To automate the thermostat between guests, you set it to an eco (away) setpoint at checkout and back to a comfortable setpoint before the next check-in — automatically, tied to your booking calendar — so you stop heating or cooling an empty property during the gap. With Staykey, the same calendar that drives your guest codes also drives the thermostat: the booking tells the system when the place is empty and when the next guest is due.
This guide is for hosts who keep finding the heat running full-blast in a vacant unit, or who walk into an ice-cold property an hour before a guest lands. We'll cover why it's worth automating, how Staykey knows when to act, which thermostats work, and roughly how much it saves.
Why automate the thermostat between guests?
Between two bookings, a property is empty — sometimes for hours, sometimes for days. An unmanaged thermostat either keeps conditioning that empty space at full comfort (wasting money) or gets manually knocked back and then forgotten (so the next guest arrives to a sweltering or freezing room).
Automating the gap fixes both problems at once:
- No conditioning an empty house. The moment a stay ends, the setpoint drops to an eco range that protects the property without burning energy on comfort nobody's there to feel.
- Comfortable on arrival. Before the next check-in, the system pre-conditions the space so the guest walks into the temperature you'd want in a review.
- Nothing to remember. You're not setting an alarm to nudge the thermostat between every turnover. The booking does it.
It's the same philosophy as automated turnovers — let the calendar run the boring, error-prone steps. If you're building out the rest of that turnover flow, see automating turnovers from checkout to check-in.
How does Staykey know when to change it?
Staykey is calendar-native. It syncs your Airbnb or VRBO iCal feed, so it always knows the exact checkout and check-in times on either side of a gap. Those two timestamps are all it needs:
- At checkout, the stay ends, so Staykey moves the thermostat to your eco/away setpoint.
- Before the next check-in, Staykey switches to the pre-arrival target with enough lead time to actually reach temperature.
- During each stay, the guest controls the thermostat normally — automation only acts at the edges.
The thermostat itself is controlled through Home Assistant, running on a hub at the property, so the setpoint changes execute locally on hardware you own. The cloud is used to sync bookings, not to gatekeep the device — which is the same local-first approach behind everything Staykey does. The reasoning is laid out in why we built Staykey on Home Assistant.
Because the schedule is derived from the calendar, it self-heals: extend a stay, shorten it, or cancel it, and the thermostat plan updates with it. No leftover eco setpoint sitting on a property that's actually occupied.
What does the setpoint schedule look like?
Here's a typical schedule. The exact numbers depend on your climate, your HVAC, and the season — these are illustrative, not prescriptive.
| Phase | When | Heating setpoint | Cooling setpoint | Goal |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Occupied | During a guest's stay | Guest-controlled (e.g. ~70 F) | Guest-controlled (e.g. ~72 F) | Comfort; guest has full control |
| Gap (eco/away) | Checkout to pre-arrival | Lower (e.g. ~58 F) | Higher (e.g. ~82 F) | Protect the property, spend nothing on comfort |
| Pre-arrival | Hours before check-in | Comfortable (e.g. ~70 F) | Comfortable (e.g. ~72 F) | Property is at temperature when the guest opens the door |
The eco-phase numbers are deliberately conservative enough to protect pipes and finishes (you're not letting a property freeze), but far enough from comfort that you're not paying to keep an empty room pleasant. The pre-arrival lead time matters most in extreme weather — a poorly insulated cabin in winter needs a longer head start than a mild-climate condo. You can manage these setpoints alongside your locks and other devices from smart control.
What thermostats work?
Anything Home Assistant can control, which covers the large majority of smart thermostats hosts already own:
- Z-Wave, Zigbee, and Matter thermostats pair locally to your hub.
- Most popular Wi-Fi thermostats — including ecobee and many others — integrate through Home Assistant.
The test is simple: if Home Assistant can read the current temperature and set a target on the device, Staykey can drive it through the gap. One Home Assistant hub manages every thermostat and every lock at the property, and Staykey's flat per-property pricing ($15/mo Host, $25/mo ProHost, unlimited devices) means adding the thermostat to a property that already has a Staykey-managed lock doesn't change your bill.
If you're choosing a thermostat from scratch, favor one with clear Home Assistant support and reliable setpoint control over one that only works in its own vendor app.
How much can it save?
The saving is straightforward in principle: you stop heating or cooling an empty property. How much that's worth depends on three things:
- Climate. The bigger the gap between outdoor and comfortable indoor temperature, the more energy comfort costs — so eco setpoints save more in harsh summers and winters.
- Gap length and frequency. A property with frequent multi-day gaps between bookings has far more empty hours to recover than one that's booked back-to-back.
- How aggressive your eco setpoint is. A wider away band saves more, within the limits of protecting the property.
There's no single headline number that's honest across every property, but the mechanism is reliable: every hour the property sits empty at an eco setpoint instead of full comfort is energy you don't pay for. Over a year of turnovers, in a climate with real heating or cooling load, that compounds. And it costs you nothing to run once it's set up — it's the same hub and the same calendar already managing your access.
How do I verify it's working?
Run a test booking on your connected calendar and watch the two transitions that matter:
- At checkout, confirm the thermostat moves to your eco/away setpoint.
- Before the next check-in, confirm it returns to the pre-arrival target with enough lead time to reach temperature.
- During the stay, confirm a guest can still adjust the thermostat normally.
When both edges fire correctly on a test, every real turnover follows the same pattern automatically.
Put the thermostat on autopilot
Automating the thermostat between guests means the booking calendar handles the boring part: eco when the property is empty, comfortable before the next guest arrives, and full guest control in between. Staykey is the layer that ties your thermostat to your calendar through Home Assistant — and you can try it on your existing hardware with a free 30-day trial, cancel anytime, no surprise charges. Connect a thermostat and a calendar, run a test turnover, and start your trial when you're convinced.