The Techsplained Series presents - Alertify

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[00:00:19] Hi everyone and welcome to another episode of the Techsplained series.

[00:00:23] Did you ever have a guest that made you think you're going to have a problem with them?

[00:00:27] And you wish there was a way to somehow keep an eye on them.

[00:00:30] It should be a priority to protect owner's property and to protect the neighbor's peace and quiet.

[00:00:36] If you didn't know yet, there are devices that will allow you to peek into the property.

[00:00:41] And no, I'm not talking cameras.

[00:00:43] More like having your own virtual security guard reporting things to you as they get started

[00:00:49] to prevent things getting out of hand.

[00:00:51] Today we'll meet one of those security guards.

[00:00:54] Today I'm chatting with Imka who will explain how

[00:00:57] Alertify does the job.

[00:00:59] Hello Imka, how are you?

[00:01:01] Hi I'm very well thank you.

[00:01:03] That's good.

[00:01:03] Thank you very much for joining me today.

[00:01:06] Thank you for having me.

[00:01:08] So as usual we're going to launch straight into it.

[00:01:11] Imka can you please tell me in one sentence what does Alertify do?

[00:01:16] Alertify is a comprehensive monitoring system that also does guest verification

[00:01:21] for property managers and other hospitality establishments

[00:01:25] to help prevent the unpredictable.

[00:01:28] Prevent the unpredictable.

[00:01:29] Very very good.

[00:01:30] Okay I am a property manager and I'm wanting to use Alertify.

[00:01:35] What's the process that I go to to get on board and what do I see or what do I get?

[00:01:42] So the first thing you'll have to do is head to Alertify's website

[00:01:46] and then place your order.

[00:01:48] Once you place your order you will receive a verification email

[00:01:53] and then you sign up for the Alertify dashboard.

[00:01:55] It's very important to do this before

[00:01:57] you get your device and once you get your device

[00:02:00] you simply plug it in and follow the prompts.

[00:02:04] Right now in terms of the device if I have say a two bedroom apartment

[00:02:09] do you tell me how many devices I need or you know how many devices would I need

[00:02:15] for a standard maybe two bedroom apartment?

[00:02:18] So for a two bedroom apartment you can definitely get away with one device

[00:02:23] but if you are concerned it is good the more devices you have

[00:02:27] the more accurate your monitoring will be

[00:02:32] but in general cases a small two bedroom apartment would do well with one device.

[00:02:40] Okay so I've got the link and I get my device.

[00:02:44] So talk us through how do I connect that link to the device?

[00:02:48] Does the device need Wi-Fi or how does that work?

[00:02:51] The connecting.

[00:02:53] So once you plug in your device the device itself will actually create a Wi-Fi network.

[00:02:59] It's a return of your own network your own Wi-Fi connections and connect to the Alertify AP

[00:03:06] Wi-Fi and then just follow the prompts from there.

[00:03:09] It's a very simple process and we have some help videos and help articles as well.

[00:03:15] Okay so I could see on your website it takes five minutes

[00:03:19] and it's done it's set up.

[00:03:21] So from that point on my property is now protected by my security guard

[00:03:26] and what does my security guard protect me from?

[00:03:30] Your Alertify device monitors noise occupancy smoking air quality mold risk

[00:03:38] and temperature and humidity.

[00:03:41] It also has a new feature where it can verify guests

[00:03:46] so you can send out guest verification links and have your guests go through a process where you can

[00:03:55] have them answer security questions, verify their payments, details through stripe

[00:04:04] and yeah it's a very useful feature even if you like to upsell for services.

[00:04:09] So okay given that the guest is not at the property yet this is a feature that they use

[00:04:14] before they arrive. We use through Alertify before the guest arrives.

[00:04:20] So how do we get the info about the guest? So you're integrated with PMS, correct?

[00:04:28] Yes yes so it's connected through your PMS and you can take them through there.

[00:04:35] We also have a feature I'll show you on the dashboard just now

[00:04:38] where you can create a separate sign-up page so you send the guest the link

[00:04:43] and it's an extension, it looks like an extension of your webpage

[00:04:47] where your guest just goes through the process and it looks like it's your own website

[00:04:54] branded like the website and the guest simply goes through that.

[00:04:59] Yeah doesn't look dangerous. Yeah yeah that's nice that it's branded.

[00:05:04] Is this a sort of thing though that it can be set that unless they get approved

[00:05:09] they won't get the arrival instructions or things like that?

