Email when the box dies

What this email actually means

That email means the box stopped checking in. Full stop.

It does not mean Tailscale is healthy, and it does not mean the camera app is fine or the shop Wi‑Fi is up. It's one signal — use it alongside the power/path/auth triage, not instead of it.

Checklist: a dead-man switch that actually shouts

1. Get the right box. Something you admin, where you can install a cron job or scheduled task. Cloud cameras aren't the box.
2. Create a check. Set up a new Healthchecks (or equivalent) ping URL, with a period that matches how fast you care — every 5-15 minutes, say — and enough grace that a short blip doesn't spam you.
3. Schedule the ping from the box. Use cron, Task Scheduler, or a small script that hits the URL while the machine's alive. Run it as a service user if the box can reboot without a desktop login.
4. Wire up your email. Confirm you actually get the "check created / verified" message, and add a backup address if you have one.
5. Prove it with a real unplug. Pull the plug (or kill the ping job) on purpose, wait for the alert, then plug it back in. If the email never comes, what you have is hope, not a dead-man switch.
6. Write it down. The check's name, who gets the email, and what "missed ping" means — on your one-pager, using your own accounts and URLs.

What people mix up

• Heartbeat down: the machine, or the ping job itself, stopped talking. Start with power and local life.
• Heartbeat up, Tailscale down: the box is alive; the remote path or auth is the problem (Tailscale after reboot).
• Both fine, cameras dark: that's a different app. Fix that stack — don't blame Tailscale.

More on sorting dead hardware from bad Wi‑Fi from broken auth: When the box goes dark.