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446. Hosting Hotline: What’s the Best Smart Lock for Your Airbnb?

Introduction and Welcome

Sarah Karakaian: [00:00:00] [00:01:00] Hello, welcome back to another great episode. My name is Sarah Karakaian.

Annette Grant: I’m Annette Grant and together we are Thanks for Visiting.

Sarah Karakaian: And this is the Hosting Hotline. If you want to get your hosting questions answered here on the Hosting Hotline, all you have to do is go to hostinghotline.com, ask your question like Jane has today, and we’ll share it here on the podcast because we’ve learned that if this host has this question.

Other hosts have this question and we can all learn together and I have some very Specific opinions about this topic. So I’m sure you all do too. I’m excited to maybe hear from some of you to help Jane out .

Listener Question: Smart Lock Recommendations

Hosting Hotline Caller: Hey Annette and Sarah. How are you? My name is Jane. I have a question What smart lock are you two currently loving? I have two Go out and buy some for a new short term rental, so, [00:02:00] just wanted to see what was the best and brightest, um, So, I look forward to your answer. Thanks so much.

Sarah Karakaian: Thanks for calling in, Jane. Ooh, this is a good one.

Annette Grant: We love the name Jane, by the way.

Sarah Karakaian: I love that name. It’s a classic. It’s good. One syllable.

Annette Grant: I’ve always liked everybody I’ve met. Named Jane. Yeah. My mom’s Mary Jane. My sister in law’s Jane. Oh, yeah.

Sarah Karakaian: I just, I don’t know any Janes, but I just like the name. There you go. Jane.

Discussing Smart Lock Preferences

Sarah Karakaian: The website is yellowdoorguesthomes. com, we’ll give her a little shout out here, and it’s because, which I love that she shared this on her website, when she was flipping homes or even when she’s buying and holding homes, she always paints the front door yellow because it makes her happy, it also invokes energy and positivity, and I just love knowing something personal like that from the host. And I don’t know that hosts do that enough talking about themselves a little bit and their story and why they do what they do. I think it’s [00:03:00] special. Anyway, let’s get onto this topic.

Annette Grant: I like that. She said, loving.

Yeah,

because it is a love, hate relationship

Sarah Karakaian: So much so actually I’ll give some co hosts a little tip here so much so that when I on board a property, if you already have a smart lock and it’s not one that I am willing to work with,

Annette Grant: that you love,

Sarah Karakaian: that I love, they must get a new smart lock because it’s just not worth the headache headache. Especially not being in the system.

Annette Grant: It’s not even the headache. It’s not worth the guest not being able to get in.

Sarah Karakaian: It’s not worth, but also headache of, of there are some locks out there that I despise.

Annette Grant: Actually, Jane, I know you asked the love. Let’s just say some of the despised ones. Just so people, if they’re like thinking or on the fence.

Sarah Karakaian: Yes, I despise SmartLock. August? Do you still despise August? And I despise August.

Those are two that I despise. Okay. That’s good. Now, to be fair to these brands, that don’t care about my opinion at all, [00:04:00] I’ve learned this over the past like five, six, seven years, locks have come a far, a long way for short term rentals.

Annette Grant: That’s true. That’s true. So we haven’t used those in a while.

Sarah Karakaian: Yeah. And I’ve been so ingrained in like what I like. That’s true. That’s true. That I don’t know if those locks have improved at all, but I don’t need to find out because I know that locks that I do love. Still serve us.

Annette Grant: Drumroll. Drumroll, please.

Sarah Karakaian: Thank you. The Yale Assure, and I will still support the Schlage Encode.

Annette Grant: And we’re gonna put these links in the show notes.

Sarah Karakaian: Yes. Here’s why I will say again technology has come a long way and Jane didn’t share with me, you know, what PMS she uses or what software she already uses and that matters to When you’re choosing a smart lock, if you’re already using a PMS, see if your PMS offers any sort of integration with it automatically included, or for a small monthly [00:05:00] fee and what brands it supports.

Now, I would wager that most PMSs that are popular support the Yale Assure or the Schlage Encode. And I know that Airbnb, if you’re just using Airbnb. To connect Smart Locks there, you can use the Schlage on code. Um, I think the most important thing is that I like that Schlage and Yale are both tried and true brands.

So the locks themselves are quality. And, but I know a lot of PMSs are starting to introduce integrations within the PMS already. Now, there’s usually some small fee, monthly fee, like six, seven, eight bucks a month to automatically. Sync your smart lock with reservations. We currently use a third party. We use point central because this hasn’t been widely available with PMS.

And so point [00:06:00] central would, would does integrate with our PMS so we can do the same thing, but now with technology advancing and this PMS is getting more hip to what we need as hosts.

