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I use a Remote Lock on my front door that gets its access codes from airbnb when it is booked - active from check in to check out. Currently, my bedrooms only have a chain on the door, so that at night you can ‘lock’ the bedroom. It’s been working fine for a long time - occasionally a guest will wonder why there is not lock on the bedroom door when they leave for the day. But for now all good.
Remote lock can be set up to have the same codes at the front door on the individual rooms - room A’s specific code will allow access at the front door and also that specific bedroom. This could mean that guests could ‘lock’ their rooms when they are out. Almost all of my guests are here for work, out all day.
I am also putting new doors on the rooms, since the old ones are too warped to keep, so that got me thinking about door locks.
In my mind, it depends on how you rent this property. Do you rent rooms to individuals, or do you rent the whole apartment/condo/house to one person?
If it can be rented to multiple individuals, then definitely put keyless locks on each guest room. That’s what we’ve done. And we code the guest room locks to be the same as the front door lock (we use the last four digits of the guest’s cell phone, not the randomly generated code from Remote Lock).
Many tenants don’t use the room lock, but enough do that it’s worthwhile. It’s also nice for your listing to specify that the guest room doors have locks. It does matter to some people.
Yes individual rooms only. Question: are you saying you set the locks up as default unlocked, and the guest has to push the lock state button when they leave to lock it?
When a guest arrives for the first time, their room is unlocked and the door is open. Yes, if they want to lock the room, they close the door and push the Lock State button to lock it.
We do a lock tutorial with each guest at the front door and tell them their room lock is identical. They know how to lock and unlock the doors. My message to each guest also includes brief lock instructions and tells them their code (and that it’s the last four of their cell).
@WinsomeLoft, we use RemoteLock. It interfaces with Airbnb, so when a guest books, a record is automatically created in RemoteLock’s Lockstate software. The code assigned by the software is random. I reset each code to the guest’s cell phone (last 4 digits).
We set the software to automatically enable the code at check-in time and to cancel the code at check-out time. Because we have multiple rooms, I also specify in the lock software which room’s door the guest can unlock.
If a guest’s stay gets changed (more or fewer days) on the Airbnb platform, the lock software updates automatically.
There are other brands that also interface with Airbnb.
I recently added a code lock to my private bedroom listing in my shared home (just me and the guest only) and have actually gotten a glowing review that mentions how secure it made her feel, so much so that she left her computer in her room when she went out. Ironically, since the front door and back door are only accessible by me (and a few relatives in an emergency) it’s almost like a back handed complement but whatever. And it’s not like I don’t have access to her room via the code I gave her (and my master code) but She felt good about it and I got 5 stars for it.
Please be aware that this allows an untrusted 3rd party (Airbnb) to grant access to Your home to anyone they wish at any time they wish. They could think they are doing a service by allowing a guest who checked out to come back in even though their reservation has ended… or on the case of a guest who checks out late (unauthorized) and then cannot access the lock to secure it behind them then leaves it unlocked. (And when you have house rules that require a fee for leaving house unsecured when not occupied they won’t let you actually charge for it because they choose to either let the guest check out late wily nilly or they then provide the unauthorized guest access they shouldn’t have after the reservation has ended.
Most of these issues would not be a concern to you (or to most people) but I just wanted to let you all know of these facts.
We’re always here when guests leave, and their code expires right at check-out time.
I wondered whether guests who leave after check out would be able to lock the door. And they can. A guest on Sunday left about 12 minutes late (I was here). I listened after he shut the door behind him, and he was able to lock it from the outside.
You said that the codes are generated through Airbnb which means that you granted Airbnb access to grant access to their guests. They MAY abuse that and grant them access OUTSIDE of the actual hour and minute and second of their reservation. If they do, they are ABLE to do so without your permission, even though they SHOULDN’T do it.
“That’s not how any of this works”… the lock simply received a one time connection to the reservation. On your side, you determine the check in and check out time; in fact you can set it for any time you wish. Once the on- time connection is made, then it does not reference airbnb at all.
Ok, I guess it was someone else. I am not going to go back and figure out who. This is just to inform everyone considering integrating their Smart locks with Airbnb directly.
@Militaryhorsegal, I really can’t imagine how Airbnb could generate codes for any smart locks—or access any codes generated by the lock software. Only the lock software (or the host) can assign codes. The lock software connects to Airbnb only to get the reservation details—in our case, that’s the first name, check-in and check-out dates.
If the dates change (due to a change on Airbnb), the lock software gets that info from Airbnb. If the reservation gets canceled, the lock software also gets that information.
