A redesign is nice but please consider a secure Airbnb app-controlled electronic door lock. Hardware is hard but it could reduce entry/exit and check-in friction and confusion.
Door hardware is harder than most kinds of smarthome gadget by a substantial margin. Failure has a much higher liability - a failed door (failing open or closed) renders the entire house worthless. Can’t say the same thing about an internet speaker.
I have an electronic door lock and it needs monthly fiddling to stay in alignment, and I need to push the door in to allow it to unlatch. The door system as a whole needs to be fixed here - but if such issues happen for a guest trying to check in, and the door is Airbnb branded - who is gonna get blamed? Even worse - a door that fails to latch for the night, and no one notices…
I think Airbnb has concluded (correctly) that this is a losing game.
And yet somehow many electronic door locks exist as commercially viable products. If Airbnb wants a turnkey solution, then a product that works like turning a key would be a big step.
…but none with the liability relationship that an Airbnb branded lock would imply. Probably the best path to defray the risks would be for Airbnb to partner with lock tech groups like Kivo for API-side integration, and then gently suggest hosts use a partner-supporter lock.
From my eye the available commercial products are just beginning to be “good” - for example, NFC locks entered the market this year, so smarthome locks can finally provide the hotel-room authentication experience, if not the hotel-room unlatching experience.
