Locks, Sensors and Cameras

Three pieces of hardware. Two of them are unambiguously good. The third has rules you genuinely cannot get wrong.

The smart lock

$180–$300 installed, and it removes the single most common operational failure in this business: key handover. No lockbox codes shared between guests, no key left under a pot, no meeting anyone at the door at 11pm.

What it also quietly gives you:

• A timestamped arrival, which matters when a guest disputes when they got in.
• Codes that auto-expire at checkout, so nobody comes back for a phone charger three days later.
• A code for your cleaner and a different one for your handyman, so you know who opened the door and when.

The noise monitor

Minut or NoiseAware at $100–$200 plus a small subscription. It measures level only — no recording, no conversation — which is precisely what makes it acceptable indoors.

This is the cheapest insurance against the one event that actually ends an STR: the neighbour complaint that becomes a code enforcement file.

Got it? Now the one with hard rules.

Cameras

Outdoor cameras are permitted, with conditions that are easy to meet and easy to breach:

• Disclose them in the listing, before booking. Not in the house manual on arrival.
• Exterior only — a doorbell camera on the front door is the standard case.
• Never pointed at an area with a reasonable expectation of privacy: no pool deck, no hot tub, no windows, no enclosed lanai.
• Never in a bedroom, bathroom, or any interior space. There is no version of this that is fine.

And note what the doorbell camera is actually for: counting arrivals against your occupancy limit. It is a screening tool, not a surveillance one.