Renting a room by the hour used to have seedy implications, but the app Recharge has neatly repositioned the short-term stay as way for travelers or workers to grab a quick nap, survive a daytime layover and/or take an informal meeting.
And now, they want to take the idea from hotels to inside your home. In time for its new round of funding and its 2.0 release, Recharge has adopted an Airbnb approach, allowing households to rent out rooms by the minute.
The service is currently available in San Francisco, New York and Los Angeles, and there’s an 80K waitlist to join.
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For homeowners, Recharge is touting extra income of up to $2,500/month. Each booking is covered with up to $1 million each for accidental property damage and liability insurance claims, and guests must verify their phone number and have a government ID verification check prior to booking. Depending on the city, Recharge also offers a cleaning service, though if you use it the company will take quite a bit of your profits in return.
Recharge works around the strict Airbnb laws in some cities by not allowing overnight stays. According to the company’s cofounder and CEO Emmanuel Bamfo, the average stay is two hours.
It’s not the only interesting service economy addition this week: As Product Hunt notes, the newly launched app Popup now allows property owners to host “ephemeral coffee shops” in their home.
Photo: Recharge
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