Designing a Charger Lock for Airbnb Hosts

Maker Project

Designing a Charger Lock for Airbnb Hosts

A practical 3D-printed cable lock for Airbnb hosts who want to offer guest chargers without constantly replacing them.

One of the near-final prototypes
One of the near-final prototypes

I know, I know. Cable management has been done to death… who needs one more? Well, as it turns out... I think Airbnb hosts do. I had been poking around the Airbnb hosts subreddit (don't ask me why, I don't have a good answer) and noticed a lot of complaints from hosts saying that they wanted to provide charging cables for their guests but were getting tired of having them stolen.

A problem in need of a solution... and one I can use to justify buying more stuff for my maker space. My favorite kind of problem. I'll link some of the stuff from this project below if you're interested.

Thesis Statement

95% or more of folks who "steal" a cable from an Airbnb are either mistakenly taking a cable or are committing a crime of convenience.

Hypothesis

Adding a small amount of friction will almost completely eliminate cable theft.

Personal Goals For This Project

  • Solve a real-world problem for someone other than myself
  • Learn how to work with heat-pressed threaded inserts
  • See if I can generate some incremental revenue from a 3D print

Parameters

Design something that is:

  • Easy to assemble and quick to install
  • Cheap to print
  • Uses some material beyond filament to give it a more premium feel
  • Adds friction to theft but enables the host to swap out broken cables on their own
  • Accounts for multiple cables to give the host flexibility

After a few different designs and test prints, I landed on a pretty simple but effective design that I plan to pilot with some hosts from Reddit.

The current iteration comes in two pieces, which screw together using an Allen wrench and a couple of M3 bolts.
The current iteration comes in two pieces, which screw together using an Allen wrench and a couple of M3 bolts.

It will ship with 3M tape for quick mounting, the proper Allen wrench, and a few cable management options because I revel in hiding wires.

My thinking is that few, if any, guests are likely to rip the whole mount off the bedside table just to steal a charger, and even fewer will be traveling with the right tool to dismantle it, even if they're the type to steal something like this.

Problem solved? Stay tuned. I intend to pilot this with a few hosts to get feedback.

I'll leave you with a shot of the prototype graveyard and a peek at the CAD file, which at this point is fully constrained and built with custom parameters allowing me to quickly and easily adjust spacing, tolerance, and size. I'm getting there.

Fusion file showing user-defined parameters
Fusion file showing user-defined parameters
I'm sure they all look the same, but each iteration added a minor tweak to feel, printing viability, ease of assembly, or tolerance for the hardware.
I'm sure they all look the same, but each iteration added a minor tweak to feel, printing viability, ease of assembly, or tolerance for the hardware.

If you happen to be an Airbnb host reading this and would like more information, please reach out to sean [at] baconandgames.com.