Lately, I’ve been getting a lot of questions about digital calendar displays—those dedicated devices you can put in a common area (like a kitchen or mudroom) that sync with your digital calendars. Think Skylight, Hearth, DakBoard, and even repurposed tech like Amazon Echo Homes and smart fridges.
And I completely get the appeal. In busy households, it’s easy to become the sole keeper of everyone’s schedule. These devices promise to make that shared load a little lighter. But does it work in real life? What do people actually think of them?
I crowdsourced feedback, and the responses were so insightful. Below, I’ve explained my own experience with them and then, more importantly, organized other people’s input by theme, so you can see what might work for your home, what to consider, and what potential trade-offs to expect.
My experience and thoughts for context:
- I got a Hearth to try it. At the time I bought, I picked a Hearth because I wanted a large view for my kids. Skylight now has a large view, so either works there now. Based just on minimal app review reading and no other current research, I’d lean towards Skylight over Hearth – but we’ll learn more here soon! (Spoiler: Based on the comments shared below, go with a Skylight if you want one of these tools.)
- For me, it’s very cool – but candidly doesn’t yet add much to my life beyond what our digital calendars already do on our phones (and computers, but phones are most relevant bc that’s usually the alternative the kitchen display).
- BUT [when I wrote this months ago] my kids can’t fully read yet (though getting close with the older one) and my husband already references his phone calendar a lot, so the need for my family isn’t there.
- If you have people in your house who aren’t yet referencing calendars often & would see and read this display, it could be more valuable to you! We haven’t put it back up post-renovation (mainly because it was just another screen & a fight-inducing emoji-pad for my kids), but we’ll probably try again once they’re older.
- The “routines” section was fun for my kids for a few days, but the novelty quickly wore off. Other kids might be different!
- Think of it like a large phone/tablet display of your calendar. It’s a tool. You still need to have strategy around getting information in the calendar, making sure everything is represented in there, a planning session to make sure it all comes together realistically, etc. This is not a plug for the Bright Method – you do whatever works for you. It’s more a nudge that, like a lot of things time management, this is a tool – you still need strategy. Don’t expect a new tool to solve everything. It’ll take time to set up, learn, and leverage, all of which can be worth it – just important to keep expectations realistic.
Skylight is the clear winner so far
- Summarizing many comments, many people who got Hearths expressed annoyance about how slow it can be. E.g., “We have the Hearth as well and I bought it because it was the only large option at the time and now I’m annoyed and wishing we had the Skylight. It’s a bit clunky and slow-ish to respond v. a phone or iPad. And my kids (6, 4, 1) arent’ even on screens but even they think it’s slow.”
Syncing & Visibility
- “We have the Skylight and love it. What’s worked best for me so far is to sync it with my Google calendar that’s my main family calendar. I subscribe to my sons’ school calendars so those events are displayed on the Skylight but also their learning platform so big test dates, quizzes, assignments, etc display as well. LOVE. I just upgraded to the paid version and need to explore it more but it’s definitely been helpful for our family. Agree that it helps in sharing the mental load though I’m the one managing the calendar. But now everyone in my house can easily refer to the Skylight when they have questions about schedules and events and not constantly pester me!”
- “We use a skylight and have had it for almost a year. We have the medium sized one. It is so helpful for us bc we have grandmas coming and going daily to do childcare and school drop off/pick up. Even though they have their schedules calendared, they don’t like me to send them invites 🙄 so the skylight is a great check to be on the same page especially if something isn’t communicated on accident. It’s also helped my husband look at the calendar more bc he walks by it all the time. I added the premium photo feature and it has brought so much joy to my girls to see all their memories all the time.”
- “We have the medium skylight and it has been a game changer for our family, especially for our full time nanny. She can input requested days off and ideas for kids activities right there on the calendar and it helps keep all of us on the same page. We also pay for the photo add on and it is so fun!”
- “Have had an Amazon Echo Home for about six months – kiddos will refer to it to remember library books/trombones/who is picking them up on early release days, etc. Display of calendar stays small on our model and I haven’t found a way around it, and ads randomly pop up sometimes; but it syncs with the family Google calendar well!”
- “We splurged on a ridiculous fridge with the screen in the front, and just when I was about to order one of these calendar options, I realized my fridge would display a big copy of my Google calendar so that has been awesome and “free” 🤣 so if anyone else has the crazy fridge like us they may also be able to try it out!”
Calendar Management & Lightening/Sharing the Mental Load
- “Skylight has been great for shifting some of the mental load. I will put things like ‘handle John Smith birthday gift’ onto my husband’s chore list and then he knows he’s responsible for planning and executing that task or category. Other examples: ‘plan February date nights (reservations and book sitters)’ and ‘get hot water heater replaced.'”
- “Aka I say “husband, do this task” on the app and it gets delivered to our joint display as a to do for him.We have a marital code word “zucchini” that means: you could answer this yourself if only you would check the skylight app where we’ve already consolidated this information for everyone publicly. If I say zucchini, he goes and figures it out himself. It’s a loving but diligent process haha.”
- “The device has its own email address so you can forward calendar invites and other info to that email and it imports it on the calendar. I also have separate Google calendars for each family member plus some specialty ones (e.g. school events) and the skylight can handle all of those and color codes them.”
- Some people noted that using Skylight was the only way they’d found so far that they would see Outlook and Google calendars together in one view.
- “Agree that it helps in sharing the mental load though I’m the one managing the calendar. But now everyone in my house can easily refer to the Skylight when they have questions about schedules and events and not constantly pester me!”
- “I have DakBoard… we only use it for the digital calendar display function but it helps my nanny keep track of what is going on. Also, my husband never looks at the calendar on his phone or computer, so this allows him to just glance as he’s walking by… Overall – totally worth it for me to loop others in though!”
Kid Engagement & Autonomy
- “My son… LOVES looking at it and asking questions/getting excited about what’s ahead. He always likes to know what’s going on the next day, so this gives him some autonomy in figuring that out.”
- “[The photo display has] also helped my 20m old reinforce names of important people in her life that we don’t see in person often like my sister who lives hours away. We love it.”
- If your kids can’t read yet, one woman shared adding emojis to calendar entry titles to help them understand.
Chores & Routines
- “Sure! So in skylight you can assign chores. It’s a native feature within the calendar. They can repeat daily, weekly, etc or can just be one off things. Then you can assign a number of stars to a chore. The stars can then add up to reward levels. So we do 50 stars = payday.”
- “The chore tracking has been great for my son. He loves being able to track towards his payday which I have set after he reaches a certain number of stars. After so many tries and tracking chores this one seems to work!”
- “I agree with the routines. They were game changer for my kids for a month or 2 and now I have to remind them to look. However it is still helpful as I have our house cleaning routine logged in it so when I’m busy or overwhelmed I can just tell anyone in the house to look at the list.”
Meal Planning
- “Meal tracking and the AI feature to help plan meals has been a GAME CHANGER. I love that I can keep track of meals that we have loved and keep them in rotation. And when I can’t think of something the sidekick gives us a new option.”
- “The new auto AI meal planning has been game changer. This alone might be worth it.”
Hope this helps as you think about whether and how a digital calendar display could work for your household!
And if you have any comments you want to add, please feel free to leave a comment or email me and I can add it anonymously. Thanks!
