I won’t lie to you: I hated the first digital wall calendar I tried.
I tried the Hearth Display last year and was left unimpressed, but to my surprise, digital wall calendars as a whole have only picked up in popularity and options. Digital wall calendars take your online calendar—think your Google Calendar, the Calendar app on your iPhone, or your corporate Microsoft calendar account—and put it on a digital screen that you can mount on the wall or prop up on a stand on a countertop or table.
These devices usually also double as digital yet physical chore charts, meal planners, and sometimes even a digital photo frame. I usually have smart displays all over my home, especially in my kitchen and living area, but they've all been replaced for the past two weeks with digital wall calendars that I've set up in tabletop mode. And you know what? I don't miss talking to those annoying AI-powered assistants.
Instead, as someone who already lives and breathes by her Google Calendar to manage her family's life, I've found myself in love with being able to pull up that calendar in the middle of the kitchen sans my phone. The extra features are ones that both my husband and I are using more and more, especially the meal-planning function. But for the best wall calendar, that meal-planning feature—and other handy features—will require a monthly fee. Here's everything you need to know about digital wall calendars and whether they're a fit for you.
Table of ContentsAccordionItemContainerButtonLargeChevron- What's a Digital Wall Calendar?
- What Else Can a Digital Wall Calendar Do?
- Is It Worth Getting a Digital Wall Calendar?
- The Best Digital Calendars
- The Best Overall
- Best Without a Subscription
- Others I've Tested
- How Do Digital Wall Calendars Work?
- Will Changes to My Calendar Show Up Instantly?
- How Is It Different From a Smart Display?
- Does It Have to Go on the Wall?
What’s a Digital Wall Calendar?
Photograph: Nena FarrellYou might have heard these devices called by various names. Maybe “digital wall calendar” or “smart calendar device.” Maybe you've just heard the name Skylight Calendar, which is the popular model right now. No matter the name, these devices all do the same thing: replace a paper calendar with a digitized one that connects to the calendar tools you're already using, like Google Calendar or Apple Calendar. It makes it easier for the entire family to see the schedule and allows for family members to update or add to it without needing a phone or a separate account of their own. It also erases issues like unreadable handwriting or forgetting to write down an event in a second place, and color-coding makes it easy to see who's on the hook for what events and activities.
While these are often called wall calendars, you can usually choose to also place them on a tabletop. Some sizes come only with wall-mounting hardware, but I've been able to prop them up on multiple tables without a stand during my testing. I did find I preferred the models with a tabletop stand included, but if you want it right on the wall, that's an easy option.
What Else Can a Digital Wall Calendar Do?
Photograph: Nena FarrellThese devices aren't just calendars but are designed for larger family management. You'll find features to help you plan meals, track to-do lists for multiple people, and earn rewards on a digital chore chart. The Skylight Calendar 2 is a favorite of mine because it includes a photo-screen-saver mode, but you'll need to be a Plus subscriber to get that and some of the other family bonus features. Still, overall, you can use these calendars to manage your family's full schedule, chores, meals, and more in a single device.
Is It Worth Getting a Digital Wall Calendar?
I didn't expect my answer to be yes for this, but as a calendar lover myself, having a physical version of my hyper-detailed Google Calendar in the center of my home has been a delight. My husband and I both check our calendar at a glance while we're chatting in the kitchen, and at the start of the week, we'll camp out in front of it for a few minutes to plan the week's dinners and the grocery shopping we need to do. The Skylight will actually prompt us to add items to our grocery list based on what meals we picked (if it's a stored recipe, that is), but we haven't converted to using that tool yet. I'm hoping we do.
My husband and I have found it so useful in part because we're both good about adding things to our individual calendars, so now this device can reflect that work we do. It lets us skip pulling out our phones when discussing what our plans are the next day or the upcoming weekend.
The Best Digital Calendars
The Best Overall- Photograph: Nena Farrell
- Photograph: Nena Farrell
- Photograph: Nena Farrell
- Photograph: Nena Farrell
Skylight
Calendar 2
$279Skylight (With Plus Plan)
Photograph: Chris HaslamSave to wishlistSave to wishlist
Skylight
Smart Calendar Max
$600Amazon
$630Skylight
Skylight's calendar is the most popular for a reason. The brand is known for its digital photo frames, and now you can use the same Skylight app to operate any of three digital calendars: the 10-inch Calendar ($150), the Calendar 2 ($280), and the Calendar Max ($600). The main difference between these is size, but Calendar 2 is the newest model, with improved performance and interchangeable Snap Frames ($14 to $27) you can purchase to change the device's look.
