Holiday rental (iCal) smart home integration, free and open source
Guest check-ins and check-outs from Airbnb, Booking.com or Vrbo iCal exports: preheat, cleaning.
Published by guim31
- Devices
- Version 1.0.0
- Requires Gladys >=5.1.0
- ★ 0
The guest check-ins and check-outs of a holiday rental, read from the iCal export calendars the platforms give every listing (Airbnb, Booking.com, Vrbo, Abritel, Gîtes de France, Smoobu and other channel managers): no account, no partner API. Preheat before the guests arrive, turn the heating off when they leave, warn the cleaning team on a turnover day.
Developed without a real host account: feedback welcome. The formats were checked on real, published exports.
What you get
- One device per property (three at most), with:
- Occupied (yes / no): a stay is under way, from its check-in time to its check-out time;
- Check-in soon (yes / no): the next check-in is within the lead time of the options (3 hours by default);
- Turnover today (yes / no): guests leave and others arrive on the same day;
- Next check-in and Next check-out: day, time and platform, e.g. "Fri 13 Nov, 16:00 · Booking.com";
- Hours before check-in (rounded up) and Days before check-in;
- Nights left in the ongoing stay.
- Three scene triggers: guest check-in, guest check-out, check-in soon.
- A scene action that reads the ongoing or next stay, for a message.
- A dashboard widget: occupied or vacant now, then the coming stays.
Configuration
For each property, in Integrations → Holiday rental (iCal) → Configuration:
- Name: the name of the device in Gladys (you can rename the device afterwards).
- iCal address: the export address (.ics) of the property calendar on one platform. Other iCal address: the same property on a second platform. Several addresses may also be pasted in one field, separated by a space. The stays of all the addresses are merged and the duplicates removed.
- Check-in time and Check-out time (16:00 and 11:00 by default): the platforms export days, not times. When a feed does give a time (some channel managers), that time is used.
Where to find the address:
- Airbnb: Calendar → the listing → Availability → Connect calendars → Export calendar.
- Booking.com (extranet): Rates & availability → Sync calendars → Export calendar. Booking.com writes every booked or closed date as "CLOSED - Not available": choose to export the booked dates only when the extranet offers it.
- Vrbo / Abritel: Calendar → Import and export → Export calendar.
- Gîtes de France, Clévacances, Smoobu, Lodgify, Beds24…: the "iCal export" or "calendar sync" page of the listing.
Options:
- Lead time before check-in (hours, 0 to 72): when "Check-in soon" turns on and its trigger fires. 0 turns it off.
- "Not available" dates: Booking.com and Smoobu export every booking as "Not available", exactly like a date you closed yourself. By default they count as stays (otherwise a Booking.com host would see no booking at all); choose "Ignore them" if all your bookings come from feeds that name them (Airbnb "Reserved", Vrbo "Reserved - …"). The blocks of Airbnb ("Airbnb (Not available)") and Vrbo ("Blocked") are always ignored: on Airbnb, they also hold the bookings imported from the other platforms, which their own feed brings.
- Show guest names and codes: off by default. When on, the first name (Vrbo) and the reservation code (Airbnb)
some feeds carry appear in the widget and in the
guestvariable of the scenes. - Calendar refresh: every 15, 30 (default) or 60 minutes, or every 3 hours. The platforms update their exports themselves every few hours at best: a faster pace does not see a booking sooner on their side.
- Language of the names: names of the features and texts of the states, set when the device is created.
Then open the Discovery tab and add each property to Gladys.
Actions
Check the calendars now downloads every calendar again and sums up, per property, the number of coming stays and the next check-in, or the calendars that could not be read.
Scenes
Triggers (in the "Holiday rental (iCal)" category of the scene editor), each filterable by property:
- Guest check-in: the check-in time of a stay has come.
- Guest check-out: the check-out time has come: heating off, cleaning. Use a "Wait" action of the scene for the cleaning a few hours later.
- Check-in soon: the lead time before a check-in has come: preheat.
Variables of the three: property, platform, nights, check-in, check-out, same-day turnover (yes / no) and guest (empty unless the option is on).
The device states also serve as conditions: "Hours before check-in" at 24 or less to set the code of a connected lock the day before, "Occupied" at no to keep the heating in frost protection, "Turnover today" at yes to notify the cleaning team in the morning. When no stay is known, "Hours before check-in" reads 9999 and "Days before check-in" 999, so that a threshold never fires on them.
Action: Get the next stay returns, for one property, the ongoing stay or else the next one: found (yes / no), property, occupied now, check-in, check-out, nights, days before check-in, platform.
Dashboard
Add the Rental stays widget: a status line per property (occupied until…, or vacant and the next check-in), then up to eight coming stays with their dates, number of nights and platform; the ongoing stay and the arrivals of the day are marked. Settings: one property (all if empty), and whether to show the occupied / vacant lines.
