Guide · Short Stay Easy
Turn the TV into a welcome screen for your guests
Short Stay is for a holiday let or a guest room. The television greets whoever is staying by name, shows their dates and the local weather, and answers the questions you get asked twice a week: the Wi-Fi, the door code, parking, bin day, check-out time, and a house guide in your own words. It works with any Apple TV, takes about fifteen minutes to set up, and is a separate one-time purchase.
What guests never see. Your own dashboards, your settings, your lights and your other homes all stay hidden. A short PIN keeps guests on this screen and out of everything else. Fill anything in, leave anything blank, and only the tiles you use appear.
Setting it up
Most of the typing is quicker on your phone. The free Theatrium app for iPhone and iPad fills the same fields, and everything can also be done on the TV with the remote.
Open Settings › Short Stay
On the Apple TV, open Settings › Short Stay. If you have not bought it yet, this screen explains the feature and has an Unlock button. Once it is unlocked, everything below lives on this one screen.
Connect your booking calendar
This drives the guest name and dates on screen. In Booking calendar, paste your property's calendar export. On Airbnb: open Calendar, pick the listing, choose Availability, and under Connect calendars select Connect to another website and copy the link. Vrbo, Booking.com and a plain calendar of your own work the same way.
Optionally add a second calendar of local events, the markets and festivals on while guests are here. This is usually a calendar you already keep and share.
About guest names. Airbnb's export carries dates only, not the guest's name, which they removed for privacy in 2019. Type the name for each stay in the Theatrium phone app. If your feed comes from a channel manager, or from your own calendar, and the event title already holds the name, Short Stay reads it from there.
Add the property
In Property, enter who the place belongs to and its address. The address sets the map, the weather, travel times and sunrise on the guest screen, so it is worth getting right.
Fill in the house info
In House info, enter the Wi-Fi network name and password, the door code, parking, bin day, check-out time and any house rules. The guest screen turns the Wi-Fi into a code guests can scan to join, so nobody has to type it. Leave any field blank and its tile is simply hidden.
Add your house guide too: how the shower works, where the heating dial is, where the spare blankets live, and the places you would send a friend to nearby.
Set a guest access PIN
In Guest access PIN, choose a PIN of four to six digits. While the guest screen is showing, this keeps guests out of Settings, your other dashboards and the card editor. You use the same PIN to return to your own dashboard.
Choose the background
In Guest screen background, use your own photo of the property, or pick one of five quiet colour washes. The wash tints the whole screen while keeping the text easy to read across the room.
Before each guest arrives
Once the details are in, starting a stay takes a few seconds.
Preview the screen
Open Settings › Short Stay › Guest dashboard and choose Preview. It shows exactly what the guest will see, then comes straight back so you can fix anything.
Start guest mode
Choose Start guest mode. The TV holds the guest screen, even through a power cut or a restart, until the PIN is entered. That is what makes it safe to leave running for a whole stay.
Come back to your own dashboard
When the stay ends, press Back on the guest screen and enter your PIN. You are returned to your normal Theatrium dashboard, with all your own cards and settings as you left them.
Good to know
- The phone app is faster. The free Theatrium app for iPhone and iPad fills the same fields, and it is the place to type each guest's name for an Airbnb stay. See the phone app guide.
- Hide the settings you do not need. Simplify my settings tucks away the host-only options, your own music, light sync, visualizations and home alerts. Show all settings at the foot of the list brings them back.
- The PIN has a limit. It cannot stop a guest pressing the Apple TV's Home button and leaving the app, because tvOS gives no app that power. For a fully locked-down TV, look into tvOS guided access on the device itself.
- It is a separate purchase. Short Stay is a one-time unlock, sold apart from Theatrium Pro. No subscription, no account to make.
- Full reference. Every field and control is listed on the Short Stay manual page.
This guide is general information, provided “as is” with no warranty of any kind. It describes settings you change on your own equipment, so proceed at your own risk. Read the full disclaimer.