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I'm going to second what achenatx said.

- Having smart locks means I don't have to give out keys, and I can change lock codes remotely.

- Having a smart thermostat means not only can I change it remotely (once they've checked or to prepare it before checking in), but I also get notified of when the HVAC isn't working. (For example, the ecobee will email you if it's been heating for a couple of hours and the temperature has dropped). This is absolutely necessary in climates with periods of extreme cold as that can cause burst pipes, which then damage everything.

- Smart smoke detectors, CO2 detectors can notify you of problems that you won't otherwise find out about in a timely manner, given you're not at the location.

- Sensors that detect flooding. We have a condo that has been flooded by upstairs tenants. Putting a moisture detector between the walls means we get notified of a small problem before it becomes a huge problem.

I think having a smart home is even more important for a property that you don't live at then one where you do.

Actively telling guests "We don't have hidden cameras" has got to be extremely off-putting. There is not a huge problem with hidden cameras. Just fine/arrest/ban the hosts who actually do it, given evidence that it is them doing it.

>> Just fine/arrest/ban the hosts who actually do it, given evidence that it is them doing it.

The Federal voyeurism act of 2004 made it illegal in the US to record video of someone without their consent when that person had a reasonable expectation of privacy [0]. Fines and up to one year in prison.

But I don't know of any actual convictions.

I bet if this happens in some jurisdiction with a politically ambitious prosecutor and the host were recording children then it will blow up.

[0]: https://www.govtrack.us/congress/bills/108/s1301/text

Something I discovered when working in technology is that anyone who said "just do ___" in a planning meeting was either brilliant, or drastically underestimated the scope of a task. Either way, the solution was the same. If you're the only person in the room who thinks a task is easy, you're assigned to that task.

How exactly do you plan to find identify all the hosts who do this?

Random spot checks using equipment to scope out for bugs. Some of that stuff is easily available to buy.

If it's such a big problem offer a small bounty and watch people do it for you.

Wouldn't that just incentivize tenants to plant cameras on properties and claim that the landlord put it there? I agree with Ken that this isn't a simple problem to solve.

Retrieving the camera by authorities would show any footage.

But what's stopping tenants planting cameras now? No risk to them really. Plant the camera, hook it up to the wifi and power. Now you can see everyone who stays. If the camera gets found, the landlord takes the risk.

Who is to say all these cameras we think from the landlord really are from tenants who know they can get away with.

Yes, I agree, the more you think about it, the more complex it appears and harder to solve.

One of the producers I used to work with would double the price for any one that said ‘just’ when describing the project. To him, anyone using ‘just’ was evidence they really had no understanding of what we had to do thereby grossly undervaluing the amount of work on our end.

Apologies for my pet peeve, but it's CO, not CO2....

Not necessarily - CO2 detectors are readily available. It's interesting to see how tired you get as CO2 rises.

That's not the sort of thing you care about learning in a "timely manner" if you're "not at the location".

> Actively telling guests "We don't have hidden cameras" has got to be extremely off-putting

It reminds me of, when I've been road-tripping, seeing billboards advertising "clean restrooms." I never know what to do with that info - trust it? Be more cautious of other places that don't advertise the cleanliness of their restrooms?

I guess, but that could make for a long trip through a supermarket cogitating over the ripe fruit, delicious vegetables and tasty snacks.

Do you also introduce yourself like:

Hi! I'm Bob, not a murderer.

Otherwise, how people will know that you haven't killed anyone?

If there was a widespread problem with murderers in your social circle, and people kept finding out people whom they had assumed were not murderers, then I might introduce myself as Bob, not a murderer.

Just wait til they find out I'm not Bob.

> Hi! I'm Bob, not a murderer.

That's just proper craigslist dating etiquette.

That also makes it sound like your name's not really Bob.

Hi prison mates, I'm Bob and I am in prison for stealing a loaf of bread. Do you want to rent out my copy of the Twilight series?

Maybe that's slightly more accurate?

No, I don't introduce myself that way - that would be crazy.

There is a popular theory that the handshake originated as a way to show your hand wasn't holding a weapon.

I think the evidence for this history is shaky at best, but it's been repeated because it's somehow a compelling idea -- what were people thinking many hundreds of years ago when crime was so common that you genuinely wondered about whether you could trust a casual acquaintance not to hurt you? What did they do to protect themselves?

It doesn't seem unreasonable to wonder about how to present yourself as "safe" in the deeply untrustworthy home-sharing privacy landscape where casual home surveillance is ultra-common (and where neither landlord nor tenant knows how much they can trust the other). I'm not sure there is a good answer and it's not crazy to try to look for one.

That sounds very unlikely.

If strangers don't trust each other they show their hands to each other. Till today.

When you get close enough for a handshake the hand can allready hold a knive and is close enough to hurt.

Handshake tells you more about a person after you trust them not to kill you (right now)

Counterpoint:

Are you suspicious of a VPN service that claims that it doesn't collect logs?

Actually, maybe that's a bad question, because a large number of HN commenters _are_ suspicious of commercial VPNs, but would you say that a VPN that doesn't make such a claim is preferable to one that does?

IANAL, but isn't that different? Spying on people at home without their knowledge is illegal. Murder is illegal.

