If you’re a parent that has mistakenly gone down the Elf On The Shelf path, I’m sure you’ve been in the situation where youve had a glass of six of wine and gone to bed forgetting to move the little bastard. Then to be woken up to the disappointment of your little crotch goblins wondering why the elf didn’t move. I’ve come up with a solution that hasn’t failed me yet.
Now, I know this exact solution won’t apply to everyone, but it should at least get your years grinding on how you can use your smart home to remind you to move it.
I have an Inovelli wall switch that the LED light on it can be used as a notification in my bedroom. In my case, at 9pm every night, it goes to full brightness and flashes red…it’s pretty bright, I can’t miss it. This is my reminder to move the elf. Once I do, I clear the notification and it goes back to normal.
Even “smarter” idea is to put an IMU or other motion sensor inside the elf. If it hasn’t detected movement by a certain time, you get a specific notification telling you so.
I would go one step further. Otherwise, it flashes red whether you or you SO already moved it.
Scan NFC tag once elf is moved (or smart button press) to toggle an Input boolean. If I put Boolean is ON, then it won’t flash red that night. Then create an automation to reset it to off the next day.
I used to have a similar automation for putting the garbage cans out the night before and bringing them back in the next evening. I was even planning to add sensors to the cans to verify if they had been moved or not.
Then I switched to a pair of recurring alarms on my phone and found it was easier to deal with. If I decided one day to put them out or bring them in earlier, I just swiped down and dismissed the alarm.
Can someone please explain what elf the OP is talking about?
Snitches get ditches…