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Party Squasher: guest occupancy counter for homes

partysquasher.com

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Re: Party Squasher: guest occupancy counter for homes

#31

Post by cj »

Rendello wrote: post #2

I could definitely see the use from a landlord's perspective but of course would hate this as a tenant. My last landlord wanted me to sign a lot of arbitrary (and mostly unenforceable) rules. One was "no guests without permission". I read it over and asked him, "so if I have someone sleep over, you want me to call you on your cell?" He scratched out the rule.

All of my leases have had a variation of that clause, except it usually requires guests get permission if staying longer than X nights within Y time period because the landlord doesn't want the tenant to accidentally allow someone to establish legal tenancy (making it difficult to evict them even if the landlord can convict you).

Re: Party Squasher: guest occupancy counter for homes

#33

Post by archerx »

Domenic_S wrote: post #11
mik3y wrote: post #5

Thought this was going to be an mmWave sensor with an "AirBnB host friendly" UI of some sort.. turns out it's just a network sniffer? Seems.. defeatable. > How it Works > > Party Squasher uses the presence of mobile phones > as a proxy for the presence of people. You start by > connecting our small sensor to your property’s internet > router. [...]

Sounds like it's an 802.11 monitor mode packet sniffer, recording probe requests (which have a MAC address associated with them). Connecting to the internet is probably just to hook up to their cloud service. Defeatable by airplane mode/wifi off/phone off, sure.

Or just cover the box with aluminum foil and keep your phones on…

Re: Party Squasher: guest occupancy counter for homes

#34

Post by Animats »

stevenicr wrote: post #30

Pretty sure I saw a couple of party detection devices shown on some netflix airBnb creators show like 8(?) years ago. (show had a firehouse in DC revamp, then another episode with a california(?) 70's pad with 70s furniture, decor, pool.. definitely the kind of place you may want to party, yet the owners were hesitant to list it if they could not prevent that... I believe they used a combination of sound dB meters an…

That's how it works.

"Party Squasher counts the number of mobile phones in and around your house."

Re: Party Squasher: guest occupancy counter for homes

#35

Post by lotsofpulp »

foxes wrote: post #32

Why not just go with the old thing of treat the space appropriately and don't be a nuisance to neighbors. Really this sucks -- peasants are not allowed to gather in groups larger than 5 -- corporate landlords are a blight.

Because then you have to litigate a nebulous definition of nuisance, which is expensive and time consuming. Number of people is clear and easy to litigate.

Re: Party Squasher: guest occupancy counter for homes

#36

Post by Gigachad »

Rendello wrote: post #2

I could definitely see the use from a landlord's perspective but of course would hate this as a tenant. My last landlord wanted me to sign a lot of arbitrary (and mostly unenforceable) rules. One was "no guests without permission". I read it over and asked him, "so if I have someone sleep over, you want me to call you on your cell?" He scratched out the rule.

This isn't a landlord / tenant device. It's for AirBnB hosts.

Re: Party Squasher: guest occupancy counter for homes

#37

Post by Gigachad »

altairprime wrote: post #27
kedikedi wrote: post #4

Interesting approach. I have a feeling that this is intended for sparsely built houses (the typical american housing maybe?) since in a dense European city I’d imagine it would pick up tons of cell phone signals from other people in their own homes or, say, from people visiting the downstairs coffee shop terrace.

One could safely assume that such a tool would likely be illegal in the EU, anyways, since that’s rather a lot of data collection activity to expose a homeowner to.

They claim on the website that their product is GDPR compliant. They aren't collecting any personally identifiable data.

Re: Party Squasher: guest occupancy counter for homes

#38

Post by PMunch »

Animats wrote: post #34
stevenicr wrote: post #30

Pretty sure I saw a couple of party detection devices shown on some netflix airBnb creators show like 8(?) years ago. (show had a firehouse in DC revamp, then another episode with a california(?) 70's pad with 70s furniture, decor, pool.. definitely the kind of place you may want to party, yet the owners were hesitant to list it if they could not prevent that... I believe they used a combination of sound dB meters an…

That's how it works. "Party Squasher counts the number of mobile phones in and around your house."

I wonder if it's smart enough to detect if the neighbour is having a party or if people will start to get bogus Airbnb complaints from properties with these devices.

Re: Party Squasher: guest occupancy counter for homes

#39

Post by EE84M3i »

0_____0 wrote: post #20
Domenic_S wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sounds like it's an 802.11 monitor mode packet sniffer, recording probe requests (which have a MAC address associated with them). Connecting to the internet is probably just to hook up to their cloud service. Defeatable by airplane mode/wifi off/phone off, sure.

Phone off maybe. Android still uses Wifi when Wifi is turned off, as part of it's location tracking service. I loathe it. Btw if you toggle location off enough times, Android will eventually stop nagging you about it. Let me use my device the way I want you f--- creeps!

I thought there was a separate wifi scanning setting for that behavior?

Re: Party Squasher: guest occupancy counter for homes

#40

Post by kortilla »

stevenicr wrote: post #30

Pretty sure I saw a couple of party detection devices shown on some netflix airBnb creators show like 8(?) years ago. (show had a firehouse in DC revamp, then another episode with a california(?) 70's pad with 70s furniture, decor, pool.. definitely the kind of place you may want to party, yet the owners were hesitant to list it if they could not prevent that... I believe they used a combination of sound dB meters an…

Carbon dioxide* detectors, people don’t produce carbon monoxide
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