But it's also a bit par for the course when investing in certain areas remotely, while depending entirely on a management company that due to low margins needs to have hundreds of units under management as well as automate everything as much as possible in order to stay afloat/ earn a decent profit.

I have been looking around and am surprised that there is so little discussion regarding home automation. 

I'm thinking am automated program of some kind.

If so, what lessons have you learned along the way and what tech are you using to automate.

It worked - this year I was able to reverse the time paradigm...every month I get financially stronger, and the process is automated.  

Also once you furnish the place, most of the management is done besides setting up automated messages to guests/cleaners, answering questions and ordering supplies once in awhile. 

We found Turnoverbnb offers superior automated scheduling and a few other features we really liked (inventory, optional in-app payments) so we've switched to that (Properly is really the superstar of the space though, you can't beat their visual checklists). 

In addition, I use certain modern tech tools to automate pre-auction research, servicing of liens and monitoring portfolio.

You will have a way to advertise vacancies, screen tenants, automate rent collection, communicate easily with your tenants and more.  

It will be worth it and it sounds like it could assist you in some of your "automation" tasks because the book is literally based on working for 4 hours, per week.