In the past few years Alexa, Siri, Cortana, and Google Assistant have been changing how we interact with our homes. It’s 2019 now, and as we grow accustomed to these time-saving devices, and everything from our lights to our microwave (yes, really) has become integrated with the cloud, we might start to wonder if they also have a place in our vacation rental. Alexa in Airbnbs is an interesting idea for sure, but how will guests respond? Will they be annoyed at the idea of arguing with a computer to achieve simple tasks? Or will they embrace this new technology as a convenience rather than a novelty? We’ve rolled out Alexa into a couple of our rentals to test the waters, and you might be surprised by the results of our Alexa for vacation rentals testing.

“Alexa, play me a song!”

We started our Alexa for vacation rentals demo by purchasing an Amazon Echo Dot and a Sonos Play:1 Wireless Smart Speaker. We were able to see the usage statistics on the Alexa App and monitor how guests interacted with it. It seemed like at least half of our guests interacted with Alexa at least once. For us, those numbers were surprising given the fact that we don’t use our Amazon Echos at home very often! Most often, we found guests engaging with Alexa to play music on the Sonos speaker using Amazon Music to search for and play any song without the use of a phone or remote! This has been a resounding hit among guests – given the vast, seemingly endless music selection that the two devices offer in tandem. We found that a lot of guests were mentioning how cool the combination was in their reviews.

Alexa for vacation rentals working with your existing devices

We already use smart locks at all of our listings, as well as WiFi security cameras for guest safety. We found that Alexa was able to offer some really cool enhancements and automations to our existing smart home devices. For example, we were able to creating an Alexa Routine to turn all of our smart lights on whenever the smart lock was unlocked. We created another one to turn the outdoor smart lights on whenever the front camera detected motion. This made our listing even safer for guests and of course more convenient! The possibilities are endless, you could create a movie setting for guests that would dim the lights and turn on your smart TV.

Which Alexa is best for vacation rentals?

There are a lot of devices on the market now that support Alexa. We strongly recommend the Sonos One Smart Speaker. But wait, that’s not an Amazon Echo! That’s correct, but it does have Alexa built in. You no longer need two devices, and guests can more easily stream the music of their choice. If you already have a Sonos or another Bluetooth speaker, then perhaps the Echo Dot is the way to go as it can connect to either and control them with ease. We aren’t going to do product reviews here because each of these devices are for different situations.

How can I tell guests how to use it?

Some hosts prefer to add a little card to the speaker or the Echo with basic instructions. We found that we could give the guest more information by adding a page about it to our welcome binder. Most guests are already familiar with how to interact with Alexa, but the older crowd might need a little help getting started or just want to avoid Alexa altogether. Make sure that Alexa is optional for all stays. This means making sure that all your smart home devices do not require Alexa to operate because you want Alexa to be a feature and not a requirement.

Provide a concierge service for your guests!

One more cherry on top when it comes to Alexa for vacation rentals: it can act as a concierge for your guests! The Virtual Concierge Service app allows you to add all kinds of custom information unique to your rental that will help it to guide guests throughout their stay. It can notify hosts when theirs guests checkout, remind guests of important aspects of checking out, and even take a survey on how the stay was! It also can integrate with Google Places & Events, Yelp, and more to help guests find cool and interesting things to do near your listing.

Share your experiences with Alexa at your Airbnb below in the comments!