[00:05:13] So you can decide that for yourself it's not like we can say yes or no but you can see if they have

[00:05:22] agreed to your guest agreements and if they have filled out the form

[00:05:30] if you see they filled out answers that you might not like you can you know decline their stay

[00:05:38] or you can have them pay a deposit upfront so that if something happens you are secured.

[00:05:45] Yeah yeah okay so let's say we've screened the guest, the guest arrives.

[00:05:52] Okay so let's start with the first one noise so this is going to determine when the noise gets

[00:05:58] a little bit too loud and this is something that we can set ourselves as the you know okay

[00:06:04] this is the level now that we're going to say it's too loud for the neighbours?

[00:06:08] Yes so you can decide it for yourself on the dashboard there are general guidelines as to

[00:06:15] say above 60 you might want to get some notifications and 60 decibels otherwise

[00:06:22] you can set it up for yourself you can decide maybe between 12 and 7 you want it to be more

[00:06:30] quiet that's an option so it's very customizable. Oh great I think now that we're talking about the

[00:06:37] features let's have a look at the dashboard so we can see what we can do what filters there are

[00:06:44] or what are the different levels we can play with. Okay standing so this is what you'll see

[00:06:50] when you first log into your alertify account you'll see at the top we have your live updates

[00:06:58] so you know how many devices are offline smoking noise and occupancy violations then at the bottom

[00:07:05] you can see you have your total violations so it's per hour but you can change it to you know

[00:07:12] how many violations do you have in the last month and then you have a little overview of your

[00:07:20] your recent alerts so the first thing you'll have to do when you jump on is you'll have to

[00:07:27] create a building and set up a building so this might be the Hilton Hotel London or Pete's Airbnb

[00:07:36] whatever it may be and then you can go to units and create different rooms so you'll be like room

[00:07:45] 405 or common room for Pete's Airbnb whatever that may be and you assign your rooms to the

[00:07:54] specific building and then you can see your devices all your devices will be listed here

[00:08:01] so if you have a bunch they all appear on the same dashboard which is quite nice

[00:08:08] and then we go to alerts and here you'll see an overview of your alerts again

[00:08:14] you can filter it if you only want to see some alerts and yeah you can open it up

[00:08:21] and you'll see you have get a nice graph with the latest information on there

[00:08:26] wow these are alerts these are okay these are alerts that have happened someone has

[00:08:32] there's been a noise issue at 215 at Brooklyn Apart Hotel yes yes these are things that have

[00:08:38] happened okay yep yes so it's very nice if you want more detail you can click on your unit

[00:08:46] and you'll see a live overview of how's the current occupancy level air quality and mold risk

[00:08:53] that's live this is live yes right yes because that was going to be one of my questions you know

[00:09:00] about right now so for example let's say I want to know that my guest has checked in

[00:09:07] can I be notified when there is a noise at my property yes you can but you are going to have

[00:09:18] to set the monitoring the noise monitoring quite low for that yes you can go to monitoring settings

[00:09:27] and noise and then decide how many decibels would you like when you would like to be notified

[00:09:36] if it's too low it might be annoying because you might get notified for all the small things

[00:09:42] but you can even set your notifications so if there's still a noise above that decibel level

[00:09:50] after five minutes or 20 minutes you can decide for yourself so go off the whole time yeah it was

[00:09:57] just an idea to know when a guest has arrived at a property it was just an idea for a presentation

[00:10:03] I'm doing next next month and I wonder if it yeah I wonder if there's a way you can find out that the

[00:10:09] guest has actually walked in the door from the noise monitor and even though you are setting it

[00:10:14] differently you know for the day of check-in I just wanted to know if that was possible so yes

[00:10:20] you can do it but it's a manual thing but you know when they walk in the door you get notified

[00:10:24] your guests are in well that is true that's that's a great idea actually we haven't thought of that

[00:10:30] ah there you go it works in the mail okay okay fair enough no so yeah you can set your um yeah your

[00:10:39] ideal temperatures um occupancy level so temperature is nice for say you don't want the ac to be on when

[00:10:47] it's too or too cold or too hot um so yeah that's very useful so when we head back to our daughter

[00:10:54] you can see an overview of um the live noise over the past few hours and you can set it for day

[00:11:02] month and you can go back in time and look at the last months um so it's noise, smoke, temperature,

[00:11:10] humidity and CO2 yeah now I'm going to ask a really silly question because you just reminded

