guest alert via sms when noise levels exceed a threshold for a specified duration. The Minut device will also flash and remind guests they are being too loud before a bigger issues arises.
Use code STAYFI at checkout for 20% off Minut.
Pricing: Available Here
Learn More: Contact Minut
NoiseAware started as the result of a real-life situation. One of the founders had rented out his apartment on Airbnb and his place ended up getting trashed in a massive party. He ended up receiving a cease-and-desist order from his apartment complex and was forced to sell his condo.
From this incident, NoiseAware was born. Now servicing 1000s of homes, vacation rentals, and hotels, NoiseAware serves both individual and enterprise clients with their suite of solutions. Historical data, real-time alerts, and easy to use software make it so property managers and manage guest incidents and provide evidence in the case of disputes.
Pricing: Available Here
Learn More: Contact NoiseAware
Smart Locks (Keyless Entry)
RemoteLock offers a cloud-based access platform and app for managing all of your access needs. Their management platform called EdgeState does integrate many popular PMS systems as well as Airbnb and Vrbo. There is a monthly fee in addition to the hardware costs, and you can get an estimate by scheduling a demo with RemoteLock.
You can use any major brand of locks with RemoteLock, including Yale and Schlage.
Pricing: Available Here
Learn More: Schedule A Demo
Schlage offers a self-managed solution that does not integrate with PMS software or OTAs. Instead, you can set up to 100 access codes for each lock and control them through Schlage’s Home App. These locks are compatible with tools like RemoteLock if you want to switch them to a solution with PMS integration in the future.
Pricing: No Additional Costs Beyond Hardware (see below)
Learn More: Read More Here
Dormakaba offers both keyless door lock hardware in addition to a access control management platform, Oracode, that integrates with many popular vacation rental PMS software. Dormakaba’s also offers an energy management system, BeHome247, to provide even more tools like temperature, light, pool, HVAC, and water controls.
Pricing: Contact dormakaba
Learn More: Read More Here
Yale offers a range of slick-looking modern locks that integrates with a wide range of applications, including apple HomeKit, Nest, and RemoteLock. The Google Nest Yale lock is very popular among vacation rental hosts as you are able to manage 100s of access codes as well as monitor traffic in and out of your properties from Google’s application.
Pricing: No Additional Costs Beyond Hardware (see below)
Learn More: Read More Here
August offers a compelling solution converting tradition locks into smart locks without having to completely replace the hardware. In addition, although august does not integrate with PMS systems, it does integrate directly with Airbnb and Vrbo/HomeAway. This makes August a great solution for smaller vacation rental managers that do not use a full-service PMS system or do not using channels like booking.com and TripAdvisor.
Pricing: No Additional Costs Beyond Hardware (see below)
Learn More: Read More Here
Smart Thermostat
Ecobee consistently ranks as the favorite thermostat in multiple blogs about vacation rental technology and airbnb management. Why? Reviewers love that ecobee detects when people are in the property and manages the climate accordingly. In addition, you can set a temperature range restrictions so guests can’t set the temperature outside what you want to pay for. Finally, the ecobee is intuitive for guests to use and is compatible with almost every smart home control system as well as its own mobile application.
Pricing: No Additional Costs Beyond Hardware (see below)
Learn More: Read More Here
Home Security
Netatmo offers a suite of smart-home technology including their popular outdoor security cameras. Their cameras provide real-time alerts that can distinguish between people, animals, vehicles, and other harmless movements. All of these features are available remotely through the Netatmo App, and best of all there are no subscriptions fees.
Netatmo also offers an indoor air quality monitor that measures humidity, air quality, noise, and temperature and are rolling out new tech that could prove valuable to many vacation rental managers.
Pricing: No Additional Costs Beyond Hardware (see below)
Learn More: Read More Here
Digital House Guide
YourWelcome is the leading player in for in-home tablets for vacation rentals and other types of short-term accommodations. Not only does YourWelcome allow you to offer all of the house details to your guests, it also can help vacation rental managers upsell additional services and goods to vacation rental guests during their stay.
YourWelcome has also released other types of tech for vacation rentals like their advance automated guest messaging platform.
Get an additional 10% when you use code StayFi at checkout!
Pricing: Starts At $15.83/Mo
Learn More: Read More Here
Touch Stay is a digital guest welcome book for vacation rentals. If you get tired of answering the same questions over and over again or dislike managing physical home guides, Touch Stay is a great solution. Touch Stay will also improve guest satisfaction as all the practical information and local recommendations from you, the host, is easily available.
You can a full demo demo example of a guest welcome guide here.
Pricing: See Here
Learn More: Read More Here
Property Automation Platform
Operto, the 2019 vacation rental tech competition winner, is an all-in-one solution that unites all of your smart devices into one platform that integrates with most major vacation rental property management systems. Operto manages guest entry, property monitoring (i.e. noise), smart temperature control and more. In terms of hardware, Operto works with Yale Locks, Schlage Locks, August Locks, Ecobee Thermostats, Netatmo home security and monitoring, as well as several other major brands. You can view all of Operto’s vacation rental tech integrations here.
Pricing: Starts at $14.99/Mo – Get 6 months of guest portal access free through StayFi!
Learn More: Read More Here
Brivo recently acquired vacation rental smart home automation platform Parakeet, rolling it into their larger product portfolio. The supported hardware portfolio is smaller than Operto’s and you can learn more about it in this pdf.
Pricing: Contact brivo
Learn More: Read More Here
PointCentral offers a smart-home automation in a variety of verticals and industries, including short-term rentals. PointCentral’s platform covers keyless entry, thermostat integration, and remote home control. If having a steady WiFi connection is a concern, PointCentral installs a cellular gateway that can work even with weak cellular signals.
Pricing: Contact PointCentral
Learn More: Read More Here
Lynx advertises the most integrations of any of the vacation rental home automation platforms with over 300 integrations. Lynx offers PMS Integrated Keyless Entry, Thermostat control, leak/noise/smoke sensors along with workflow automation.
Pricing: Schedule Demo
Learn More: Read More Here
iGMS is a vacation rental software that helps hosts effectively handle day-to-day short-term rental management tasks. The software enables users to operate all Airbnb, Booking.com, and Vrbo accounts via a single interface, with access to the same advanced functionality through the mobile app. With iGMS you can benefit from automated guest messaging and reviews, templates, tools for team & tasks management, an advanced channel manager, financial reporting, a direct booking management toolkit, payment processing, and more.
A free 14-day trial is available (no credit card required)
Pricing: Flexible Plan – $1/booked night or Pro plan starting from $20/month. Sign up and use promo code BONUS30 to $30 bonus
Learn More: Read More Here
Other Vacation Rental Tech
The GuestView Guide by NEC takes the guest experience to the next level by bringing the home guest book to a large interactive screen mounted in vacation rentals. Through PMS integrations, the GuestView can greet your guests and offer them a check-in survey. In addition to offering your local recommendations, GuestView also offers vacation rental managers the ability to sell services and extend stays through the screen.
Pricing: Starts at $34.99/mo
Learn More: Read More Here
