Timed Unlock Rewards
Spend points to unlock something for a while — the TV, the console socket, a wifi group. Approving the claim turns the entity on; a timer turns it back off.
This is the one TaskMate feature that reaches out and changes your house, so it is deliberately narrow:
- A reward can only turn one entity on and back off. There is no free-form service call, no payload, no template.
- The entity must be on your allowlist.
An empty allowlist permits nothing. This gates household devices, so the safe default when unconfigured is "no".
1. Settings → Unlock allowlist
Add the entities a reward may touch. An entry can be:
- a full entity id —
switch.xbox - a bare domain —
switch, to permit everything in it
2. Open a reward → Advanced — timed unlock
Pick an allowlisted entity and a duration, up to 24 hours. 0 leaves it on for you to turn off yourself.
- The allowlist is checked twice — when the reward is saved, and again when it fires. You can revoke an entity later and any reward pointing at it quietly stops unlocking rather than breaking.
- Active unlocks are persisted. A Home Assistant restart mid-unlock re-arms the timer; anything already past due is turned off at startup. A restart can never strand the television on.
- Turning something off is never gated by the allowlist. A revert is always safe, so removing an entity from the allowlist can't trap it in the on state.
| Event | Fired when |
|---|---|
taskmate_unlock_started |
The unlock begins |
taskmate_unlock_ended |
The timer reverts it |
Both carry entity_id, reward_id, reward_name, child_id, child_name, started_at and revert_at.
| Reward | Entity | Duration |
|---|---|---|
| One hour of Xbox | switch.xbox_socket |
60 min |
| Film night | switch.living_room_tv |
180 min |
| Extra wifi after bedtime | switch.kids_wifi |
30 min |
- Rewards — costs, jackpots, spending caps and the claim flow
- Managing Rewards — the parent approval workflow
- Settings — the unlock allowlist
- Insights — the health report flags a reward whose entity has left the allowlist
- Automations — every TaskMate bus event