Unless you are hosting just a room in your home, you likely don’t have too much time to deal with guests in your Airbnb. And even then, you likely want some ideas to make things go much smoother. Fortunately, there are many different tools that can help. Check out these gadgets you can use to make your Airbnb hosting easier!
Smart Lock
The first item is how guests access your property. While having a key stashed in a lockbox is fairly simple to set up, it can be a pain to deal with things such as lost keys. We provided a lockbox as a backup, but also installed a smart lock to provide guests with keyless entry. In particular, we used the August Smart Lock with the keypad.
This gave guests the opportunity to use either the August app on their phone or type in the code to open our front door. You can also sync the lock with your Airbnb account to provide unique codes for every guest.
We do recommend getting the keypad with it so that guests can type in the code if anything happens with their phone and they can’t access the app. But it made entry super easy and we didn’t have to worry about guests losing keys or going through the trouble of using the lockbox.
Thermostat
One thing that usually gets put off with planning is utility costs. It’s difficult to tell just how much electricity guests will use. One way to limit that is through using the right thermostat.
Now full disclosure we didn’t change out our thermostat. This idea actually came from my bachelor party. The Airbnb we stayed at had a smart thermostat that had a lower and upper limit set, as well as a timer. So you couldn’t go lower than 70 degrees, and at around 10am it would go up to something around 73 degrees. While I don’t necessarily think the limits need to be that tight, it can help save on both electric costs and keep your AC from freezing. This idea is also very tempting after one of our guests had the AC set to 53 degrees…in South Florida!
The Google Nest line seems to have everything we need for this to work. We will be putting this or similar in our next Airbnb!
Smart TV
This almost doesn’t feel like a ‘gadget’ since it’s essentially standard now, but upgrade to a Smart TV if you can! It’s much sleeker to just have a single power cord with no boxes, guests can point the remote at the TV instead of finding the box, and guests can choose whichever apps they’d like to sign in to.
We offered Netflix and Hulu at our property and guests loved it. Was roughly $20 per month, but having the main ones covered seemed to provide guests with everything they needed. Compared to cable prices nowadays it was a no-brainer for us! And then if they’d like to connect to anything else they can easily sign in and out of the TV itself.
Camera System
This is one thing that looking back we wish we invested in. It doesn’t have to be anything crazy. Even a simple Ring doorbell camera or similar would work great. But we had a few guests leave remnants of big parties at our house, causing extra cleaning fees and broken items.
The camera system isn’t to infringe on guest’s privacy, but to ensure that guests aren’t using your place for parties or inappropriate activities. Being able to provide evidence that guests broke your rules can help with any claims made to the resolution center, and it just keeps guests honest.
Just be sure to disclose all the cameras you are using to comply with Airbnb policy and to make guests aware!
Bonus: Charging Lamps
I put this as a bonus because it’s technically not a ‘smart’ item that is making hosting easier, but it made a huge deal for us. When we originally furnished our Airbnb, we forgot to put anything on the nightstands. After some complaints from guests, we decided lamps would be perfect.
So we found lamps that also have charging ports built into them. These are great in case guests only have a charging cord or if their charging block breaks. It’s also really nice to not have to reach across the room for your phone when it can be charged right next to you. And there is of course the benefit of having some light in the room!
Streamline Your Process For Easier Hosting
We are huge fans of implementing processes and items into our Airbnb that help make things easier on us. And we love making our guest’s stays more enjoyable as well! If we’re able to do both with simple home gadgets, then that’s a win-win in our book. We’ll keep adding more home gadgets as we test them out!