June 21, 2001 - One thing that almost every parent across America will have to face is the boogieman. That creature that somehow manages to infiltrate their child’s psyche and bedroom, threatening to sneak up from under the bed, or behind the closet door. For a child, bedtime can be so sinister.

So in this How2, since we’re not going to be able to prevent the boogieman from infiltrating into the closets and under the bed, we thought we’d show you ways to banish this boogieman from your child’s room once and for all, giving both you and your child a good-night’s sleep.

One of the most powerful weapons against such sinister trespassers is the light switch. One flick of this button, and no monster will have a chance against the light that will flood the room giving the fiend nothing to do but seek shelter in the darkened corners of some other unprotected room. But the trip from the bed to the light switch is fraught with danger, and therefore too big of a risk for any child to take alone.

One action to take would be to set up a lamp on a nightstand or table in your child’s room. Hook that lamp up to an ActiveHome Lamp Module. Then give your child the SlimFire remote so that whenever the monster enters the room, the child can quickly turn on the light simply by clicking the buttons on the remote control.

But perhaps putting the remote control in the hands of your child would result in a constantly lost remote control, or a loss of sleep because your child can’t stop playing with it. Well, there are other options too.

Another option is to go into ActiveHome on the computer, and create a macro that starts with the lights at full strength, and slowly over time turns down the lights as your child falls asleep. That way there’s still light, and as the child drifts off into sleep, the light slowly fades, so as not to suddenly wake them up or jar them in any way. This is also a great way for a good night’s sleep either by the child, or by the parent.

Here’s how we do that... we’re going to set a macro.

So run the ActiveHome software from your computer.

Click on the "M" (macro) button on the far right side of the interface. This will bring up a separate box with options for creating macros. On the right side of the interface you will see a list of the various appliances that you’re running through your computer.

Click on the icon that says "Bedside Lamp" on the right hand side of your screen, and drag that icon to the left side of your screen. When you do this, you will see a dialog box that will ask you "What type of macro do you want to create?"

You wish to create a standard macro.

Then do this again, only this, grabbing the "Bedside Lamp" icon. Drag the macro until a red-line/box appears around the first macro, and drop the icon in there. Once you’ve done that, set the brightness at 80%. Right click on the "Lamp" icon, and then click on "Delay Time." Set the time delay to 10 minutes. This will allow ten minutes before the light dims any.

Then grab the icon labeled "Bedside Lamp" again. Again, drag it into your macro. Set the delay to another 20 minutes, and set the lamp to 50%. Grab the "Bedside Lamp" icon again, and set the delay time to 30 minutes, and the lamp at 30%. Then do this again, only set the delay time to 35 minutes, and the lamp to 10%. And once again, and this time set the delay time to 40 minutes, and the lamps to 0%.

By doing this, you slowly take the lights out while your child sleeps. This leaves the child more relaxed, and by the time the lights are gone, everything should be just fine.

So say goodnight, tuck them in, kiss them on the cheek, and let ActiveHome keep that boogieman away.

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