A Home Assistant-based system for remotely monitoring an elderly relative's daily activity, with automated alerts, sleep pattern tracking, and self-healing infrastructure. Built on a Raspberry Pi with Xiaomi presence sensors and Reolink cameras.

This project was built to monitor my elderly father living alone, but it can be adapted for any family member or care situation. See CUSTOMISING.md for how to adapt it to your setup.

When an elderly parent lives alone, you worry. Are they up at their usual time? Have they moved around today? Did they get up in the night? This system provides peace of mind by:

• Sending a daily summary email each morning with sleep patterns and activity
• Alerting the family if no activity is detected for an unusual period
• Detecting late wake-ups compared to their normal routine
• Tracking sleep patterns over time (bed time, wake time, trends)
• Self-healing when sensors go offline (automatic restart, two-tier recovery)
• Working passively - no wearables, no buttons to press, no behaviour change required

Total: ~£170-250 depending on number of sensors and cameras.

The Xiaomi Human Presence Sensors use mmWave radar, not PIR - they detect stationary presence (sitting, sleeping), not just movement. This is critical for elderly monitoring where someone may be still for long periods.

• Presence detection via Xiaomi mmWave sensors (detects sitting/sleeping, not just movement)
• Motion detection via Reolink cameras (optional, covers additional rooms)
• Last activity tracking with timestamp
• Sleep pattern tracking - bed time, wake time, rolling average
• Bathroom visit counting

All time windows and thresholds are configurable via the HA dashboard.

Home Assistant Dashboard:

• Room-by-room status with live sensor readings
• Sleep pattern tracking (bed time, wake time, averages)
• Live camera feeds
• Sensor batteries and staleness indicators
• Configurable monitoring settings
• System health metrics
• Embedded Grafana charts

Grafana Dashboard:

• Today vs historical average activity
• 7-day activity trend
• Room-by-room activity timelines
• Activity heatmap

Xiaomi cloud sensors can go offline. This system handles it automatically:

Plus: Docker container watchdog, auto-restart on boot, hardware watchdog, SD card health monitoring.

+---------------------------------------------------------------+
|                        Remote Access                           |
|                    (Tailscale VPN)                             |
+---------------------------------------------------------------+
                              |
                              v
+---------------------------------------------------------------+
|                     Raspberry Pi 5                             |
|  +----------------------------------------------------------+ |
|  |              Docker Compose Stack                         | |
|  |  +--------------+  +------------+  +-----------------+    | |
|  |  |    Home      |  |  InfluxDB  |  |    Grafana      |    | |
|  |  |  Assistant   |  | (365 days) |  |  (dashboards)   |    | |
|  |  |    :8123     |  |   :8086    |  |     :3000       |    | |
|  |  +--------------+  +------------+  +-----------------+    | |
|  +----------------------------------------------------------+ |
+---------------------------------------------------------------+
          |                   |                   |
   +-----------+       +-----------+       +-----------+
   |  Xiaomi   |       |  Reolink  |       |  Reolink  |
   |  Gateway  |       |  E1 Pro   |       |  E1 Pro   |
   +-----------+       +-----------+       +-----------+
          |
   +-----------+
   | Presence  |
   | Sensors   |
   +-----------+

• Raspberry Pi 5 (4GB+) with Raspberry Pi OS
• Docker and Docker Compose installed
• Xiaomi sensors paired in Mi Home app
• Tailscale for remote access (recommended)

1. Clone this repo to your Pi:

   git clone https://github.com/andygmassey/grandpa-presence.git
   cd grandpa-presence

2. Create your secrets files:

   cp .env.example .env
   cp homeassistant/secrets.yaml.example homeassistant/secrets.yaml

   Edit both files with your actual credentials.

3. Start the stack:

   docker compose up -d

4. Configure integrations in the HA web UI (http://your-pi:8123):

   • Install HACS and Xiaomi Miot Auto via HACS
   • Add your Reolink cameras via the Reolink integration
   • Set up a Gmail App Password for email notifications

5. Customise the automations for your relative's schedule - see CUSTOMISING.md.

grandpa-presence/
├── docker-compose.yml              # HA + InfluxDB + Grafana stack
├── .env.example                    # Docker credentials template
├── homeassistant/
│   ├── configuration.yaml          # Main HA config
│   ├── automations.yaml            # All monitoring automations
│   ├── secrets.yaml.example        # HA secrets template
│   └── dashboards/
│       └── status.yaml             # Status dashboard
├── grafana/
│   └── dashboards/
│       └── presence.json           # Grafana dashboard export
├── scripts/
│   └── watchdog.sh                 # Container health check
├── CUSTOMISING.md                  # How to adapt for your setup
├── STATUS.md                       # Detailed system status
└── CLAUDE.md                       # AI assistant instructions

# SSH to Pi
ssh user@<TAILSCALE_IP>

# Check containers
docker ps

# Restart all containers
docker compose restart

# View HA logs
docker logs homeassistant --tail 50

# Check HA config is valid
docker exec homeassistant python -m homeassistant --script check_config -c /config

Contributions welcome! If you've adapted this for your own family member, I'd love to hear about it. Open an issue or PR.

MIT