Self check-in and smart locks for your B&B: welcome guests without always being home

One of the first lessons of running a B&B: guests rarely arrive at the hour that suits you best. One gets stuck in traffic and calls at 10:30pm, another shows up an hour early. And meanwhile you'd just like to be able to eat dinner, run errands, or take a day off.

Self check-in solves this. The guest arrives whenever it suits them, without you having to wait at home, key in hand. At Burgemeestershof, most arrivals today happen without anyone physically standing at the door — and the guest reviews didn't suffer for it, quite the opposite.

Here are the options, what they cost, and how to keep it both secure and warm.

Option 1: the key safe

The simplest solution is a key safe on the wall: a metal box with a numeric code holding the house key. Cost: €30 to €80, one-off.

Pros: cheap, needs no power or wifi, always works. Cons: you hand out one fixed code to everyone unless you change it manually between guests. The key can in theory be copied. And a cheap box in a visible spot invites curiosity.

For a small B&B or a single vacation rental this is often more than enough — certainly as a starting point. Just change the code regularly.

Option 2: the smart lock with a keypad

A step up is a smart door lock with a numeric keypad. Each guest gets their own PIN code, valid during their stay and automatically expiring afterwards. Cost: €150 to €400 per door, depending on the brand.

Pros: no physical key to lose, a unique code per booking, and (with some brands) you can see when someone entered. Guest leaves early? You revoke the code remotely. Cons: higher purchase price, and you depend on batteries or power. Choose a lock with a fallback (physical key or battery backup) just in case.

For anyone managing multiple rooms or properties, this type quickly wins out: you never have to reset codes by hand again.

Option 3: app-driven locks and home automation

The most integrated option is locks you control centrally — via an app or your home automation system. Brands like Bold, Nuki or Salto let you create, revoke and tie codes to a stay. Some operators run this through their own Home Assistant setup.

The big advantage: this can work together with your booking system, so you never have to create a single code manually. More on that in the next section.

The real work: the right code, to the right guest, at the right moment

The hardware is only half the story. The real time saving is in the flow around it: the right code on the right booking, sent at the right moment, and revoked after checkout. Do that by hand and you're still working — just at a different time.

Concretely, you want:

• A unique code per booking, created automatically at reservation or at check-in.
• The code sent to the guest automatically in your pre-arrival message (by email or WhatsApp), together with directions and the wifi.
• Automatic expiry after checkout, so a departed guest can never get back in.
• Everything tied to the booking, so you see at a glance which code belongs to which stay.

Combine this with online check-in — where the guest fills in their details in advance for your digital guest register — and your arrival becomes fully self-service and administratively in order. Read more in Online check-in for your B&B.

How BedFlow PMS ties this together

In BedFlow PMS you connect your smart locks to your bookings via the integrations page. At check-in a guest PIN is created automatically and attached to the right booking; after checkout it expires again. Support is extensible — today this runs via, among others, Home Assistant (Bold) and Salto KS.

The access code then travels along in your automated guest messages, next to the wifi and practical info. Guests get everything they need to get in, without you having to fire off a message in the evening. For how to run those messages over WhatsApp, see A WhatsApp bot for your B&B guests.

The result: guests arrive whenever it suits them, you don't have to stand at the door, and nothing happens by hand anymore. See the details in the documentation.

Keep it warm, not cold

One word of warning to close with: self check-in should never feel like a vending machine. An impersonal PIN in a bare email is not a warm welcome. So invest in a clear, friendly arrival message, a handwritten welcome card in the room, or a quick WhatsApp to check everything went smoothly. The technology takes the waiting off your hands — not the hospitality.

In closing

Self check-in is one of the few improvements that makes your life easier and gives the guest more freedom at the same time. Feel free to start with a key safe, and grow into smart locks once you manage several rooms or properties. The biggest gain isn't in the hardware, but in the automated flow around it.

Want access codes, guest messages and your guest register to flow together automatically per booking? Check the pricing or try BedFlow PMS free for 30 days — no credit card required.