Device detection and occupancy monitoring for Airbnb hosts

c-linkage

Works only with iOS. I guess only people with iPhones rent houses for parties?

wildzzz

I'd much prefer this over a host slapping up cameras everywhere. To anyone wanting to throw parties at an airbnb, switch to Android!

username_my1

wasn't there an algo developed that would use wifi signal as a way to detect humans / movements even behind walls. I imagine that would be a neater solution. if all what you need is a wifi receiver.

cube00

Interesting that it can only count iOS devices considering Apple is more privacy focused. What's the secret sauce that prevents Android phones being counted in the same way? I would have thought Android's constant Wi-Fi scanning that Google uses for improving their indoor location services would be an easy give away.

anta40

>> How does Crowd Detect estimate occupancy? >> It detects the number of nearby iOS devices in a property and compares it to your defined threshold. If the count is exceeded, Minut sends an alert. OK so Android users are safe, then. Woohoo!

alexpotato

Wouldn't this be possible with a NUC/RaspberryPi and a bluetooth adapter? e.g. if you suddenly start seeing tons of beacons above the historical maximum, that's a good indicator. (Not trying to be "dropbox is just rsync", just commenting on the iOS only limitation)

buggeryorkshire

You have to get the guests to install an app? Hell no that won't work.

ryeights

This is a microcosm of everything that has gone wrong in modern technological society. Most Airbnbs have occupancy rules that bar any daytime visitors if read strictly. This has been normalized under the understanding that the policy isn’t strictly enforceable, but exists as a backstop for situations where extra visitors cause damage/nuisances. So if you want to have a (perhaps spontaneous) guest over or a small polite gathering, as long as you don't cause a disturbance, it's no harm no foul. This is beneficial to the social fabric and doesn't bring any detriment to the host or neighbors. Yet, thanks to the marvels of technology, we can now detect and deter these aberrances that would have otherwise gone unnoticed!

nothercastle

Another reason to just get a hotel room.

howdyhowdy

There are, unfortunately, a lot of listings on airbnb/vrbo/etc. that just shouldn't be. Not because the listings are bad, but because the people are looking to make a buck with the least amount of effort or care as possible. Technologies like this arise when there are too many of that category in a market.

close04

All the pictures show nice, large houses in a suburb. What about apartments in a bigger building? Will the neighbor's visitors trigger this? Would turning off BT completely bypass this?

mdrzn

"Crowd Detect uses passive signals from nearby iOS devices to estimate occupancy." Thank god Android doesn't fuck my privacy like that.

returningfory2

I wonder how Airbnb would respond to a host complaint that uses this data, because of the following story: A few years ago me and a bunch of friends rented a big Airbnb with a no dogs policy. Some other friends were in the same town, with a dog, and came over and hung out in the yard for a while with their dog. The dog also briefly went in the house (which I think is poor form, to be clear). Somehow the Airbnb host was in the neighborhood and drove by the house to check on it, saw the dog, and then messaged Airbnb to complain. My friend counter-complained to Airbnb that the host was surveilling us. And the end result was that Airbnb discounted the Airbnb by 50% (over $1000). The owner got nothing out of it. Very surprising to me.

publicAdjacent

The ACLU in NH brought a class action lawsuit after these devices ended up in public housing. The devices also detect sound levels by intermittently sampling audio. Looking at the FCC teardown of the devices it is clear they are one firmware update away from streaming audio from all occupants living rooms. https://www.nhpr.org/nh-news/2026-09-02/concord-housing-auth...

jsrozner

Another great example of novel surveillance application for technology. I was thinking whether supermarkets or other entities might track who is shopping. Of course they can just use facial recognition at this point, but you could imagine them doing device level tracking, just like browser cookies track you as you wander the internet. But Apple cycles your MAC address, so maybe you can't correlate visitors across visits? In general, circumventing this would require having your device go dark or intensionally pretend to be multiple devices simultaneously?