Know who’s calling: beta test Aircontacts

Very interesting concept!  Thanks for sharing ​@Petra Podobnik 

​@Will.Fraser 

Thanks! Glad you think it’s interesting.

If you have a minute, I’d really appreciate any thoughts on what might make you more likely to give it a try. Even small feedback helps.

​@Vaboma_Phillip I’ve installed and I think this is REALLY cool. A few feedback points for the beta:

After adding Hospitable as a channel, and clicking “Update Properties”, I was baffled for a while about why my properties were not showing up. Click “Update Properties” again… nothing. Turns out I had to refresh the whole browser page for them to finally show up. So that’s just a minor usability issue.

The installation and setup steps will leave the typical person with a LOT of questions. “What’s this for?” “Why do I need that?” “How should I answer this question?” “Which WebDAV app should I choose?” “What the heck is WebDAV?” I worked my way through them but I’m more technical than the average person.

I chose WebDAVx5 as my WebDAV app. I’ve never used one before and even though this one wasn’t free, it seemed like the most “trustworthy” as it’s open source. As they say, “When the product is free, YOU are the product” and I didn’t want to mess with apps whose integrity I couldn’t be sure of (what do they do with me & my guest’s data… or what do YOU even do with it).

Branding wise, and not realize Vaboma was your name at first, there is a lot of brand confusion with so many moving parts. The WebDAV app… the Aircontacts brand… the Vaboma web site… Just pointing that out.

My only real complaint so far is that after the initial sync to my phone, I wanted to change the “short name” of my properties, and I’ve noticed that even a day later all the contacts that were previously synced are still using the short name. So apparently once a contact is synced it never gets updated again? That would be good to know up front… somewhere in the setup guide, stress the importance of setting your “short names” first, if changes to the short name are only going to be applied to FUTURE bookings. 

Great job though! This is a super-useful tool!

Thank you so much for taking the time to try it and write such a detailed response — this is incredibly helpful, and honestly very encouraging.

The refresh issue after “Update Properties” is a great catch. That’s clearly confusing and we’ll fix that flow so it behaves as expected without requiring a full page refresh.

You’re absolutely right about the setup experience. The current steps assume a much more technical user than most hosts, and your point about “why am I doing this / what is WebDAV?” really hits home. Based on feedback like yours, we’re seriously considering building our own CardDAV-based sync app so the setup can be automatic, simpler, and far less confusing.

Thanks as well for calling out the branding confusion. Just to clarify: Vaboma LLC is the company, and Aircontacts is the product — we’ll make that much clearer and reduce the number of moving parts users see.

And great find on the short-name behavior. You’re correct — right now previously synced contacts don’t get updated when the short name changes. We’ll fix it so updates propagate properly. We’ll look into that.

Really appreciate you trying the beta and sharing such thoughtful insights. This is exactly what helps us make the product better. 🙏

​@Vaboma_Phillip, what is the update frequency for contacts?  I have it installed but no activity yet.  

BTW, I love this idea.  Great tool.  

Most guests call on WhatsApp in the UK and much of Europe. Does it synch with this in any way?

Thanks very much for trying this out. I’m really glad you like the idea!

The current frequency during beta testing is once every hour. If you are still not seeing any contacts, feel free to let us know, and we’ll be happy to help take a look and get it sorted.

​@catherine 

Great question. Yes, this should work well with WhatsApp in the UK and Europe.

Aircontacts syncs guest phone numbers into your phone’s native contacts. WhatsApp itself doesn’t use a separate contact list. It reads directly from your phone contacts.

So if a guest calls or messages you on WhatsApp using the same phone number that Airbnb provides, WhatsApp will automatically display the guest’s name once the contact is synced.

There’s no special WhatsApp integration required on our side. It “just works” as long as WhatsApp is using your phone contacts (which is the default setup).

We have a virtual phone app and use Zapier to just save the guest numbers on there`. 🤔

​@Vaboma_Phillip    I’m not seeing any contacts and I think I have it set up correctly.  Also, you’re feedback link in the portal isn’t working.  Can you reach out to us at    islandpridepm@gmail.com and maybe we can troubleshoot?

Thank you!!

​@IslandPride 

Thanks for letting me know, and sorry about the trouble.

I’ll reach out shortly from info@vaboma.com so we can troubleshoot this together.

And thanks for flagging the broken feedback link. We’ll look into that and get it fixed as well.

​@IslandPride
I just sent an email philip.zhuang@vaboma.com (sorry, not info@vaboma.com). Please let me know if you have received it. Thanks!

Thanks for sharing! Zapier + virtual phone apps can definitely work. Aircontacts is aimed at making this automatic at the phone contact level so caller ID works consistently across calls and messaging apps without extra setup.

Pretty cool. Not something I’d pay for though.