That last lap around the house is really an inspection

Most people get up one more time before sleep. Check the front door is locked, see whether the back balcony door is still open, make sure the stove is really off, glance at the standby light on the television. Only after that lap can they settle.

The problem is not that the lap is hard. It is that it has to happen every single night, and how well it goes depends entirely on how awake you are. The night you got home late is the night you skip a door. The night you had two drinks is the night you miss the stove. And the one night you miss is the one that can cost you.

The other habit is worse. You stay in bed, decide it is "probably fine", then spend twenty minutes convincing yourself, or twenty minutes failing to fall asleep.

Hand it to the system and the order flips. You lie down first, press the button by the bed, and the system walks the lap instead. If everything is fine your phone stays silent and you go to sleep. If something is open or still running, one message tells you, with all of it in a single note rather than one alert per item.

The point is that it stays quiet when nothing is wrong

Plenty of home automation ends up making life noisier. A push for every light switched off, and within three days you mute the whole thing, which means you built nothing. This setup has one rule: normal results are never reported, only things that need you out of bed. That way a buzz always means something real.

What it did for you that night

Laid out in order, it is easier to see how little time this takes and where it stops to wait for you.

1. 23:14

   You press the bedside button

   You are already lying down. One press. To the system that button is just a switch, and pressing it is only a signal: start the sweep.

2. 2 sec later

   Doors and windows first

   Front door, balcony door, living room window, bedroom window, all polled at once. The two doors report closed. The living room window reports open. First red flag.

3. 4 sec later

   Then the gas

   The kitchen gas sensor reports nothing unusual. This one is read separately, because it does not belong in the same severity class as the rest.

4. 7 sec later

   Then the appliances

   Television, kitchen counter plugs, bathroom heater, checked one by one. The TV plug is still drawing power. Second red flag.

5. 9 sec later

   Curtains last

   Bedroom and study curtains are already drawn. Had one been open, the system could simply close it rather than asking you to get up.

6. 10 sec later

   Only two things reach you

   One push, two lines. You get up, shut the window, kill the TV plug. The other four items are never mentioned. Had all six passed, that push would not exist at all.

The four things this actually fixes

Before and after

What your home needs to have

Home Assistant calls every device in your home an entity, meaning something the system can see and control. Brand and model do not matter. What matters is which class it falls into. These are the classes this needs.

That bedside button does not have to be a purchase. A virtual key on your phone works, so does a spare wall switch you never use. Some people wire it to the bedroom light instead: turning the light off starts the sweep, so there is nothing to press at all.

How the whole thing works

There are only three parts: something starts it, one blueprint runs the checklist, and a few rules handle the reporting. The middle part ships with the hub, so there is nothing to write.

The blueprint in the middle is a fill-in-the-blanks form

Think of a blueprint as a form with the boxes already drawn. You only supply the contents. The one for this job is switch_trigger_things, built for exactly this shape: a switch is pressed, so go do something to a group of things.

Five boxes and bedtime is covered. Reporting the failures is handled by entity_state_trigger_notify, which watches a state and sends a message the moment it is wrong. Anything that cannot be dealt with tonight goes into todo_trigger_notify, which files it and reminds you in the morning.

Different homes, different checklists

The list above is the general version. If your household looks different, adjust it like this.

Three optional additions

One blueprint covers the core. These three are bonuses, so add whichever you need.

One warning: the more you add, the more careful you must be about false alarms. A system that cries wolf is worse than no system, because you will start ignoring it.

You do not have to set this up yourself

The WOOWTECH hub ships with HA-MCP, so an AI can connect straight into your system and do the work: find the devices, build the rule, then test it once itself and only report back after confirming it really runs.

Prompts you can copy straight out

Every block below can be copied whole, using the button on the right. Pick the one closest to what you want. There is no need to use them all.

There is a button beside my bed. When I press it, check every door and
window, the gas, the appliances that should be off, and the curtains.
Push anything that is not right to my phone, and stay quiet if
everything is fine.

I want a bedtime sweep. When I press the bedside button, check whether
the front door and balcony door are shut, whether the exterior windows
in each room are shut, whether the gas is normal, whether the TV and
the kitchen plugs are still on, and whether the study and bedroom
curtains are drawn.
Push only the items that failed, all of them in one message rather
than one alert each. If everything passes, do not notify me at all.
If a curtain is open, just close it, no need to ask.
Keep gas as a separate rule that runs at all times, not inside the
sweep, and with no time window or condition of any kind on it.
Anything that cannot be fixed tonight, file as a task and remind me
again at 08:00.
Once it is built, test it yourself, confirm it really works, then tell
me which devices you used.

My parents live with us, so make the bedtime sweep stricter.
Besides doors and windows, also check the bathroom heater, the space
heater and the kettle.
An unlocked front door, an abnormal gas reading, or a heater left on
should alert me with sound, not a quiet message.
An open window can stay a normal quiet push.

Please adjust the bedtime sweep.
Stop checking the living room TV, I leave that on standby on purpose.
Also delay the sweep alert by 30 seconds, because I still have to walk
back to the bedroom after pressing the button.

The sweep reported every door and window shut, but the study window is
standing open right now.
So the rule ran, it just never looked at that window.
List everything this rule actually checks, compare it against every
exterior door and window in the house, and tell me which ones are
missing, and whether they were never picked or have no sensor at all.
Then add the missing ones back in, and prove it by leaving a window
open and running the sweep once more.

Common questions