Wifi QR code for a guest house: room card that opens the join screen

What a wifi QR code for a guest house opens

A wifi QR code in a guest house room opens one thing: the phone's join screen for your guest network. The guest points the camera at the card. A banner appears with the network name, and one tap joins. Nobody types a long password with a suitcase in the other hand.

That is the whole job. The code does not run the network, and it does not change your router settings. It opens the join step, and the card around it tells the guest what to do.

Most guest houses put one card in each room and one at the front desk. A house with eight rooms orders nine cards. If you run two networks, one for guests and one for staff, only the guest network goes on the card.

The card in the room

The printed object here is a small standing card or a flat card on the desk. Two sizes work well.

A tent card folds from a sheet of 105 × 148 mm, the A6 size, and stands on its own. It sits on the bedside table or the desk and catches the eye when a guest drops their bag. A flat card at 85 × 55 mm, the size of a visiting card, fits in a key folder or a small acrylic stand.

On either card, print three things beside the code. First, the network name in plain letters. Second, the words "Scan to join the Wi-Fi". Third, a short line for anyone whose camera will not scan, with the password written out in full. Some older phones need it. Keep that line small and put it under the code.

Use a matt card of 300 to 350 gsm. Gloss throws back the light from a ceiling lamp, and the camera struggles. If the card will sit near a kettle or a wash basin, ask for a matt laminate on top.

Size, distance and contrast

A room card is scanned from close up, about 0.2 to 0.3 metres, with the guest holding the phone above the table. At that distance a code 25 mm square scans every time. On the A6 tent card you have room for 35 mm, and that is the size we suggest.

A simple rule helps for anything larger. The code should be at least one tenth of the scan distance. A poster by the front door, read from 1.5 metres, needs a code of about 150 mm.

Leave a clear margin round the code, at least 4 mm on a room card. Text, a border or a logo pushed into that margin is the most common reason a card fails.

Contrast matters more than colour. A dark code on a light card is what the camera reads best. Black on white is the safest choice. Deep navy or dark green on cream also works. A light code on a dark card, or grey on grey, will fail in a dim room at night, which is when most guests try it. You can preview the colours and shapes before you order. Hold the preview at arm's length on your phone to judge it.

Where to place it

Put the card where the guest looks first. The desk or the bedside table beats the back of the door. A card tucked under the TV remote gets moved and lost.

Do not stick the code high on a wall. Guests scan sitting down. A card at table height, with the code facing the bed or the chair, gets used.

At reception, one larger card or a small A5 poster near the desk saves the staff from spelling the password ten times a morning. Keep it out of view from the street if you would rather not share the guest network with passers-by.

When the password changes

This is the part to plan before you print.

A static Wi-Fi code opens the join screen for one network name and one password. If you change the password, the old cards stop working and you reprint every one. For a house that changes its password once a year, that is fine. Print the cards and keep the file for next time.

A dynamic code works in a different way. It opens a short page that you can edit, and that page shows the network name and the password with a button to copy it. When the password changes, you edit the page. The cards stay in the rooms. This suits a house that changes the password each season, or one that runs a separate network for long-stay guests.

There is one catch. A dynamic code opens a web page, so the guest needs mobile data for it to load. In a hill village with weak signal, the static code is the better pick.

Checking the cards before they go in

Scan every card before it goes in a room. Use two phones if you can, one new and one a few years old. Scan in the room's evening light, not under the bright reception lamp.

Then join the network on the test phone, open a web page and make sure it loads. A code that joins a network with no internet is worse than no code at all.

Keep one spare card for every five rooms. Cards get tea spilled on them, go home in a guest's bag, or fade in a sunny window.

Cost and ordering

A set of room cards costs little against the time it saves at the desk. Every price on the site is MRP, with GST shown upfront on the pricing page.

Use code STARTUP10 for 10% off one order per account. It is valid until 31 December 2026 or for the first 100 uses on this site, whichever comes first.

To order room cards for your guest house, choose a static or dynamic Wi-Fi code from our QR codes for every job and tell us how many rooms you have.