Product updates & host stories
Launch notes, industry commentary, and the occasional deep dive from the Staykey team.
The cleaner portal is open to everyone — including your own clients.
Two changes for cleaning companies: you no longer need a host's invite to get in, and your own private clients now live on the same board as your Staykey jobs. It's in beta, and it's open.
Latest posts
The guest dashboard now knows what day it is.
The guest portal used to show everyone the same three tabs. Now it reshapes itself around where your guest is in their stay — plus the local guide.
Photos and a local guide. Finally.
Two things hosts have been asking us about forever — somewhere to put property photos, and a place to recommend the coffee shop down the street — just landed in Staykey. Plus a settings page that doesn't make you sigh.
Why we don't do cloud-only smart locks
The easiest path for a short-term rental platform is to plug into whichever lock vendor has a nice API and call it done. We don't. Here's why local control through Home Assistant wins every time the internet gets weird.
What Airbnb's host standards mean for your tech stack in 2026
Airbnb keeps raising the quality bar, and most of the changes quietly push hosts toward more reliable automation. Here's a read of the 2026 Host Standards through the lens of the tech stack you actually use to run your property.
Why we rebuilt the guest portal around one link
Apps are friction. Instructions get lost. Group texts break. Here's why Staykey's guest experience is a single link, and what changed when we committed to that constraint.
Why Staykey doesn't text your guests
The shortcut for any guest-messaging tool is to text the guest directly — higher open rate, instant delivery, feels modern. We deliberately don't, and every reason matters more the longer you host.
What changes when every property runs Home Assistant locally
After a year of watching real hosts migrate from cloud-only stacks to Home Assistant-based setups, the second-order effects are more interesting than the reliability pitch. Here's what actually shifts.
Product Updates
3 postsThe cleaner portal is open to everyone — including your own clients.
Two changes for cleaning companies: you no longer need a host's invite to get in, and your own private clients now live on the same board as your Staykey jobs. It's in beta, and it's open.
· 5 min read
The guest dashboard now knows what day it is.
The guest portal used to show everyone the same three tabs. Now it reshapes itself around where your guest is in their stay — plus the local guide.
· 5 min read
Photos and a local guide. Finally.
Two things hosts have been asking us about forever — somewhere to put property photos, and a place to recommend the coffee shop down the street — just landed in Staykey. Plus a settings page that doesn't make you sigh.
· 4 min read
Behind the Build
4 postsWhy we don't do cloud-only smart locks
The easiest path for a short-term rental platform is to plug into whichever lock vendor has a nice API and call it done. We don't. Here's why local control through Home Assistant wins every time the internet gets weird.
· 6 min read
Why we rebuilt the guest portal around one link
Apps are friction. Instructions get lost. Group texts break. Here's why Staykey's guest experience is a single link, and what changed when we committed to that constraint.
· 6 min read
Why Staykey doesn't text your guests
The shortcut for any guest-messaging tool is to text the guest directly — higher open rate, instant delivery, feels modern. We deliberately don't, and every reason matters more the longer you host.
· 6 min read
What changes when every property runs Home Assistant locally
After a year of watching real hosts migrate from cloud-only stacks to Home Assistant-based setups, the second-order effects are more interesting than the reliability pitch. Here's what actually shifts.
· 6 min read