1. The Problem Shine Timer Solves
Managing short-term rental properties can be rewarding—but it’s also chaotic. Whether you're handling a single Airbnb or a full portfolio of listings across multiple cities and time zones, one of the most consistent and frustrating challenges is ensuring cleanings happen on time, every time.

Traditional tools used by hosts—like printed cleaning calendars, group chats on WhatsApp, or hastily sent SMS reminders—are prone to error. Booking changes happen at the last minute. Time zone differences between the host and the cleaners can cause confusion. Human forgetfulness and inconsistent communication add to the mess. And when the timing breaks down, it’s the guest who suffers—with a dirty unit, late check-in, or worse.

The result? Poor reviews, lost revenue, and stressed-out hosts.

Missed turnovers or even slight delays can be the difference between a 5-star review and a complaint that impacts your Superhost status. As your operations scale—whether it's managing more listings, hiring multiple cleaners, or covering different regions—manual coordination just doesn't scale with you.

That’s where Shine Timer comes in.

2. What Is Shine Timer?
Shine Timer is a smart turnover automation assistant built specifically for Airbnb hosts, property managers, cleaning companies, and vacation rental operators. It was designed from the ground up to solve one simple problem: ensuring that cleaning teams are always in the right place, at the right time, without constant back-and-forth.

Instead of relying on spreadsheets, calendar exports, or custom workflows that break down over time, Shine Timer automates the entire notification process. It syncs with your Airbnb calendar (and other platforms like VRBO), processes reservation data, and sends alerts to your cleaning teams based on highly customizable, time zone-aware rules.

Think of it as your intelligent, invisible turnover manager.

Key Benefits:
Automatically send cleaning reminders via WhatsApp and Email.

Parse and sync iCal calendar feeds from Airbnb and VRBO.

Customize alerts by crew, location, and property.

Automatically adjust for cleaner time zones.

Track message delivery status and history.

Get monthly reports and real-time summaries of your cleaning operations.

You don’t need to build complicated checklists or apps. Shine Timer is plug-and-play, and your cleaners don’t even need to install anything. They get notified—on time, every time—with the information they need to complete the job.

3. How It Works
a. Calendar Syncing
Every Airbnb or VRBO listing provides an iCal feed. Shine Timer taps into these feeds using Ical.Net, a powerful and reliable calendar parsing library for .NET applications.

It reads upcoming reservations in real time, extracts check-in and check-out dates, and queues events into your notification pipeline. But the magic doesn’t stop there.

It intelligently maps those dates to the cleaner’s time zone—not yours. So if you’re in New York and your cleaner is in Mexico City, their alerts still go out at 7:00 AM local time—even if that means it’s 8:00 AM your time or 6:00 AM theirs, depending on daylight savings.

This solves a big pain point: time zone miscommunication. No more accidental 3AM alerts or missed same-day cleanings.

b. Notification Engine
Once the calendar data is processed, Shine Timer triggers smart notifications based on your chosen settings.

You can set rules such as:

Same-day notifications (e.g., “send at 8:00 AM local time on check-out day”)

Day-before reminders (e.g., “send at 6:00 PM the night before”)

Recurring digests (e.g., daily or weekly summaries for teams or managers)

Shine Timer uses Twilio’s WhatsApp API and SendGrid for email delivery. These messages can include:

Guest check-out/check-in times

Listing name and address

Assigned cleaner(s)

Cleaning instructions and notes

Checklists or Google Drive links (if configured)

This automation means no more last-minute texts or waking up in