Collecting and saving logs might defeat the purpose of the VPN service but it's not (AFAIK) illegal. By putting this in your contract, you make it binding, so yes, it has real value.

>My "Not involved in human trafficking" T-shirt has people asking a lot of questions already answered by my shirt.

https://twitter.com/shutupmikeginn/status/403359911481839617

When my now-wife and I first met (via OKC) in 2010, we did actually joke about how neither of us was an axe murderer.

So do you use a sling blade instead? Just because you’re not an axe murderer as you’ve stated doesn’t mean you not just a murderer using a different method.

I slay her with dad jokes on the regular.

Well, on the extremely limited evidence you've given, it sounds like you gave fair warning, after all.

https://www.ul.com

https://www.trustarc.com/privacy-certification-standards/

https://www.usda.gov/topics/organic

https://tilth.org/

http://www.ok.org/companies/what-is-kosher/meat-dairy-pareve...

https://www.globalnegotiator.com/international-trade/diction...

Announcing you have no cameras answers questions about privacy and about security. Announcing you're not a murderer only says you claim not to kill people unlawfully.

I would if I were trying to sell something in a market where the murder of customers was a common (or even merely widely reported) phenomenon. Because the risk of making someone think about it who hasn't before, is lower, and the benefit of potentially reaching someone with that message who was already wondering about it, is higher.

as the owner of a vacation rental

1) being able to change door codes remotely and unlock the door remotely can save a lot of trips to the rental

2) being able to control the thermostat after people leave and have set the temp to 65 degrees is also really useful.

3) The only cameras I would use are outside the home so I can monitor it when it is vacant. I have the same policy in my own home

Explicitly mentioning “no cameras” is currently very off-putting because the expectation is that there are no cameras in private accommodations. It comes off as well as saying “We won’t file a frivolous damage claim against you.” That wasn’t something I was really worrying about, but, well, now I am.

There is one exception, and that is to clarify both where the cameras are and aren’t. Saying “We have a security camera over the garage door, but no cameras in the house” comes off much more sincerely.

Agreed. This leads me to believe airbnb should add a question about this and force homeowners to answer it one way or another.

That's a really neat solution to this issue! Added benefit is that if a camera is found, Airbnb has a simple criteria to weed out the bad eggs.

An indirect approach could be better to communicate the lack of cameras without making people too suspicious. Something like: "We highly value our guests' privacy".

“We highly value our guests' privacy” is exactly what every data collecting actor on every website writes. It’s effectively meaningless.

It means precisely what it says ... that your privacy is worth good money to them.

Maybe... or maybe it's saying "Your privacy is so valuable, imagine what we could get for that on the open market."

That phrase has such a strong connection to data leaks and privacy invasion that I instinctively stay away from anyone who uses it.

Most "smart" home automation utilities are pretty useless anyway. Their end goal can usually be achieved with "dumb" electromechanical devices. Anything "smarter" than a motion sensor and a relay is probably too smart.

I like that I can find out that I left my garage door open even when I'm not home -- and even shut it remotely, if necessary. It's a very practical use case for a 'smart' device.

Not nearly as practical as taking a look at your garage door while leaving though. If you're paranoid you can install a timer with an override switch. Surely telemetry and high-level automation has advantages, but is it worth the hassle, the abandonware light switch which is useless now, the privacy and security concerns that come with network-connected equipment? That is a personal choice and I have to say I'm not a supporter.

Right, but to be human is to be fallible. For example, I left my garage door open all night last night (I was preoccupied when I went in, and just forgot to push the button). I've had a smart garage door for a while, but I just now added a schedule to automatically close the door at 1am, if it's not closed. That has value.

Likewise, my smart sprinkler system monitors the weather and waters the lawn based on the amount of rain we've had. Over the rainy season here, it automatically disabled sprinkling for over 3 months. Sure, I could setup something with a water sensor, or push the rain-skip button each week, but it was nice to not have to think about it.

Yes, but are you sure you're the only person who is able to control the door remotely? That's a big issue with a fair number of "smart" devices: their security is not up to par.

Part of the problem is that "smart" crap becomes hard to avoid if you want non-shitty devices.

We've run into this with refrigerator shopping—we want a counter-depth fridge with what amounts to maybe $50-100 worth of "luxury" improvements in terms of cost to the manufacturer (a little more metal where some have plastic, castors for the drawers so they move a little better, "soft close" would be nice but its absence isn't a deal-breaker, some slightly more thoughtful than usual layout & organization) but all the ones with that kind of thing also bundle auto-opening doors and fancy smart junk and cost double what a mid-range fridge does. We just want to pay slightly (say $200-400) more for a fridge that doesn't feel like a (cheap!) kid's toy, but without a bunch of fancy junk. Such a product does not exist.

Then there's smoke detectors. Do some reading and it seems like they all suck, badly, except Nest Protect, which achieves best-of-a-bad-lot status. I just want smoke detectors that, you know, work, and don't annoy me so much in the kitchen that I end up unplugging that one permanently. Ideally they'd wirelessly trigger one another so I don't have to worry about wires for that. I don't really want or need them to connect to the Internet or to spy on me. Unfortunately sucks-the-least comes bundled with spies-on-you.