[00:11:16] me with the CO2 so we know on Airbnb they say you know you must have a smoke alarm and a

[00:11:21] CO2 monitor or CO2 alarm now I know that these devices are saying yeah we detect smoking and vaping

[00:11:28] and marijuana and blah blah blah this might be a dumb question but do you catch a fire if the house

[00:11:34] is on fire oh well you know there's like the blanket caught on the heater and it's on fire and

[00:11:39] someone's in the bathroom doesn't know will it detect that burning? It will definitely detect

[00:11:45] you can even see a spike in CO2 when someone enters a property but we don't want to advertise

[00:11:50] ourselves as a fire detection smoke monitor in that sense because there's a lot of legal

[00:11:59] comes with it yeah yeah but it but it will it detect something burning? It will definitely pick it up so

[00:12:10] yeah well you do need a CO2 monitor so there you go this is included in this in this device very good

[00:12:17] okay yeah so um and then you can go and head to our integrations if you like to integrate with one

[00:12:26] of our PMS systems we are constantly adding more and partnering with more partners but if you are

[00:12:33] integrated with one of our PMS partners you can set up guest alerts so it will take the information

[00:12:40] from your PMS and actually send the guests themselves notifications when they are making

[00:12:47] noise, when they are yeah being too loud party smoking indoors so that's a very nice feature

[00:12:56] because we've found that 80% of the violations actually get stopped once the guest receives

[00:13:02] their first notification so very effective and you don't have to intervene and have

[00:13:07] an awkward conversation with your guests about yeah so does the property manager just completely

[00:13:14] get bypassed with this one or does the property manager get told hey we've sent a notification to

[00:13:19] the guest they're misbehaving or do we just it's up to us it's up to you so you can decide do

[00:13:25] you want your guests to be notified and you don't want to like hear it from the first

[00:13:30] notification on or yeah or you would like you'd like to be the only one who's notified and

[00:13:38] rather address it yourself with your guests it's up to you very good so yeah this is a very cool

[00:13:44] feature if you're integrated with your guests and yeah then if you are integrated you will also

[00:13:51] see you will get a bit more information at your alert so this is a violation without integration

[00:13:58] you see you see the violation you see the time start and end date but there's no consumer information

[00:14:04] or custom if but if you are integrated you have the benefit of seeing who exactly it is what their

[00:14:12] contact number is so this is very nice if there's a dispute you have proof and you if you want to

[00:14:21] hold back a damage deposit you have proof and you can go and download an incident report

[00:14:27] it looks like this and yeah you can submit it as proof and you've have it in case anything happens

[00:14:37] and one of the things that are that I really I like I mean the word chargeback is a scary word

[00:14:43] you know it's just a big headache and it's no one wants to charge back and this sort of thing

[00:14:48] comes in handy if they're saying oh no we didn't do that and then here we go you've got proof

[00:14:53] that they did and so it comes in handy for chargebacks absolutely yes that's what it's used for

[00:15:00] quite often and yeah with great success yeah great I've just got a couple of questions then

[00:15:06] about the individual thing is features so in terms of smoking so your device it detects smoking

[00:15:15] it detects vaping and marijuana correct yes as well as almost yes yeah um so my question is

[00:15:25] let's say you've got the the device in the lounge room and someone is smoking in the bedroom

[00:15:31] yes how far away is the radius to detect the smoke um it is quite sensitive um

[00:15:42] but I can't give you exact numbers um but it should pick it up it should pick it up especially if it's

[00:15:48] not if the room's on too far from each other yeah okay it's always got a window open and they

[00:15:54] kind of sitting on the windowsill smoking and a little device's way in the distance it

[00:16:00] it might not pick it up but if it's a small net area then yeah it's gonna smell it's if it's

[00:16:07] going to make your airbnb smell it's going to pick it up so yeah yeah good point um so the other

[00:16:12] question is then let's say the guests got notified they've put their cigarette out how long does it

[00:16:19] take for the device to realize that the level is coming down and it's it's being put out I mean

[00:16:26] that the problem is being put out how how does that work so as soon as it stops smelling as

[00:16:34] soon as if you as a person can smell the the smoke in the air um it will probably still pick up that

[00:16:40] there's high levels of particles in the air once you can't smell it anymore it it drops okay so you'll

[00:16:49] you'll see the decline in the little graph from the monitor yes absolutely pretty quickly okay that's

[00:16:56] great and occupancy how does it detect there are 15 people in the in the property that sleeps

