FEATURE ARTICLE
A look behind the scenes at the high-end rental experience.
BY STEVE PANOSIAN
AT THE CEDIA (CUSTOM ELECTRONICS DESIGN AND INSTALLATION ASSOCIATION) EXPO in Dallas last fall I opted to stay at an Airbnb apartment within walking distance of the convention center. Spacious, with amenities typical of apartment living — and important to me — a robust Wi-Fi network. Checking in was a breeze; after picking up the building access FOB, I received the pin code for entering the apartment. Everything was arranged online, and the experience that impressed me the most was the host’s remote tech support; within 10 minutes a slight problem with connecting to Wi-Fi was resolved. After my stay, I gave the Airbnb host the highest rating score.
Ironically, shortly after CEDIA, I was contacted by an Airbnb property owner by the name of Ehab Bandar, who asked if Technology Designer Magazine’s readers would be interested to learn more about the high-end performance Airbnb rental experience. After a few exchanges via email, he convinced me there are a lot of things that cross over from software to home design and creating a great experience. The design elements he uses include hi-tech home automation, more tactile physical objects, and works of art for the overall guest communication and experience setting. I hope you enjoy his vision.
“We wanted to provide guests with the same level of service that we wanted. So I was all about making sure that everything was perfect when they come in without us being physically there.”EHAB BANDAR AIRBNB PROPERTY OWNER
STEVE: Tell us about yourself.
EHAB: I live in the Bay Area here in Oakland, California. I was trained as a city planner and went to school at California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo. But I quickly went into technology and design. For the past 20 years, I have had a design consultancy called Bigtable where I have worked with startups, technology companies, and a lot of banking companies really focused on improving their customer experience and digital strategy.
STEVE: How did your Airbnb idea come about?
EHAB: How Airbnb fits into it is that it is a creative outlet for me in the sense that it combines my city planning background and the tech design aspects that I live and breathe every day. Taking that creative outlet and making it real is gratifying to me. And it is more than something to do because it is also an outlet for my family. We have two young twin girls and look for opportunities to enjoy our free time and entertainment as a family. Today, we have two properties we visit and enjoy
part-time, and I also make them available via Airbnb.
We had experience with an Airbnb model that was very short-lived in Sonoma. We only had it for about a half year, and then we lost the home in the Tubbs fire that destroyed thousands of homes in Sonoma County. But COVID made it very desirable to work from home, from anywhere, and people were also looking outside of metropolitan areas for a permanent place to live. So the work-at-home anywhere model and the idea of Airbnb, combined with traveling a lot through Europe and Asia, we just appreciated the idea of a local place.
STEVE: In our earlier conversation, you mentioned that you enjoy the out-of-doors and found properties in the North Lake Tahoe area and Sonoma County. How did you take your lifestyle choices and then turn this into an Airbnb opportunity?
EHAB: So we really focus on areas that we enjoy personally; we need something within driving distance of where our primary home is, and we also wanted to align the investments with the type of climate the family enjoys. We enjoy Tahoe for the winters, and we love the lifestyle of the Sonoma wine country. The idea is to find places we think our children will also get to experience different activities. Nature and the outdoors, it is important to us to have different activities, anything to move the kids away from being inside their computer or inside their phone, which is a big part of what is important to us.
STEVE: Did you model your lifestyle, find a property, and then market it?
EHAB: Yes, exactly. Take for instance our Tahoe property. We would go up there every season and rent a cabin or a hotel, and it never occurred to us that people actually lived there permanently. We discovered a town on the North Coast of Tahoe called Truckee that reminded us of a little neighborhood, which was new to us. This became the node for all these other activities that we discovered and all these other things that were tied into it, from the local food scene to the local activities that nobody would ever discover if you just went up there to ski. And that is what opened up the entire world of this area’s history, the Donner Party, the Sierras, and the Pacific Coast Trail. We found that the housing prices were considerably cheaper than the Bay Area prices, and we fell in love with this property that was a pocket listing. And it had a lot of the smart technology that we actually lacked in our current home. Everything from radiant floor heating to the way it was insulated, the way it was oriented towards the sun, and many things the architect had factored in that made it a really nice comfortable home. We saw this as appealing to Airbnb renters, as a single-family rental, and could even accommodate three families if you wanted, or as a work-from-home setup too.
STEVE: So seeing that people lived there year-round after staying at these places, you discovered the neighborhood setting, and ‘bingo,’ you could actually offer it as an Airbnb. Do you actually stay at a place before you decided to buy?
EHAB: Yes, and because the property was a pocket listing and it was third-party property management managing an active vacation rental, I asked if I could rent it for a night just to get a flavor of the home, almost like renting a car and kicking the tires. I did it by myself without the family. I basically walked in as a guest and also as a homeowner. So I just stayed one night, but that was enough to tell me all that I needed to know, everything from the flow of the house to how comfortable it was to just experience the surroundings for 24 hours. I understood that it was staged as the owner’s primary home and rented out when they would visit their family. But what was nice about that is that sometimes when you professionally stage a home, it feels cold, it doesn’t feel lived-in, a picture so to speak, so this gave me the full experience of what it would be like to be in the house.
