How to make your Airbnb holiday home smarter
With more than 6 million Airbnb listings worldwide and millions more vacation rental homes on top, it’s becoming even harder to make your holiday home stand out from the crowd. Smart home technology can help you do that, as well as cutting down your running costs.
A happy Airbnb guest will see your ratings climb and more bookings coming in as a result. Given how demanding some guests can be, smart home devices can be the perfect way to make them more comfortable and ensure that nothing goes wrong while they’re in.
First, it’s worth starting with a big no-no: don’t over automate your home.
You might find it helpful to have all of your lights turn off automatically at midnight to save power, as you’re usually in bed, but your guests will have different patterns and you don’t want them to be plunged into darkness.
The type of tech you choose will depend on how often you rent out your property via Airbnb, what kind of house/apartment you have, your budget and how much you’re charging guests.
With that in mind, we’ve put together some suggestions for smart home tech to enhance your Airbnb.
Smart heating
Smart heating systems are increasingly being used in rental places, and offer several benefits to visitors.
Smart heating can be a great way to save money on heating bills, too. When guests leave, you can simply switch the heating down, so that you’re not wasting money heating an empty property.
It’s important not to adjust the heating when guests are staying, say dialling down the temperature because you think that a guest has your home too hot. That would be an unwelcome intrusion of privacy, but this doesn’t mean that you can’t take some steps to help save on heating bills.
Avoid battery-powered devices if you can, as a thermostat running out of juice in the middle of a cold spell will just cause you problems.
Finally, disable any smart features that may cause problems such as geofencing, which are good for you at home, but you don’t want the heating in your rental to turn off because the system has detected that your phone isn’t at ‘home’.
Top tip: When your property is empty, give your heating a regular boost to warm the house and keep damp at bay.
Best Airbnb smart heating: Nest Learning Thermostat
Buy now: Amazon, nest.com | £219
The Nest Learning Thermostat is a great choice for three reasons. First, it’s wired, so you don’t have to worry about it running out of power ever.
Secondly, it’s tough and robust with its spinning dial and push-button operation, so even slightly heavier-handed guests won’t break it.
Thirdly, it lets you lock the thermostat so that guests can only dial up the temperature to the maximum level you set, allowing you to give them some comfort without increasing your energy bills too much.
Smart locks
Smart locks are actively encouraged by Airbnb, with many models, such as the August Smart Lock, integrating into the app. There are several advantages to having a smart lock.
First, if a guest gets stuck, you can remotely let them in by unlocking the door from your phone (or your agent or housekeeper can do the same thing).
Secondly, you only have to give guests limited access, so once they leave after their vacation, they no longer have access.
Look for a lock that gives guests multiple choices on how they can access your lock. A lock with a key backup is a must, giving a backup way into your home should something go wrong or just if you have less tech-savvy guests that feel more comfortable.
A keypad is a very good idea, giving people that aren’t so smartphone savvy a way of getting your guests into your home.
Top tip: Check batteries regularly and replace if you think they’ll go when a guest is in.
Best Airbnb smart Lock: August WiFi Smart Lock
Buy now: Amazon, august.com | From £230
With a connected lock, such as the August WiFi Smart Lock, you can lock and unlock your door remotely.
More importantly, the lock integrates with Airbnb, so you can send out temporary mobile keys to your guests so that they can let themselves in when they arrive.
When they check out, the keys expire, so they lose access to your home.
With this product, there’s no worrying about guests losing their keys or coming back when they shouldn’t be. And, any issues while they’re there and you can lock and unlock the door for them.
There’s a physical key as a backup, so a local cleaner or maintenance person can get in if there are any issues.
TV and streaming
People are likely to want to kick back and relax when they stay at your Airbnb house so, even though a lot of people will travel with their own streaming stick, it is a nice touch to offer up a system that provides the latest streaming apps.
That’s super easy to do with an absolute plethora of streaming devices now available, at rock bottom prices, so even the dumbest TVs can be made smart.
Guests won’t even necessarily have to login and use apps either, with many streaming sticks and boxes offering Chromecast streaming from their phones and tablets.
Top tip: Download and install a local app that streams free-to-air TV stations for international travellers.
Best smart TV streaming for Airbnb: Roku
Buy now: Amazon | £39.99
Roku is, hands-down, the best streaming service for Airbnb guests. There are a lot of streamers to choose from, plus some Hisense TVs come with it built-in. Check out our guide to Roku streamers to find the one that works for you, although the Roku Express 4K is a great budget option.
What they all have in common is a guest mode. Turn this on, and new guests are prompted to sign in when they arrive, and you can even create a custom welcome message.
Once signed in, they can log into all of their streaming services. When they leave (or you log them out manually), their profiles and login details are wiped ready for the next set of guests.
