Hi all,
I wanted to share something I’ve been working on for a while now: TaskMate, a chore and rewards integration for kids (and let’s be honest, adults too).
Like a lot of these projects, it started because of a problem at home. Getting my kids to do chores was a daily battle, and the paper sticker chart on the fridge lasted about a week before everyone forgot about it. Since the whole house already runs on Home Assistant, I figured chores should too.
What it does
The basic loop is simple:
- You create chores and assign them to your kids, with point values and schedules
- Kids tick them off on a dashboard card (wall tablet in our case) and earn points
- Chores that need checking land in a parent approval queue
- Kids save up points and claim rewards - points only come off once a parent approves
It’s grown a fair bit beyond that though. Some of the things I ended up adding because my own family asked for them:
- Streaks, levels, badges and quests - the gamification genuinely works, my kids check their streaks daily
- Flexible scheduling - specific days, recurrence, rotation between siblings, or first-come-first-served
- Routine Mode - guided step-by-step morning/bedtime flows, which has honestly been the biggest win in our house
- Pre-Reader Mode - icon-based cards for kids who can’t read yet
- Photo proof - “yes you actually have to show me the tidy room”
- Weather-aware chores - no point showing “sweep the patio” when it’s chucking it down
- Savings jars, allowance tracking, family goals - and rewards that can unlock devices for a set time (e.g. 30 minutes of TV via a smart plug)
- 21 dashboard cards with 5 design styles, including a high-contrast accessible one
Everything is managed from a panel in the HA sidebar, so day-to-day you never touch YAML. All data stays local in your HA instance - nothing phones home.
Installing
TaskMate is in the HACS default repository now, so no custom repo needed:
- HACS → search “TaskMate” → Download
- Restart HA
- Settings → Devices & Services → Add Integration → TaskMate
Needs HA 2024.7 or newer. Available in English, German, French, Norwegian and Portuguese.
Links
- GitHub: GitHub - tempus2016/taskmate: Family chore management with smart rewards for Home Assistant · GitHub
- Wiki (70+ pages, one per feature): Home · tempus2016/taskmate Wiki · GitHub
- Issues/requests: Issues · tempus2016/taskmate · GitHub
Credit where it’s due: this started life as a fork of choremander by vinnybad, though it’s been almost entirely rewritten since.
Happy to answer any questions, and if you give it a go with your family I’d love to hear how it lands. Feature ideas welcome too - most of the best ones so far have come from other parents.