Monitoring rules
Dynamic monitoring: alert rules for each home and room, instead of one fixed threshold
The short version
- A single “no movement for X hours” threshold is wrong for most people at least part of the day. Birdhouse uses rules per home, room and time of day.
- When you place a sensor, Birdhouse suggests the rules that fit that room: no movement for 4 hours in the day, not up by 10am, too long in the bathroom, door opened at night, out for more than 12 hours.
- Rules read as plain sentences, such as “Alert me if there’s no movement in the living room for 2 hours between 10:00 and 19:00 on weekdays”. Tap the coloured words to change them.
- You can ask the assistant to create a rule in your own words. It drafts it and shows you a summary, and nothing is saved until you confirm.
Why one threshold does not fit
Most simple monitoring set-ups come down to one number: alert if there has been no movement for so many hours. Pick 3 hours and an afternoon nap sets it off every day. Pick 8 and a fall at 9am goes unnoticed until the afternoon. The same 45 minutes means nothing in the living room and a lot in the bathroom. And a front door opening is ordinary at 10am and worth knowing about at 3am, especially if your parent has started to get confused at night.
So Birdhouse does not have one threshold. Each home has its own set of rules, tied to rooms, sensors and times of day, and each rule is something a family member can read and change.
Six kinds of rule
| Kind | What it watches | Example |
|---|---|---|
| Expect activity | Movement should happen at least every so often, or at least once in a window | Some movement in the living room every 2 hours between 10:00 and 19:00. Up by 10am. |
| Unexpected activity | Movement or a door opening at a time when there normally is none | Front door opened between 23:00 and 06:00 |
| Too long in a room | Someone stays in one room with no movement anywhere else | Still in the bathroom after 45 minutes |
| Door left open | A door stays open too long | Front door open for more than 10 minutes |
| Going out and coming home | Out or at home, worked out from the door sensor and movement | Tell me when Dad goes out and comes home. Alert me if he is out for more than 12 hours. |
| Hub and sensor problems | The equipment itself | Hub offline for more than 30 minutes, a sensor silent for 12 hours, a battery below 20% |
Every rule has a where (anywhere at home, a room, or one sensor), a when (every day, weekdays or weekends, at any time or in one or more time windows, including windows that cross midnight) and a level (Just tell me, Important or Urgent). A sensor can have several rules, and a rule can have several time windows.
Rules suggested when you place a sensor
You should not need to design a monitoring plan from scratch. When a new sensor is paired and you say which room it is in, Birdhouse offers the rules that make sense for that room:
| Sensor and room | Suggested rule | Level |
|---|---|---|
| Any motion sensor | No movement anywhere at home for 4 hours, 08:00 to 22:00 | Urgent |
| Motion sensor in a bedroom | Not up: no movement in the bedroom, bathroom or kitchen between 05:00 and 10:00 | Important |
| Motion sensor in the bathroom | Too long in the bathroom: more than 45 minutes with no movement elsewhere | Urgent |
| Door sensor on the front door | Door left open for more than 10 minutes | Important |
| Door sensor on the front door | Door opened between 23:00 and 06:00 | Important |
| Door sensor on the front door | Out for more than 12 hours | Important |
| Any sensor | Hub offline, sensor silent, battery low | Important |
They appear as Suggested alerts with three choices: keep them, change the time, or skip. You can come back to them at any time under Alert settings.
Editing a rule in plain language
Each rule is shown as a sentence, not a form full of fields. For example:
Alert me if there’s no movement in the living room for 2 hours between 10:00 and 19:00 on weekdays.
The parts you can change (the room, the duration, the times, the days) are the coloured words. Tap one and pick a new value. Add another time window, set how important it is, or switch the rule off without deleting it. Birdhouse checks the rule as you go and says “Looks good” when it is valid.
The home’s Owner and Managers can change rules. Viewers can see every rule, so they know what is being watched, but cannot change them. If a care agency looks after the home, its staff can add the agency’s own rules, which notify the agency’s staff, but cannot change the family’s rules.
Asking the assistant to write a rule
The Birdhouse assistant, in the app and on Telegram (@BirdhouseHomeBot), can draft a rule from an ordinary sentence. For example:
“Let me know if Dad hasn’t been in the kitchen by 9 on weekdays.”
The assistant turns that into a structured rule, checks it, and replies with a plain summary of what it will do and who will be told. The draft appears as a card, New alert rule, with Confirm and Cancel. The rule is only saved when you confirm it. Birdhouse refuses to save a rule in the same step the assistant drafted it, so the assistant cannot save anything on its own. A draft you leave too long expires and has to be asked for again.
Two limits are worth knowing. The assistant only acts with your own access, so a Viewer cannot create a home rule through it. And the assistant only helps you write rules. It does not decide when an alert fires. Birdhouse checks the saved rules against the sensor events, the same way every time.
How rules behave in practice
- Going out pauses the no-movement rules. With a door sensor, a door event followed by 20 minutes without movement counts as out. The next movement at home counts as back.
- An offline hub pauses time-based rules. Instead of a false “no movement” alert you get a “hub offline” alert, which is the real problem.
- Ongoing situations clear themselves. When movement resumes or the door closes, the alert is marked as cleared.
- Coverage matters. “Too long in the bathroom” assumes there is a sensor in every room your parent uses. If the bedroom has none, going from the bathroom to bed looks like staying in the bathroom.
Tuning in the first two weeks
- Start with the suggested rules. They are deliberately broad.
- After a week, open Insights and look at the heatmap: when does your parent usually get up, nap, go out, go to bed?
- Fit the windows to the real routine, with some margin. If she is usually up by 7:30, “not up by 9:00” catches a real problem sooner than 10:00 without firing on a slow morning.
- Use separate windows for weekends or for days with a regular outing, such as a weekly visit to the Active Ageing Centre, rather than lowering the bar for every day.
- Keep an alert at Urgent only if you would really want to drop what you are doing for it.
Frequently asked questions
Can I have different rules on weekends?
Yes. Every rule can apply every day, on weekdays or on weekends, with one or more time windows. Make one rule for weekdays and another for weekends if the routine differs.
Does the AI decide when to send an alert?
No. Rules are fixed settings that Birdhouse checks against the sensor events. The assistant only helps you write a rule, and it is saved only after you confirm it.
Who can change the rules for a home?
The home’s Owner and Managers. Viewers can see the rules but not change them. A care agency invited to the home can add its own rules for its staff, but cannot change the family’s.
Do I need a door sensor?
Not for basic no-movement alerts, but it helps a lot. Without one, Birdhouse cannot tell an empty flat from someone sitting still, so it cannot pause the no-movement alerts while your parent is out or tell you about long outings and night-time door openings.
Sources and further reading
This guide describes Birdhouse as it works on 2 November 2026. Birdhouse is not an emergency response service and never calls emergency services for you. In a life-threatening emergency, call 995. Questions or corrections: info@birdhouse.sg.