When you sign out of guest mode, your default settings are restored, so you can use all of your channels and apps as normal.
Smart speakers
Smart speakers have massively grown in popularity and many people are familiar with how they work. Amazon Echo speakers are slightly better for vacation homes as Alexa Blueprints let you build your own Skills.
For example, guests can ask what the Wi-Fi code is, or when the garbage has to be put out and Alexa will tell them. In all cases a smart assistant can control any smart devices that they have in your home. Leave out detailed instructions of what people can do to help them get started – this one’s key.
Yet, for all of their benefits, smart speakers aren’t to everyone’s taste and some people understandably worry about privacy. To this end, we recommend avoiding any smart speakers that have a built-in camera, such as the Amazon Echo Show.
Have just a single device in your home, so you’re not littering your house with speakers, and make sure it’s clear how to disable the microphone, or even invite guests to unplug the speaker if they don’t feel comfortable using it.
Top tip: Make use of the guest modes available on Alexa or the Google Assistant.
Best Airbnb smart speaker: Amazon Echo Dot
Buy now: Amazon | £49.99
A smart speaker can be a great add-on to your guest house, and the Echo Dot is the best speaker for features and price.
It’s probably worth installing it under a new Amazon account so that you don’t have it appear with your main home. You can then add in support for any other smart devices that you have in your Airbnb.
Alexa users in the US can also turn on Guest Connect, which allows any existing Alexa user to access their music and news on any compatible Echo device.
The similar Google Nest Mini, has a proper Google Assistant guest mode.
Smart lighting
Not really a requirement in a rental but smart lighting can make your home stand out from the crowd and attract the more tech-savvy visitor.
The trick with color-changing bulbs is to make sure that you have the necessary controls available. Look for a system that has dedicated switches that people can use to select the modes that you’ve chosen.
Physical controls are a must because it’s too fiddly to have to share access to your system via the app for every new guest. If you have a smart speaker, make it clear that lights can also be controlled via your voice.
Be aware that guests may use the standard light switches that you have installed instead, so make sure these are turned back on between visits so your smart bulbs are ready for the next guests.
The alternative is to use smart light switches or smart buttons to control standard bulbs. While they can’t give you mood-changing colors, smart light switches can be voice-controlled and, otherwise, look and act like normal switches so as not to be confusing for guests.
In all cases – bulbs or switches – smart lighting can be useful, as you can turn on lights before guests arrive and turn them off when guests leave to save power. As with smart heating, don’t fiddle with your lighting while guests are in.
Don’t forget the outside, either. Hue has a range of outdoor bulbs, although you can install the regular ones in a weatherproof housing. Hue has an outdoor motion sensor, too, which can be useful for triggering lights to light up a dark entryway to your home for safety.
Top tip: You can program your Philips Hue bulbs’ on behavior to make them work like standard light bulbs.
Best Airbnb smart lighting: Philips Hue
Buy now: Amazon, philips-hue.com | From £14.99 up to £200+
Smart lights are a nice extra for guests during their stay. They can set their own mood and make the place feel homely for a weekend or a week – but connected bulbs could actually help way before that too.
Set up some Philips Hue bulbs in lamps around the living room, choose some classy colours and get snapping enticing pics for your Airbnb profile. It means your listing will stand out amongst similar properties and show that they’re getting a modern home for their money.
Philips Hue has two main advantages over much of its competition. First, you can programme the bulbs’ default on behaviour, so they will work just like normal bulbs if people want to use a ‘real’ light switch. Secondly, if you provide Hue remotes, these will continue to work even if the internet or Wi-Fi has gone down.
Wi-Fi
Your guests will want a reliable internet connection, with solid Wi-Fi throughout the house so it pays to invest in a decent system.
If you’re not near to your vacation home, we recommend getting a router that has remote management.
Being able to get into the router’s management from anywhere in the world means that you can troubleshoot problems, even rebooting the entire system.
This kind of rapid response can keep visitors happy and solve their Wi-Fi woes quickly.
Top tip: A Wi-Fi mesh system can also improve wireless performance throughout your home and reduce dead spot.
Best Wi-Fi router for Airbnb: Netgear Orbi
Buy now: Amazon, netgear.com | Router: from £129, Systems: from £279
The Netgear Orbi mesh systems are a great way to achieve both. While the newer Wi-Fi 6 models give you the best performance, they are expensive, so the existing range of Wi-Fi 5 models are good.
Out of these, you can go for the Orbi LBR20 4G LTE for the main router. This lets you add a SIM card as a backup in case the main internet connection goes down.
If you don’t want this expense, then the Orbi RBK50 is a brilliant choice, giving strong Wi-Fi everywhere. What’s particularly good about the Orbi range is that the app gives you remote access to the system.
If there are issues, you can reboot the system remotely to restore internet access.