Troubleshooting
- The configuration screen says "Calendar unreachable": the address was mistyped, or the platform renewed it. Copy it again from the platform. "Check the calendars now" tells which property fails. The stays already read are kept meanwhile.
- A stay is missing: is it in the export of the platform? Some platforms only export the coming 12 months, and a Booking.com booking needs "Not available" dates counted as stays.
- A date you blocked appears as a stay: it reached a "Not available" feed (Booking.com imports the Airbnb blocks). Export the booked dates only on Booking.com, or choose "Ignore them".
- The times are off by one hour or more: the hours are read in the time zone of Gladys (Settings → System). The property and Gladys must be in the same time zone.
Limits
- Three properties at most, two address fields each (several addresses may share a field).
- The platforms refresh their exports on their own schedule, often every few hours: a booking made a minute ago may appear later.
- Early check-ins and late check-outs agreed with the guests are not in the exports: the configured hours apply.
- No stay is added to the Gladys calendar: the ICS calendars integration can show the same feeds there.
Privacy and security
The iCal addresses are secrets (whoever has them reads your calendar): they are stored by Gladys, used only to download the calendars, and never written to the logs (only the host name is). Nothing is stored on disk. Guest names and reservation codes stay hidden unless you turn the option on. Not affiliated with Airbnb, Booking.com, Vrbo, Abritel or any platform named here.
Configuration settings
These are the settings Holiday rental (iCal) asks for in its configuration screen in Gladys.
| Setting | Type | Required | Description |
|---|---|---|---|
| Your rental properties | section | No | Up to three properties, each one a device. Paste the iCal export address of its calendar on each platform (Airbnb: Calendar → Availability → Connect calendars; Booking.com: Rates & availability → Sync calendars). Private addresses: they stay in Gladys. |
| Property 1 | section | No | |
| Property 1: name | string | No | Name of the device in Gladys. |
| Property 1: iCal address | secret | No | Export address (.ics) of the property calendar on a platform. Several addresses may be separated by a space. |
| Property 1: other iCal address | secret | No | The same property on another platform: the stays are merged, the duplicates removed. |
| Property 1: check-in time | select | No | |
| Property 1: check-out time | select | No | |
| Property 2 | section | No | |
| Property 2: name | string | No | Name of the device in Gladys. |
| Property 2: iCal address | secret | No | Export address (.ics) of the property calendar on a platform. Several addresses may be separated by a space. |
| Property 2: other iCal address | secret | No | The same property on another platform: the stays are merged, the duplicates removed. |
| Property 2: check-in time | select | No | |
| Property 2: check-out time | select | No | |
| Property 3 | section | No | |
| Property 3: name | string | No | Name of the device in Gladys. |
| Property 3: iCal address | secret | No | Export address (.ics) of the property calendar on a platform. Several addresses may be separated by a space. |
| Property 3: other iCal address | secret | No | The same property on another platform: the stays are merged, the duplicates removed. |
| Property 3: check-in time | select | No | |
| Property 3: check-out time | select | No | |
| Options | section | No | |
| Lead time before check-in (hours) | number | No | "Check-in soon" turns on, and its scene trigger fires, this many hours before the check-in: time to preheat. 0 turns it off. |
| "Not available" dates | select | No | Booking.com and Smoobu export every booking as "Not available", like a closed date. Airbnb and Vrbo blocks are always ignored. |
| Show guest names and codes | boolean | No | Off: the first names and reservation codes some feeds carry stay hidden from the widget and the scenes (personal data). |
| Calendar refresh | select | No | |
| Language of the names | select | No | Names of the features and texts of the states, set when the device is created. |
How to install Holiday rental (iCal) in Gladys
- In Gladys, open Integrations: Holiday rental (iCal) appears in the catalog, next to the native integrations, with a community badge.
- Click Install. Gladys pulls the Docker image (
ghcr.io/guim31/gladys-location-saisonniere:1.0.0), starts it in a sandbox isolated from the core, and generates the integration's interface (devices, discovery and configuration). - Open the Configuration screen of the integration, fill in the settings, and save.
- You can also install it directly from its repository URL: https://github.com/guim31/gladys-location-saisonniere.
Holiday rental (iCal) requires Gladys >=5.1.0. The catalog inside Gladys refreshes every hour, so a new version becomes available at most one hour after its release.
Not running Gladys yet? It is free and open source: follow the installation guide to get started.
About external integrations
Holiday rental (iCal) is an external integration: a community integration packaged as a Docker container and published on GitHub, that Gladys installs in one click and runs in a sandbox isolated from its core. It is published and maintained by guim31, not by the Gladys core team.
- Browse all integrations, native and community
- Build and publish your own external integration
- Source code on GitHub — source of this documentation