Annette Grant: That they are offering this integration as well, which is huge

because it’s just a big safety It is component of being able to give a new code to each and every guest at their check in When they are supposed to check in and when they are supposed to check out So the safety of it is is huge because I know There are some hosts listening you’ve been using the same code stop doing that for your guests Always.

Yeah. And that is just not safe. That is like a disaster waiting to happen.

Sarah Karakaian: I think, you know, it’s probably few and far between the times that having the same code has been an issue for a host, but it’s just not worth it. No. Because that one time. One time is one too many. When I guess what, even if it’s like.

[00:07:00] Without any sort of malicious intent, a previous guest or a future guest, their code is active, even though the reservation isn’t active and they walk in and there’s another guest in there. Like that’s not okay. Or just checking in early, staying late, all of it. And the cleaner’s in there still getting ready, and your cleaner is a female, on her own, and they’re cleaning.

Annette Grant: Or just using the same code, so your maintenance people have the code, your cleaner has the code. Like, who knows who’s with, if your cleaner brings somebody one day, if a maintenance person brings a new person one, it’s just, it is a, Liability. Yeah, yeah. As I’m saying it, my stomach is getting a little nervous of all the things that could potentially happen if you’re not changing.

That’s correct. Um, and not only just changing them, but having those limitations, especially for your service team on the time so that they can enter the property.

Sarah Karakaian: Yeah. So Jane, there you have it. Yale Assure and the Schlegon Code.

Importance of Backup Keys

Annette Grant: But we cannot wrap up this. without telling all of you, yes, those are our [00:08:00] favorite locks.

But our next thing that all of you should do today is have a backup for your smart lock, because we all know that sometimes smart locks don’t smart. And so you just have to have the backup. Physical key there on property. And so we’ll also link in the show notes, the way to have that there available. Also it is, you need, it’s a lock box. You’ll have the code, uh, but you could adhere it to the house. It’s very neat, tidy. It’s not hanging from anywhere. It basically like. fades in to, it could fade into the door frame almost, but it is a nice thing. Not nice. We think it’s a necessity to have, again, any property has this.

That way, if a guest is locked out, again, maybe a team member is locked out, there’s always a backup [00:09:00] physical key for them to enter the property.

Sarah Karakaian: I keep one there at, mounted to the doorjamb. And I also then have another one that’s like at the quote unquote office. The office for you might be your home.

Annette Grant: Um, maybe it’s, uh, the basement of your neighbor next door, whomever lives like somewhere.

Sarah Karakaian: You don’t want the only backup key being on property. You want then a backup for your backup. And that is the one that I use. And most smart locks come with two backup keys, but that’s another tip, Jane, is that you have choices sometimes with the Schlage brands and the Yale brands to have it keyed or not.

I always opt for a keyed version so that I can do this. Sometimes. The locks will offer you, like, you can have a nine volt battery and you can press it on the lock and it’ll give it some energy, but then you have to have a nine volt battery available somewhere that you could put in your, like, backup lock box, but I just prefer to have the keyed version.

It’s a [00:10:00] little pricier to do it, not much, and it’s just this, like, again, like, sometimes it’s just good to have the old school way, the manual way to get into the property with an old fashioned key.

Annette Grant: And let’s, let’s share though. Why you would want to have this? Because people are probably listening like, well, if I have a smart, like, why do I need to have a backup?

Sarah Karakaian: Because sometimes they don’t work. Like literally even if it’s not even a battery thing, we’re like, well, first of all, there’s that. There is the, the lock told you that the battery is low and you were lifing and you didn’t change it in time.

Mm hmm.

Now sometimes these, these smart locks have like fail safes, like the code will still work or like your master code will still work.

But whether or not your guest code got programmed in there in time, who knows. And then sometimes, I’ll never forget the story of Christmas morning, so much snow, so cold, guest is locked out, and it was a smart lock that I inherited from an owner. That we didn’t change out that wasn’t a keyed version and it just died and if there was no reason why it died, it just died.

Right, like completely [00:11:00] died. Not even the battery, like it just stopped working. I can’t let the guest in. I end up having to break into the apartment via a tall, it was a whole thing.

Annette Grant: So listen to that. Like, and that’s, that is real life stuff that happens. So having that keyed backup. Yes. It’s great. Just another layer of protection.

Sarah Karakaian: All right. So we’ll leave you some links in the show notes if you guys want to check out what we prefer. If there’s a lockout there that I don’t use. love, let us know. We’re always curious.

Conclusion and Call to Action

Sarah Karakaian: So if you want to get your hosting questions answered here on the Hosting Hotline, go to hostinghotline. com. All you do is ask your question.

We answer it here on our Tuesday episodes. They’re so fun for us to do. And we know that you all love listening to them because we can see the downloads and you guys love them. But we need the questions from you. So hostinghotline. com. And with that, I am Sarah Karakaian.

I’m Annette

Annette Grant: Grant, and together we are Thanks for visiting! [00:12:00]