STEVE: So when you decided to buy the property, you knew what post-COVID work-at-home technologies supported your requirements for working at home, learning at home, and vacationing where you have all the amenities that make you comfortable. How do you approach improving the guest experience?
EHAB: We wanted to provide guests with the same level of service that we wanted. So I was all about making sure that everything was perfect when they come in without us being physically there. So we had people who could come in and fix some things but there are things that you need to be aware of when you are not there, so the smart home aspect of it just made a lot of sense.
Security in the neighborhood is not an issue, but just being able to understand the weather conditions, being able to control the temperature when you are away, being able to understand whether the garage doors are open or not, just those kinds of things as an example. The worst thing that can happen is a bear breaks into your house, so you want to know whether the garage is open or not.
I have a smart lock to give guests that sort of personalized feel. I give them the option to select their own access PIN so that they can remember since there is no key to manage or lose. But technology is very subdued, it runs in the background. It is there but without knowing it. Everything runs on timers, given there are some specific regulations we have to follow. So lights must be out by a certain time. We also have some things that actually help our guests that check in at night. An automatic light illuminates the path to the entrance when it is pitch black and the entire neighborhood is dark. All of the entertainment needs of guests are accommodated with Apple TV and the different Google Home features support everywhere. Both homes are fully equipped with Google Home, Google Assistant, and some lights that are actually enabled by voice commands. If you want the string
lights on the deck you just say “Hey Google, turn the string lights on.”
Everyone’s music preference is different, so full access to music streaming anywhere in the house can be controlled by zone. But again it is not over-the-top, it is not in-your-face, it is there when you need it and if you do not need it, it is fine.
“The home is equipped with a smart temperature control zone per room, so every room could have its own desired temperature. For example, the kid’s room can be set at a higher temperature than the great room or the main bedroom.”
STEVE: Interesting. What other smart home features does your property offer your guests to make them feel more at home?
EHAB: So I mentioned the lighting fading on when first entering the house for the first time but just as important is activating the right temperature ahead of time, so it is at the desired level. It can get pretty cold in the wintertime. The last thing we want is a guest entering the home that is 50 degrees. The home is also equipped with a smart temperature control zone per room, so every room could have its own desired temperature. For example, the kid’s room can be set at a higher temperature than the great room or the main bedroom.
There can be issues with blackouts, so we had all smart appliances so that when power returns a blinking clock does not overwhelm the guest. I also get notifications on power status and outages instantly.
So we have a level of customization in place, and we provide a way to message guests. We can monitor the guest checking in if something goes wrong with the PIN pad for entering the home, and I will reach out to my guests to make sure everything goes smoothly. Airbnb supports this, too.
STEVE: Do you have a different approach and the way you manage or the way you run the smart home aspect for each of the properties?
EHAB: They are pretty much identical. The one in the Tahoe area is about indoor living and the Sonoma wine country has a pool and is more about outdoor living. So the biggest difference is really making the outside feel comfortable and that actually takes more work. There are just a lot of other elements in making sure everything is clean and organized, so it is a little bit more labor-intensive I would say.
STEVE: And so do you use any technology to support your energy usage?
EHAB: The smart home remote access control provides a huge benefit from a cost-savings perspective. The Sonoma property has solar panels for generating the majority of electrical power. We also have solar panels for the pool’s radiant heating system and an automatic cover that keeps the temperature warm at night because of the cold nights. This is why apples and grapes love the area, it gets really cold at night and then really hot during the day.
To manage energy use and expenses, the pool and water heat can be remotely turned down or off when it is not being used or during off-peak season. The app for controlling the pool’s filtration and all of its unique features is also remotely connected.
STEVE: Do you use a management company at all?
EHAB: No. After reviewing the fees that they were charging, and their level of service, I’m able to manage it as it is and hire people who can respond right away. And it is all done through technology, through SMS, and through apps that manage their calendar so everything can be done remotely with the right technology. We have never even looked back, and the money that was saved can be put back into
the house.
STEVE: So you rely on Airbnb to advertise the property; how many guests have you accommodated?
EHAB: I would say close to 100 in the past couple of years. We list it with a minimum number of days guideline, typically it is three days. And we’re lucky; we found an ex-Ritz Carlton employee who manages the house cleaning, and we even outsourced the laundry cleaning locally.
STEVE: What kind of feedback do you get in terms of the experience between the accommodations and the technology?
EHAB: The majority of feedback we get is about the home itself. It is how stylish it is, how modern it is, and how comfortable it is. The technology, for me, when they say it is comfortable, I say OK, the technology worked to make the house comfortable, so it is not explicit.
Technology is probably more important to me in the Airbnb model than in anything else. Why? Because I control everything with Google Home, otherwise I would have to control each specific app and be there physically more often to look after the home and guest experience. Even the irrigation is controlled together, so it is the fact that one integrated controller does it all for me wins out.
STEVE: Any closing comments?
EHAB: We did not talk about privacy. Some people want to know the access their children have to entertainment options and internet access. Others may have sensitivities that Google or Siri is listening to them. These can be addressed by simply limiting device access or turning off Google Assistant.