[00:17:02] too so um the occupancy is a bit of a it's less accurate than the noise and smoking but it pings

[00:17:11] the devices in the area with bluetooth so um it can detect there's an increase in devices in the

[00:17:18] area um so then you there is most likely um increase in people because yeah people on their

[00:17:27] smartphones these days yeah yeah and also on your website it says that any updates on alertify your

[00:17:36] devices automatically update so this is all done through that built-in wifi is that right

[00:17:43] yeah so um alertify has a subscription as a hardware and then it has your dashboard which is

[00:17:49] software and the software we try and update very regularly we do bug testing almost on a

[00:17:56] daily basis so if there's any updates that needs to happen um it will automatically update there's no

[00:18:02] need to install new things or refresh it or something and one more thing you did touch

[00:18:10] on before about the air quality can you just explain the air quality one so um air quality it

[00:18:20] it actually measures the a qi and then the co2 in the air so um if there's a lot if there's

[00:18:29] lots of people in the in the area you'll see um the co2 goes up significantly or um all drops

[00:18:38] and yeah so it's it's quite um sensitive as well if the window if the window is open for example

[00:18:48] and there's a lot of pollen in the air is that does that fit into this a qi i'm assuming that's

[00:18:54] air quality index yes yes is what pollen detected or dust or is it chemical in the air um i think

[00:19:04] it's mostly chemicals but um definitely if the air quality isn't good um it will pick it up yeah okay

[00:19:14] yeah very good okay and one lucky last question about these nuisance guests sometimes what if

[00:19:23] they unplug it so that is a very common question we get and alertify actually has

[00:19:32] a little light so it's a little green light that um show indicates that it's on but once you unplug it

[00:19:38] that LED light switches off so the people so the person might think cool it's plugged out um

[00:19:46] it switched off but it actually runs on a backup battery you get a immediate notification that your

[00:19:52] device has been unplugged in this room and um then it keeps monitoring for about up to four

[00:20:00] hours so you can have time to go plug it back in or um yeah check with the problem if it's unplugged

[00:20:07] you're saying it keeps working does that mean i can send them an sms and saying i know what you did

[00:20:15] you absolutely can because alertify will alert the property manager or um home owner that it has

[00:20:22] been unplugged so you can definitely do that if you'd like i'm walking at you

[00:20:30] definitely might freak them out but uh yeah it's all the problem and yeah if they do have a smoking

[00:20:37] or noise violation in that time yeah it will pick it up yeah yeah great okay so i think we can finish

[00:20:43] with the screen sharing and then we'll just go back to the uh the usual questions we can run

[00:20:49] through welcome link as well if you'd like oh sure yes over with that so this is so that what

[00:20:55] i just explained now that's most of the monitoring so recently we released welcome link by alertify

[00:21:01] and this is a guest screening or verification portal um it's just a nice little add-on bonus feature

[00:21:08] so um you send a link to your guests and when they make a reservation and you can set up a whole

[00:21:17] um let me show you so you can go to your guest portal and you can set up um what screening questions

[00:21:25] you'd like you can ask them to collect id selfie and you can brand it so you can upload your own

[00:21:32] logo your primary colors and then have that link as an extension of your webpage so it looks

[00:21:38] something like this it's like thanks for booking um you can absolutely cast customize it you

[00:21:45] collect all the information you want nothing you don't want um you can ask about house rules do they

[00:21:51] agree to your house rules um you can set up a guest agreement um so that no one says they

[00:21:57] don't know anything and then um you can upload your passport or id passport and then you can

[00:22:05] even ask them for their payment details um so yeah it's very useful and you can customize it

[00:22:13] you can customize guest messages and settings and then once they've completed everything you

[00:22:19] can see it's complete or incomplete um you can see cool they completed the portal the assignment

[00:22:27] agreement uh and yeah all the details it does their identity document match their selfie do

[00:22:34] they have any preferences so here you can also upsell your services for example do you need

[00:22:40] extra bed do you need a baby chair um things like that so it's very useful and then you can run a

[00:22:47] background check and um yeah download the reservation as a PDF so yeah it's all very it's very useful and

[00:22:56] um a very nice add-on feature that our competitors don't do now this is through the

[00:23:02] pms can we then um can we then slot it in in our automated emails or something like that to

[00:23:09] go out at a certain time like at the beginning of the booking or you know just before security

[00:23:13] deposits due can we decide when it goes out so yes you can you can set that up but I think

