Best Z-Wave locks for Airbnb hosts

If you host short-term rentals, you want a lock that lets guests in with a code instead of a physical key, lets you rotate that code per stay, and keeps working when your internet drops. Z-Wave fits that job well because the lock talks to your hub directly over a local radio rather than through a manufacturer’s cloud. Once it’s paired to Home Assistant, code management and automation run on your own hardware.

One caveat before the picks: a lot of “smart locks for Airbnb” lists are full of Wi-Fi locks mislabeled as Z-Wave. Wi-Fi locks are fine, but they are a different thing with different tradeoffs. This guide is specifically about locks that speak Z-Wave (or can, via a swappable module). If your requirements are looser than that, the wider roundup of smart locks with local control weighs the Matter, Zigbee and Wi-Fi options alongside Z-Wave.

The Schlage Connect (BE469ZP) is the straightforward Z-Wave pick; the Yale Assure Lock 2 with the Z-Wave module is the flexible alternative if you want modular radios and like its PIN scheduling. Ignore the lists that call the Kwikset Halo Touch or Schlage Encode “Z-Wave” - those are Wi-Fi locks. Pick a real Z-Wave deadbolt, pair it with Z-Wave JS, and your guests get in every time, internet or not. I haven’t run the Schlage or the Yale myself. The locks I run are the August Wi-Fi lock covered below (3/5 in my review) and an Aqara U300 (3.5/5 in my owner review), and neither is Z-Wave, so the Z-Wave picks rest on the spec sheets and reports from the Home Assistant forums.

Why Z-Wave for a rental

Local control comes first. A Z-Wave lock paired to your hub does not depend on the manufacturer’s servers to lock, unlock, or change codes, so if your ISP is down, the lock and your automations still work. Range is the second reason: Z-Wave runs in the sub-GHz band (around 908 MHz in North America), separate from your 2.4 GHz Wi-Fi and Zigbee traffic, which helps with through-wall range. Battery deadbolts sleep to save power and generally do not repeat for other devices, so plan on a mains-powered Z-Wave node or two nearby for a solid connection. That band difference is much of the reason locks tend to land on Z-Wave rather than Zigbee; my Zigbee vs Z-Wave vs Matter vs Thread comparison works through the rest of the tradeoff. And code management lives in HA: with Z-Wave JS you can read, set, and clear user codes from Home Assistant, which is the foundation for per-guest code automation.

What you actually need for a rental: per-stay code creation and removal, a record of lock/unlock events, low-battery alerts, and the whole thing working offline. Here are the locks that deliver that.

Top picks

Schlage Connect (BE469ZP) - best overall Z-Wave lock

The Schlage Connect Smart Deadbolt (model BE469ZP) is the lock most local-first hosts land on. It is a real Z-Wave Plus deadbolt with S2 security, a touchscreen keypad, a built-in tamper alarm, and support for up to 30 user codes. It pairs cleanly with Z-Wave JS in Home Assistant, where you can manage those codes per guest. Build quality is its reputation, and it is the deadbolt you see on a lot of doors.

Tradeoffs: it is on the pricier end, and the keypad is a touchscreen rather than physical buttons, which a few guests find less obvious. There is no fingerprint reader, but for a rental, PIN codes are what you want anyway.

Yale Assure Lock 2 (with Z-Wave module) - flexible and code-friendly

The Yale Assure Lock 2 uses a swappable radio module, so you can buy the lock and drop in the Z-Wave Plus module to make it a local Z-Wave device (modules are sold separately; the same lock body also takes a Wi-Fi module and a Matter-over-Thread module). Paired over Z-Wave in Home Assistant, it handles PIN codes well, and Yale’s own app lets PIN-only guests be granted access for a specific date and time range - handy as a fallback to HA-driven scheduling.

A fingerprint version (the Assure Lock 2 Touch) also ships in a Z-Wave edition, but note the fingerprint enrollments give 24/7 access and cannot be time-restricted the way PINs can. For a rental, lean on PIN codes, not fingerprints. The Bluetooth side of the same lock, used for walk-up and auto-unlock, is covered in Z-Wave locks with Bluetooth control; it matters far less for a rental than it does on your own front door.

Tradeoffs: the modular design means an extra purchase to get Z-Wave, and Yale’s app is best treated as a backup. Drive the lock from Home Assistant. If you also want the lock visible in Apple Home, Google Home or Alexa, smart lock ecosystems compared covers what each platform actually exposes.

A note on Kwikset Halo Touch - not a Z-Wave lock

The Kwikset Halo Touch is a popular fingerprint deadbolt, but it is Wi-Fi, not Z-Wave - it connects directly to your home Wi-Fi and Kwikset’s cloud, with no Z-Wave radio. If you specifically want local Z-Wave, it is not the lock for this list. Kwikset’s Z-Wave family is the older non-touchscreen SmartCode deadbolts; if you want a Kwikset on Z-Wave, look at the 914 rather than the Halo line (Kwikset has discontinued the 916 in Z-Wave, and the 916 still on sale is a Zigbee model).

A note on Schlage Encode Plus and August - Wi-Fi/cloud, not Z-Wave

The Schlage Encode Plus is a Wi-Fi lock with Thread (used for Apple Home Key over HomeKit, not Matter) - a good lock, but not Z-Wave, and the Encode series is not Z-Wave compatible at all. The August Wi-Fi Smart Lock (4th Gen) is a Wi-Fi/Bluetooth retrofit, also not Z-Wave; it’s the lock on my own door, and I rated it 3/5. August has good per-guest code management, but the august integration in Home Assistant polls the August cloud and exposes no local API, so it does not give you the same clean offline behavior as a hub-paired Z-Wave deadbolt. A local path does exist - the separate Yale Access Bluetooth integration drives the lock over BLE using offline keys pulled from the August account - but it only reaches the lock from within Bluetooth range. If cloud dependence is acceptable to you, August is a low-friction retrofit; if you want true local-first, skip it.

Integration tips

For Home Assistant, add your lock with the Z-Wave JS integration. That requires a Z-Wave coordinator stick on your HA host - a Zooz ZST39 (800-series) or a Z-Wave JS-compatible stick from Aeotec works well, and how to pick a Z-Wave controller goes through the current options. Once paired, the lock exposes a lock entity plus user-code management.

A simple per-guest code flow looks like this. Generate a code when a reservation starts, then clear it at checkout:

automation:
  - alias: "Set guest code on check-in"
    trigger:
      - platform: state
        entity_id: input_boolean.guest_checked_in
        to: "on"
    action:
      - service: zwave_js.set_lock_usercode
        target:
          entity_id: lock.front_door
        data:
          code_slot: 3
          usercode: "{{ states('input_text.guest_code') }}"

  - alias: "Clear guest code at checkout"
    trigger:
      - platform: state
        entity_id: input_boolean.guest_checked_in
        to: "off"
    action:
      - service: zwave_js.clear_lock_usercode
        target:
          entity_id: lock.front_door
        data:
          code_slot: 3

For audit logging, the lock’s events show up in Home Assistant’s logbook and history, so you can see when a code was used. Add a low-battery automation that notifies you below ~20% so you swap batteries before a guest is locked out. Once the locks are paired, take a controller backup and keep it current - see how to back up and restore a Z-Wave network - so a dead stick between bookings does not mean re-pairing every deadbolt.