Hey Guys,
What are your ideas or solutions about handling the problem with guests which don't care about the power consumption of your property.
Last year I bought a house in Cancun Mexico with 180sqm so more or less big, this year I added a wall in the first lvl. studio to create a additional room, now the house has 4 Bedrooms.
Each room is equiped with a tv and air conditioner.
When I bought the AC's i've saved money by buying simple ones without "Smart Functions", thinking that I can still control/monitor them remotely by adding "Smart" gateways for them separately to try to control them exactly when the guests leave them ON even if they are not in the House.
I spent so much time in searching for "the best" solution to handle this problem.
After days of searching (in the airbnb community as well) I came across the Cubys, which are developed by a mexican company. (https://cuby.mx/)
For my taste the devices are a little bit expensive but i didn't found other options, in comparison with "more professional" devices they are cheap again.
To explain shortly the cuby devices:
A Cuby G4 is a smart IR Gateway, to control any kind of air conditioner which is using a IR remote control. (so mostly all air conditioners)
With this Smart Gateway you can remote control the air conditioner via IR over Internet.
The reaction of the IR signal works really well after the last firmware update.
You can connect/link some peripherals to the gateways, controls or sensors like motion detection for example.
So in my case i bought a Kit of 5x Cuby G4's , 4x Bits (controls) and one "Aria" which looks and works like a thermostat for the Livingroom air con.
Also there are cameras installed in front of the House to monitor the entrance and I receive notifications by motion detection on mobile.
I started hosting guests in end of october 2021, the occupacy since November is very good so i had enought oportunitys to monitor the consumption of everything.
What can I say about the cubys is that they saved me a lot of money by turning off the AC's manually as soon as the guests went outside.
Also I limited the temperatures in each AC to minimum 20°C (68°F) and in the living room where the bigger AC at 22°C (72°F).
The manual process what needs time and effort to check if all the guests left the House or not and turn off the AC's if very time consuming and ineficient.
Cuby offers Motion Detection Sensors but for about 100$ each it would be another 500$ investment and I honestly find them to expensive for simple sensors.
Now I tought about to write in the House Rules that the usage of the AC's are monitored and if the guests missuse them (keeping them on while they are not there) they will have to pay penalties in form of additional Electricity Fee's and my actual question is if the guests would find it strange and argue that the AC's are monitored and will be shut off manually. For example the normal power consumption in a Month is round about 1200kwh, but if I wouldn't shut off the AC's all the time the consumption would be even higher.
Thank you for your replyes and concerns and hope to hearing oppinions from this fine community!
Best Regards!
