With Party Squasher in a rental unit, property managers, homeowners and hosts know right away if an occupant is throwing a rager. It’s a new Smart Home device and in-use by several top-tier vacation rental brands.

SUNNYVALE, CA – February 23 – With all the earnings that come with short-term rental services like Airbnb, there’s always a caveat: a single unauthorized party could cost thousands in damages, and you might not know about it for days or even weeks. Such parties make headlines all the time with damage tolls as high as $50,000, $75,000 or worse in a single night.

But Panasonic Venture Capital backed BlueFox.io has the solution and is already working with major vacation rental brands. That solution is Party Squasher, a small, discrete device that counts the number of people in a property by the signals coming from their mobile devices. If the number goes higher than what the owner wants (like, say, 12) it sends a text to let them know that occupancy is too high.

But the most value comes when an owner doesn’t get a text from Party Squasher – they rest easy knowing that their property is safe. If they want, they can use the app to get trend information to see roughly when people come and go. With Spring Break on the way and the industry growing all the time, Party Squasher keeps both liability and stress low in a fast-growing and often controversial industry. This data can also show concerned community groups that businesses are doing everything possible to keep the neighborhood peace – e.g. no parties happening, despite the bad rap in the press.

To set it up, an owner simply plugs the box into the home’s existing Wi-Fi router and downloads the app. They then set the detection range based on the property size, and set how many mobile devices have to enter the house before they’re alerted. Party Squasher will then see smartphones within that range, even if they’re not connected to the home Wi-Fi network. Multiple properties can be managed from the single Party Squasher app.