Smart home service provider, Vivint, has announced a partnership with room booking service Airbnb, allowing guests and hosts to control their houses remotely.
Smart home service provider, Vivint, has announced a partnership with room booking service Airbnb, allowing guests and hosts to control their houses remotely.
For Airbnb hosts who have a Vivint-enabled property, they can link their Airbnb account in the Vivint app to remotely manage their houses as guests come and stay.
For instance, when guests make a booking, they will automatically receive an email with a PIN code allowing them to unlock the door and enter the house. The code is unique and will only be valid during the period the guests stay. The host doesn’t have to manually send the information and the process of handing keys is eliminated.
If the host has the Vivint Element thermostat or Nest Learning Thermostat installed at home, guests may adjust the temperature remotely based on their preferences during the stay. Between the stays, the host can also remotely change the temperature after guests check out to reduce energy consumption while the house is empty.
Among other features from the partnership is that the host can check with the guests without being there in person if the house is equipped with the Vivint Doorbell Camera. The guest can also contact the host simply through the doorbell, while the host can interact with the guest via real-time video from a mobile device.
“The Vivint smart home technology makes checking in guests hassle free, while at the same time providing hosts with more tools to save energy and provide peace of mind while hosting,” said Lex Bayer, the head of business development at Airbnb, in an official statement.
Airbnb now provides its users to book a place to stay in 34,000 cities in 191 countries. The collaboration between Airbnb and Vivint only works for houses with the Vivint smart home system installed in the U.S. and Canada. The exact number of available properties is uncertain at this point.