Airbnb hosts are using noise-monitoring devices that could send SECURITY GUARDS to house parties

The party is over for Airbnb guests as hosts in Britain install noise-monitor devices that can even alert security guards to break up noisy mass gatherings. 

A Swedish noise monitor device that resembles a smoke detector can send noise-alerts to hosts and notifications to guests to lower the volume when large gatherings are detected.

If the messages are ignored, security ‘responders’ are dispatched to the Airbnb rental to ‘resolve’ the noise issue.

It is estimated that 4,000 homeowners have installed devices in their properties.

Airbnb have taken a firm ‘anti-party’ stance for New Year’s eve celebrations with 11 countries, including the UK, Australia and New Zealand, cracking down to prevent rowdy gatherings

A Swedish noise monitor device that resembles a smoke detector can send noise-alerts to hosts and also features an app that allows hosts to check noise, temperature, humidity mold risk and ‘crowd-detection’

The Swedish tech company, Minut, has partnered with Airbnb and is the only ‘noise-monitoring solution’ to be fully integrated with the short-term rentals app.

Security responders sent to properties will either give verbal warnings to guests to keep the noise down or can disperse them and break up the party. 

It comes as Airbnb has taken steps to crackdown on house parties ahead of New Year’s Eve in 11 countries, including Australia, New Zealand and Britain.

The online property booking platform will ban new users or people without a positive account history from booking an entire home for NYE.

The service will go even further, restricting the same kinds of guests who try to book two and three night stays around NYE.

Hosts can pay £10 a month to get setup with Minut’s noise-monitoring service, which offers 24-hour property protection.

However, deployment of security to Airbnb properties will cost hosts an additional £90 for each callout.

So far there have been fewer than 100 callouts to properties.

One subscriber from Leeds told The Times that the service had made it ‘easy’ to deal with noise problems at his property as Minut also compiled incident reports and invoices for hosts.

‘In the case of our latest callout, we managed to capture the guest’s deposit without any issues,’ he said.

Civil rights organisations are concerned about the privacy of guests in the properties and have described the use of the monitoring devices as ‘creepy’ and ‘extremely intrusive’.

Nils Mattison, CEO and Co-founder of Minut said: ‘Minut sensor is built for privacy. It’s camera-free and it simply monitors sound, occupancy and temperature levels in the property. 

‘It does not listen in on conversations or capture any other sensitive data.’

Minut also says that its service is a response the reports of house parties, people being inconsiderate towards neighbors, and even illegal activity in short-term rentals popping up in the news.

Other features include motion and tamper detection as well as ‘occupancy monitoring’, where the monitoring devices detect the number of mobile phone radio signals in the property.

Airbnb bans hosts from taking video or audio recordings of guests in their properties, but Minut devices are permitted as they do not use cameras or store any data on individuals.