Be the Smartest Apple - How to effectively compare smart home when they aren’t apples to apples

Let’s face it: There is a lot of smart-home technology in the market and it definitely isn’t all the same. It can be challenging for apartment operators to effectively evaluate technologies when they are unable to conduct apples-to-apples comparisons.

What should apartment operators be evaluating? It comes down to the features and the operational and revenue potentials of those features. This session of the Multifamily Innovation Conference – Atlanta (MICA), presented by SmartRent, examined and evaluated some of the most widely used smart home technologies and dug into the features and benefits of each, including thermostats, remote access technologies and hubs.

It featured former apartment property manager Demetrios Barnes, now Chief Operating Officer and Co-Founder at SmartRent; and Chris Acker, Vice President, Community Technology Services at LMC.

“Smart-home in-unit installation is something that a few years ago we tried to get into, and we did some DIY with it, but now, and looking ahead, it’s something you need to do with service partners who can help with the technology and pricing.”

Acker said that a lot of smart home talk over the past few years was “the cart before the horse” and that today, smart-home tech is something that needs to be part of the community’s overall ecosystem.

“You need that baseline technology foundation infrastructure and then use it to tie everything together from access to home automation features,” Acker said. “From that baseline, you can add on to improve your asset with things like leak protection, preventive maintenance, etc.

Acker added that operators need to do their homework and properly invest in new development from the start, “because once the budget is in place, you can’t really go back and ask for more money for technology,” Acker said.

“Obviously, you don’t want a clunky system. Leasing, touring and everything else needs to be seamless for your resident experience. Residents need to be able to access their home with their phone, a card, or a fob (whatever you choose). The industry has ‘turned the corner’ on this.”

Water, Water Not Everywhere

Having automatic water shut-off to prevent damage and utility waste is an important issue today. That, and having controlled lighting and motion detectors are other add-on resident benefits.

The joke is, that when living in a 600 square foot apartment, a resident should be able to get up and flip the light switch without “Alexa’s” help. Acker, though, chuckled at the consumer behavior of some, and said having the technology helps to justify the rent bump.

“Once you have the [technology] foundation in there, you can do other simple add-ons that make a difference,” he said. “You’ll see a return on your investment for sure.”

Barnes said smart-home tech systems with water leak detection have brought down the insurance premiums for some, and that self-insured companies are mitigating their situations. 

“Some builders risk insurance policies are requiring a water shut-off system,” he said. Some renters are seeing their renters’ insurance premiums reduced if they live in a community with leak detection.

A Knock on the Door

Barnes said some clients have many leasing agents working in the office and even then, responding to leads can take more time than the community would like.

“Having the right self-guided touring available can help to augment some of that effort,” he said. It can help the leasing agent handle two, three or four tours at once, while guiding the prospective residents at the prospects’ own pace, he said.

Acker said long gone are the days of a staff employee “carrying a big chain of keys, searching for the right one to let the prospect on the into the apartment home, or having to hand off an old 17-pound laptop to the resident so they can use it to open the dad-gum door.”

The simpler it is to get in the building, and live in the building, the better the resident experience will be, Acker said. 

Connectivity issues can also spoil the process. Barnes said SmartRent has 10,000 units wired through T-Mobile and AT&T to Cat-M1, a relatively new frequency protocol that can perform better through walls, with a slower download speed. 

Piling on Value with Bulk Wi-Fi

Barnes added that he’s seeing some level of smart-home technology implementation in smaller communities of 30 units or so, a trend he thinks will continue.

Having good connectivity through cellular [is okay], Barnes said, “but cellular is not always going to be the best network. The industry is moving to community-wide, bulk services managed (or unmanaged) Wi-Fi.”

Acker said, obviously, “you don’t want to have corridors in your property where calls get dropped. We’re seeing ubiquitous Wi-Fi more and more. It makes sense, especially if you can layer on top of it: Put your company network on there, your AV on there. This also helps to limit the amount of infrastructure you need. Devices can be added on: the HVAC system, automated tinted glass, automatic window shades that save energy.”

Barnes also sees opportunities to manage and leverage community parking through improved technology.

“The right software can help to solve parking disputes or prevent others from parking in spaces such as “future resident” spaces,” he said. “It enables owners – especially those during lease-ups when limited occupancy means that all the spaces are not yet needed –to monetize their available parking spaces, making them available to the general public for a time. Proper parking management can also help the community solve for deliveries drivers and resident package delivery.”

Acker said apartment operators and their staff “don’t have to be the smartest guy in the room, but they need partners who will allow them to be nimble; partners who can explain all this to you” so that the management team can then convey it to their staff.

Checking the Contract

A key part of contract negotiation is determining security for the system and how data is protected and who “owns” the data. Some owners might say, “I want to own all this data,” Acker said. “But maybe you don’t. [However], if your community gets hacked, you don’t want to know about it three weeks later.”

Here is the replay: