We love our gadgets, and when it comes to hospitality, consumers are demanding more technology than ever before. According to Oracle Hospitality, nearly two-thirds of US guests said it was “very” or “extremely important” for hotels to continue investing in technology to enhance the guest experience.
If you have a rental house, investing in technology goes way beyond simply putting your property on digital resources like Airbnb. Below, we’ve got four must-have gadgets for your rental house.
Make access easy
Renting out the house is a critical point in the process. You need to make those first steps as smooth as possible, for yourself and for your future tenants. What, then, should you do?
First, potential renters and tenants are searching for and deciding on their next rental on their phones and laptops, so it’s critical to move your rental application online. Second, you can make access both easier and safer by installing a smart lock.
As it turns out, you don’t have to fiddle with keys, and a smart lock can integrate with your booking service to automatically allow access to a renter for a temporary period of time.
Stay secure with ring
Ring is a popular home security system. It is not flashy, not complicated, not expensive, and easy to install. There is no subscription plan or long-term contract, and everything in the system can be operated from an app on your phone. In other words, it makes for a terrific digital security system for a rental property.
In fact, Ring took just 20 minutes to set up and get connected to Wi-Fi. Another reason it’s great for rental properties: Ring will send push notifications to your phone if it detects something amiss no matter where you are in the world. If you get the Ring doorbell or home security cameras, you can even view the live feed of your front door from your phone.
Smart photo storage
There are actually smart home devices for online photo storage out there. How it works is pretty simple: it automatically collects photos from phones, computers, USB drives, and cloud storage and social media accounts. It stores those photos in a single place, and allows everybody in a given network to access them.
A modern family likely has a phone for every member, which means that everybody is an amateur photographer. This results in a familiar problem: everybody has a few photos, but nobody has all of them. So how do you share photos in between family members, without the complication of a shared album on the cloud, or social media?
This is where a photo storage gadget comes in. Users can privately shares photos using the device’s companion app, inviting friends and family into an “inner circle” where everybody can view and add to the vacation album.
Elevate your thermostat
Smart thermostats are energy efficient, cost effective, and stylish, and as such have become de rigueur for rental houses. If you have a smart thermostat, you can schedule and manage your rental property’s energy use remotely.
When your rental property is sitting empty (during those winter months, or during those rare weeks when nobody’s there) you can ensure that your HVAC system isn’t working for an empty house at the slightest notice. They tend to be simple to install, but older houses and older HVAC systems often require a little more know-how on the part of landlords looking to integrate them into the central air’s functionality.
Most smart thermostats require a C wire, which older houses may not have. Even if you need to get it installed by a professional, the amount of money you’ll save on heating and cooling costs will quickly help a smart thermostat pay for itself.
