As any parent will tell you, young children don’t like to sleep. Scientists, philosophers, psychologists, doctors, and nearly anyone else involved have studied the issue, and they all arrived at the same conclusion. You just can’t get the kids to go to sleep. They’ll stay up and throw such a fit if you try to put them down that it could be like trying to teach an elephant to play hopscotch. Not a pretty picture. Eventually the child will fall asleep in their mashed potatoes, and at last you can put them to bed.

There are only two times in a child’s life when they are quiet. Either while they’re sleeping, or when they’re into something they shouldn’t be into. So naturally parents are going to worry about their kids when they put them down for the night, because either could be the case. And you don’t want to disturb them if they are asleep because then you have to start all over again with the bed thing. Well here’s a way for parents to check on their kids without waking them up, and without leaving the bedroom. All you need is an XCam2 and your ActiveHome and remote, and a television set. If you’ve got all that, then we’re off and running... er off and watching.

To begin with, you’ll need to set up an ActiveHome Lamp Module in the child’s bedroom, and then plug a lamp into it. You’ll also need to set up your XCam2 in a corner of the room where it’s going to get the best view.

The first thing you need to do is get those kids to bed. Now unfortunately we can’t really help you there. Our best suggestion is take them to the park in the evening and let them run and run until they wear themselves out. Once this objective has been reached, and the children are asleep, you can look in on them from the living room if you’re watching TV, or from the bedroom if you yourself are trying to get some sleep.

Now go into ActiveHome.

Click on the "M" at the far left hand side of the window.

In the new window, click on "Macro" and then "Standard Macro."

Name your Macro Kids Check.

Grab the Bedside Lamp icon and move it into the macro.

Set the light to about 10%.

Now grab the Bedside Lamp icon and move it into the same macro.

Set the delay for one minute. Then set the lamp at 20%.

Just for safety sake, let’s grab that icon one more time, and slide it into our macro.

Set the delay at three minutes, and the lamp at 30%.

This should be enough light for you to see with your XCam2.

Make sure that your macro is on before you close, and then close and save.

If you would just like to take a quick look at the kids, without worrying about the light, then set your macro to automatically bring the light up to 30% or whatever brightness you prefer.

Now when you want to check in on the kids without waking them, simply hit your remote to activate the macro. That will bring up the lamp very slowly, and you can look in on them right from your own television set wherever you happen to be.

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