Securing Contactless Rentals with IglooHome Locks
With customer demand for 24/7 access to products, instant delivery, and rentals on their own terms (Think Flexi Car & More) growing at massive rates, rental operators are starting to look towards new solutions to keep up with demand in the face of nationwide challenges like staffing shortages and ever-growing rent prices.
The Rise of Contactless Rentals
The rental industry has been undergoing a steady shift, with technology adoption now addressing some of its biggest operational pressures. While staffing constraints remain a factor, the main challenges in 2025 are more about balancing supply and demand and improving efficiency rather than extreme labour shortages.
Contactless rentals have become one of the most transformative developments. A growing share of transactions—often the majority in some segments—are now handled entirely through digital processes. Customers can verify their identity, complete inspections, edit bookings, and extend hires without interacting with staff. This frees up teams to focus on maintenance and customer support, while automation handles the repetitive tasks.
The model also fuels faster expansion. Instead of investing in fully staffed branches, operators can launch self-service rental systems in much smaller locations, such as a few parking bays outside a shopping centre. By reducing the infrastructure needed per location, operators can scale more rapidly and cost-effectively while maintaining secure, seamless customer experiences.
Australia’s rental market continues to diversify across vehicle, equipment, and consumer segments, with the car rental market alone valued at around AUD 4 billion in 2024 and growing steadily at 5–6% annually. Utility-based hire remains a major contributor, but the bigger story is how automated rental solutions are reshaping the economics of growth and service across the sector.
How Do You Secure the Rental Assets When No Staff are Present?
The answer lies in smart locks for rentals. IglooHome, a leader in digital lock technology, provides padlocks and lockboxes that are perfect for contactless rentals. These aren’t ordinary locks, though. IglooHome smart locks allow keyless entry via PIN codes or Bluetooth, which means you can grant access remotely and securely to your items. They're also perfect for self-hire because of their:
- Robust Outdoor Protection: IglooHome’s outdoor-rated padlocks (such as the IglooHome Padlock 2) are built tough for all weather conditions. With an IPX7 waterproof rating, which can withstand rain, dust, heat, and cold, and a long battery life for reliability, your fleet can stay active for longer.
- Time-Limited PIN Codes: Smart locks like the Padlock 2 and the IglooHome Keybox 3 (a secure lockbox for physical keys or access cards) use PIN codes that are only active for the duration of a booking.
- Offline Support: IglooHome locks work completely offline and require no wifi or signal at locations by using synchronised algorithms (much like a bank token system) to create time-sensitive PINs. This means even in remote locations with spotty internet or in underground garages, the locks can function reliably.
- Audit Trail: Every unlock action is logged, and you can monitor access activity via the IglooHome app or integrated software. If someone tries to tamper with the lock or use an expired code, the attempt fails, keeping your asset safe.
Creating a Seamless Self-Service Rental Experience
While smart locks secure the physical side of things, you also need a rental business software platform to give access to the customer and handle bookings, payments, and customer management, as well as GPS tracking and identity verification. This is where a solution like Lockii comes in. Lockii is a self-service rental system (based in Australia) that integrates seamlessly with IglooHome locks to create a complete contactless rental system.
How does it work? Imagine a customer finds your trailer hire business online and wants to rent a trailer tonight. With a contactless setup, they can go through the entire process on their own:
- Online Booking and Payment: The customer selects an item and rental period on your website. The system shows real-time availability and collects the booking details and payment online. This can happen via computer or mobile device, anytime, day or night, and their payment details are saved for usage later if needed.
- Identity Verification: To prevent fraud, the platform will prompt the customer to verify their ID, such as a driver’s license or passport, during the booking. Lockii, uses industry-standard verification services to check ID documents against databases and confirm the customer’s identity before any access is granted.
- Automated Code Generation: Once the booking is confirmed and the renter is verified, the system automatically assigns the item and generates a unique PIN code for the IglooHome lock, securing the trailer that is only valid for the rental duration. The renter is notified of the pickup location and their one-time code.
- Instant Pickup with Keyless Entry: At the scheduled pickup time (or even immediately after booking if it’s an on-demand hire), the customer can go directly to where the trailer is parked. No staff meetup required, they simply enter the PIN on the padlock or keybox and they're good to go.
- Automated Communications: Throughout this journey, you can automatically send out confirmation emails and SMS text messages with the booking details, access code, maps/directions and any usage instructions for the equipment.
- Return and Asset Tracking: When the customer is done, they return the item to the designated spot and lock it up again with the smart padlock or keybox. Because the PIN no longer works after the rental period, they can’t reopen it (and neither can anyone else), so the asset is secure. Your system logs the return time, and you can be alerted if an item is late. Lockii also integrates GPS tracking for rental fleets, so you can track return details even more closely.
- Booking Extensions: Customers can even automatically extend and update their bookings if you so choose. Using the customer portal for their order, users have the option to extend their hire at any time, provided there is no other booking already in the system. They simply pick their time and pay the difference, and a new code is automatically generated.
Applications Across Industries
While we’ve highlighted trailer rentals as a prime example (since security and after-hours access are big concerns for trailer hire), the contactless rental model can be applied to just about any rental business. If you can lock it up, you can likely rent it out self-service with the right setup! Here are a few other industries seeing success with contactless rental software and IglooHome locks:
- Bike and Scooter Hire: Urban bike rental stations and e-scooter hires can be made contactless with smart padlocks locking the frames or wheels. Customers book a bike via their phone, receive a PIN, and unlock the bike on their own. The IglooHome Padlock 2’s weatherproof durability is great here, since bikes and scooters are often outdoors.
- Water Sports & Surfboard Rentals: Surf shops and water sports outfitters are using contactless systems to rent surfboards, paddleboards, kayaks, and jet skis. Equipment might be stored in lockers secured by IglooHome padlocks or a Keybox 3 holding a key to a storage unit. For example, a surfboard rental at the beach could have a lockbox code texted to the customer’s phone, letting them grab a board from a locked rack early in the morning before the shop even opens. After the session, they lock it back up.
- Equipment and Tool Hire: For equipment hire businesses (from power drills and lawnmowers to camera gear), a contactless system offers huge efficiency. Customers can self-serve rentals of tools from a secured locker or shed. IglooHome smart locks or keyboxes can guard these storage units.
- Car and Campervan Rentals: Even traditional vehicle rentals are adopting self- service. While cars present additional challenges (like driver insurance and more complex keys), solutions exist from key lockboxes on car windows to smart locks that integrate with the car’s central locking. A customer could book a car online, verify their driver’s license, and then receive a code to a keybox attached to the car’s window or at a pickup station to get the car key.
- Or anything you can put a lock on: If you can install a padlock, keybox, door lock or any other iglooHome lock on it, you can probably safely hire it!
Smart locks for rentals enable operators to extend business hours, improve efficiency, and offer unmatched customer convenience.
Embracing the future of rentals
Adopting a contactless rental system might feel like a big leap if you’re used to the traditional hands-on approach. But the payoff can be tremendous. Rental businesses that have switched to self-service models are seeing significant time savings and higher throughput. One trailer hire operator noted that offering fully automated, contactless rentals was “…exactly what our business needed to jump in front of our competitors”. In essence, going contactless allows even a small rental outfit to punch above its weight and compete with larger players.
Whether you run a trailer fleet, a bike share, an equipment hire shop, or any other rental venture, you can likely benefit from streamlined rental operations and new revenue opportunities by extending service beyond normal hours and capitalising on customer demand for products on their terms.