Smart tech is the ultimate upgrade for your vacation property
Owners eagerly embrace monitoring devices as a way to keep their investments safe. Here’s what they are getting.
Sunscreen. Towels. a book for the beach. Skis. Winter jackets. Maybe a snowboard. Yes, the vacation home necessities — be it on the shores of Cape Cod or in the Green Mountains of Vermont — can definitely vary by location.
But not all.
Perhaps just as important as some of those fun essentials is smart-home technology, from energy-friendly thermostats to automated tech-savvy locks and security systems. Vacation property owners in New England are increasingly relying on them to get the most out of their home away from home — and peace of mind.
“It’s definitely not only for the techsavvy, and it’s becoming almost unavoidable,” said Matthew H. Cole, president and CEO of Cape associates Inc. in Eastham.
In addition to crafting custom homes, Cape associates cares for a portfolio of about 480 private properties on the popular peninsula, particularly during the offseason.
“Whether you want to call it the ‘Internet of Things’ or just ‘WiFi-connected devices,’ ‘smart devices’ … they’re just becoming more common,” Cole said.
These gadgets have become especially popular recently. a January report by YouGov, an international online research data and analytics technology group, indicated that 65 percent of americans now own at least one smart-home appliance or device — a significant jump from 51 percent in 2020, with security products among the most used.
“People are just hungry for information,” Cole said. “They want to know what’s going on in their home, whether they’re there or not. They want control.”
For some, that may mean having a backup battery to keep everything running during coastal storms or mountain blizzards. It could mean having security cameras throughout the home or even smart lighting.
all are true for JC Murphy, president of Savant Systems, a Massachusetts-based industry pioneer in home automation.
On a recent Zoom call, Murphy quickly pulled up Savant’s unique dashboard, showing the real-time monitoring of his second home in Florida, from the front door cameras
to the wattage consumed by his pool pump.
“The way we think about it is the smart-home experience from 15 years ago to now has changed dramatically just because of the explosion of connected devices in general,” Murphy said. “And that is continuing. It’s actually continuing at a rapid rate.”
While data on such technology use in second homes is not widely available, industry experts say these markets are definitely part of that steady rise in smart-tech adoption.
Vacation rental properties
“Airbnbs have so much smart technology inside of them. I mean, we have usually between three to five smart devices in our Airbnbs,” said Maria McNiece, founder of McNiece Management, which helps property owners in Massachusetts and the South make their rentals available on platforms such as Airbnb and VRBO — a service she likened to “a front desk concierge.”
The company’s portfolio boasts 150 properties, including 10 in Greater Boston.
“They’re up and running, between smart thermostats, Ring cameras, decibel monitors, or monitors that track how many devices are in the home — if there’s a party, something like that,” McNiece said. “So there’s so much equipment out there right now to help vacation rental owners.”
Smart-home tech is not optional for McNiece’s clients.
Those who do business with the company are required to install at least a Wi-Fi-enabled, keyless lock — a gadget that provides ease for maintenance workers and arriving guests, rendering the key dropoff obsolete.
Similarly, Vacasa, a national vacation rental property management service with more than 700 properties in Massachusetts, provides customers with digital locks, decibel monitors, and a “WiFi portal” that allows guests to log in upon arrival, similar to the front desk at a hotel, according to T.J. Clark, the company’s chief commercial officer.
“The smart home to us is very foundational,” Clark said. “So if we brought on your home … we would provide the smarthome suite of products that we think are really important to elevate your guests’ experience and care of the home.”
Although there are plenty of comfort gadgets available on the market, too, from smart TVs to climate control, McNiece said most of the devices tailored to the rental industry are for “security or host protection.”
And the rental owners she works with are often more willing to spend the money on these devices than, say, smart thermostats, in hopes of protecting their assets, she said.
“That’s probably the No. 1 concern with Airbnb owners, because we’re not dealing with multimillionaires,” she said. “These are usually [their] only investment property, and damage could be extremely detrimental to their operating if there’s one guest party or major damage.”
But with the ability to capture so much information about a property, smart-tech also raises privacy problems for potential renters.
In March, Airbnb announced that its property owners can no longer use indoor security cameras. While cameras have always been barred from sleeping areas and bathrooms, hosts were allowed to install cameras in common areas —such as living rooms, kitchens, and hallways — as long as they were clearly visible and disclosed to potential guests prior to booking, according to the company’s website. (Exterior cameras also are subject to placement restrictions and disclosure.)
“Airbnb is right, and in almost every state, it’s illegal to use a live camera on the inside of a home,” Clark said. “And that’s like the last thing, obviously, a guest would ever want. If you’re in the business of renting a short-term rental, you want your guests to have a great experience, right? So having a live camera is, like, the worst possible idea.”
With decibel monitors, which strictly monitor noise but don’t record audio, there is no “legitimate reason for needing an interior camera,” McNiece said. “You’d be surprised how many people fight me and want to have an interior camera, which I find to be not only creepy, but just a violation.”
Private second homes
For private vacation homes, cameras don’t necessarily have to be just about security.
“If you have a nice view and you get a tough day at work, it’s nice to pull up those cameras and get a glimpse out as if you’re on the property,” said Cole, of Cape Associates. “You might catch some wildlife on the camera. So, we call them security cameras, but it’s less about security and more about just knowing what’s going on.”
For those looking to make their vacation homes more techsavvy, Cole recommended starting with a plan for a strong and reliable Wi-Fi supply.
On the Cape, homeowners sometimes opt to install “redundant connections,” such as hooking up through a traditional cable internet provider in addition to the satellite-based provider, Starlink, to keep devices constantly connected should you lose one, Cole said.
A smart valve that will shut off the water supply to the home when a leak is detected is another purchase homeowners should consider, especially because it “pays for itself with insurance discounts,” he said.
Cape Associates also has recently completed a number of installations of battery backup systems, such as Tesla Powerwall — either instead of emergency generators or in addition to them — which can be key in preventing pipe freeze when power is lost during winter storms, Cole said.
“The software that runs that is tied into weather reports, so days like today when heavy wind is forecast, the day before [that] the batteries fully charge themselves to get ready for the storm,” he said. “You get alerts for that.”
And, naturally, there’s still a lot tech can’t do. When the power does go out, that’s when Cole’s property management company makes its rounds.
“A little bit of tech and the human component, when you need it, can make owning a second home less stressful or stressfree and enjoyable — and we all need to get away at times and go to our happy place,” he said.