Electronic Alarms and Home Security Devices - Sensor to detect lights on

I have a problem forgetting to turn off the basment light when I come up. I can't look into the basement from upstairs to see if lights are on. The lighting is broken up into 5 switches. Any ideas? Thanks~~~~~~~~~~~

Set it up on a motion detector that will turn them off after so many minutes of no movement.

I have one light on a motion sensor wall switch when I walk into the basement and then I switch on the lights that I need in different areas of the basement. It's those that cause my problem.

How many hot circuits do you actually have feeding the 5 sets of lights?

If only 1, then you can use the motion sensor to control that one hot circuit.

If you have multiple hots, you can use a contactor or relays (1 pole for either each hot or each switch) and control the relays with the motion detector.

Or you could use 5 motion detectors.

or you could use the learning method:
hook the lights of concern to a motion detector plus a timer and a very loud buzzer. If you forgt to turn them off after a predertmined time expires after last motion detected, the loud buzzer goes off. This is called negative response training. Now if the buzzer goes off and scares the yell out of your wife a time or two, I'll bet you don;t forget to turn them off anymore.:D :D