[00:23:19] that's gonna have to be set up with uh pms yeah so but yeah you can you can if you have

[00:23:28] messages from um alertify you'd like to go out you can um have these little tags and

[00:23:35] you know customize dates and information yeah uh yeah so it's it's quite customizable great

[00:23:43] very good anything more on the dashboard that we should know about no I think I think we

[00:23:48] did a pretty good run through okay that's lovely okay so back to the usual questions

[00:23:56] what is your unique selling point which one out of those uh is a unique feature

[00:24:01] I think um so we always say it's preventing destructive guest behavior end to end so even

[00:24:08] before they check in we look at is this a high-risk consumer after they checked in

[00:24:15] or during their check in we monitor their behavior and if something happens we have the violation

[00:24:21] reports um so it's an end to end uh solution yeah a solution for for guest monitoring um

[00:24:33] and also highly privacy friendly so unlike a recording device or camera that's recently been banned

[00:24:39] by abd um it's very compliant and yeah you can get quite a lot of information yeah absolutely

[00:24:46] and information that will help you um that's great so uh why would I use your product

[00:24:53] sir um it's very helpful in preventing noise complaints and smoking violations smoking

[00:25:00] damages it can also help you save costs so one smoking incident can cost you up to a thousand

[00:25:07] one hundred dollars and with alertify you can actually pick up that violation and

[00:25:15] jump in before something gets out of hand you can also um ask your guests or find your guests for

[00:25:21] if they do violate the house rules and some people manage to make back their the the amount

[00:25:28] that the device costs within one um within one fine so um yeah you can actually use it for a

[00:25:35] bunch of reasons um then yeah it just lowers the risk of bad guests over all or yeah it secures

[00:25:42] that payment that deposit if you do need it yeah and do you have a target audience i um i'm

[00:25:50] sort of supposing that with this kind of device even someone with one property would be your target

[00:25:56] audience absolutely we cater for people from one property to our entire hotel um our system is

[00:26:05] very easily integrated with any size property and um at the moment we're focusing on the us uk

[00:26:13] and um EU markets but um we are thinking of expanding and broadening our horizons

[00:26:21] and yeah it's absolutely for property managers hotel owners abnb hosts um we even have

[00:26:28] lower cost housing people use our devices um we're trying to get into schools now and

[00:26:36] help detect smoking in school so yeah it's it's quite a broad audience

[00:26:41] i thought you were going to be a teacher's helper and the noise is too loud keep it down

[00:26:47] could be another great idea and um in terms of you were saying about uh you sign up and it's

[00:26:53] a subscription so how does the pricing work so it's 180 dollars in the u k us and 180 euros in the

[00:27:05] uk and the e u yeah and is that is that uh per year yes it's per year and you get the

[00:27:12] hardware and software with that and it gets renewed on a yearly basis so after if you don't want it

[00:27:17] anymore you can cancel your subscription right and is that per device yes that's per device okay out of

[00:27:25] interest do you have a sliding scale like if i was going to buy 50 devices from you would that drop a

[00:27:30] drop a bit yeah well we always we always open to no negotiations especially if you have more than

[00:27:36] one proper black more than one property more than more than 10 properties we open to to discussing

[00:27:43] lovely lovely and then you touched on one year so if i sign up to you then basically i really i'm

[00:27:49] with you for a year and that's really you know i'll get a good good idea of your product but what's

[00:27:54] one year minimum one year is minimum yes so whether you use it or not it's up to you yeah that's

[00:28:01] okay well we've come to the end of the usual questions was there something about

[00:28:05] alertify that we didn't touch on well i think we had a pretty good rundown um and yeah it's been

[00:28:14] lovely having thank you for having me um no it's been lovely and um i think our viewers have

[00:28:21] gotten a good idea of the product what it does and yeah really a very useful product and can be

[00:28:27] using unique ways so everyone needs one yeah so if you have any questions for imka about alertify

[00:28:36] you can pop them in the comments below i will put a link in the description below to learn more

[00:28:41] about alertify or to sign up imka thank you very very much for your time it's been really good

[00:28:46] learning about alertify it's been lovely being here thank you so much for having me thank you

[00:28:53] bye bye

[00:28:57] well i hope you enjoyed this episode if you'd like to catch up on ones you've missed just head to

[00:29:03] the techsplainedseries.com or if you're short for time you can head to the tech minis.com where

[00:29:11] you'll find extra short interviews see you next time