What makes Skylight great is the software. It's easy to use, and it quickly imported my Google Calendar and the wide variety of calendars shared to it, so I could immediately add all of my family's schedules to the device. The left-side menu bar shows all the pages you can toggle among. Calendar, Lists, Tasks, Rewards, Meals, and Recipes are the main areas you'll interact with, and you can access various settings on the Photos, Sleep, and Settings pages on the same menu.
The app and device interface are clean and easy to understand compared with other models that feel like an Android tablet with a fancy calendar mode added. I was able to easily assign calendars to family members I created on the device. I assigned my husband's calendar to him without needing him to log in or import it, and I could have assigned any calendar I created to my son as well. I also liked that events shared between our calendars would appear only once and have both of our colors added to show they were something we were both attached to.
Lists and Tasks sound similar, but Tasks are meant to be more of a chore chart, connecting back to the Rewards page to build habits and earn the reward you set after hitting a certain goal. The main audience for this is children who are old enough to check the calendar. Lists is for things like your grocery list, and if you add recipes to the Recipe tab and then add them to your meal plan for that week, Skylight will offer to put the ingredients on your shopping list.
The downside of Skylight is the paywall. To get access to the meal planning, rewards, photo screen saver, and the in-app AI assistant tool Sidekick, you'll need to be a Plus subscriber for either $79 a year or $8 a month. Having this device double as a digital photo frame makes it much, much more worth the cost to me. I love getting to have my two favorite things nearby: photos of my family and instant access to our shared calendars.
Best Without a Subscription- Photograph: Nena Farrell
- Courtesy of Apolosign
Apolosign
Digital Calendar
$400 $270 (33% off)Amazon
$400 $300 (25% off)Apolosign
Like Skylight, Apolosign's Digital Calendar has three sizes, but the smallest is 15.7 inches, with two larger sizes (21.5 inches and 27 inches). It runs Google's Android OS, so it operates very similarly to an Android tablet and to Google's Pixel Tablet, if you've used that as a smart display, as I have. It worked similarly to Skylight, where I was able to easily connect it to my Google Calendar and import over most of my various shared calendars, and I could color-code them as well.
The Apolosign has a left-side menu bar (you'll have to tap to make it appear) with sections for Home, Calendar, Routines, To-Dos, Rewards, and Meals. The Home page has a two-column design, showing you the calendar on one side and your routines and to-dos on the other. You can then tap into any of these sections or check things off from the Home Page. Apolosign also has notifications baked into it, chiming to remind me about calendar events and to-dos, plus phone notifications to let me know how many things are on my calendar that day.
I don't like the experience quite as much as with the Skylight, but no paywall is a huge plus. It's worth getting used to the more Android-style experience to not pay a monthly or yearly fee. But since it's essentially a large Android tablet, iPhone users have flagged on Reddit that they can't two-way sync between it and their iPhone devices. The Apolosign is usually on sale for the same price, if not cheaper, than the Skylight, but you'll be free of any monthly fees.
Others I’ve Tested
Cozyla Digital Calendar (15.6 Inches) for $350: This one is similar to Apolosign with an Android-based operating system, but it didn't import my shared calendars, meaning more work to get it set up. It was overall more frustrating to navigate and didn't guide me as much as Skylight or Apolosign did through its tools. While Cozyla doesn't have any subscription fees, its 15-inch size is more expensive than both Skylight and Apolosign's.
Hearth Display for $699: This is another digital calendar and family tool that has a paywall with the Family Membership ($6 a month) and a much higher price point. It's only available in the large 26-inch size, and I found it more difficult to import my information than with options that cost less.
FAQs
How Do Digital Wall Calendars Work?
AccordionItemContainerButtonLargeChevronDigital wall calendars sync with your existing digital calendar app of choice, like Google Calendar, and display it on the physical screen. There are usually tools for things like recipes, to-do lists, and chores, but each digital wall calendar varies in how you will import these. Usually you have to manually import or type them into the device, but once you get used to using it, it can be a useful tool for the whole family.
Will Changes to My Calendar Show Up Instantly?
AccordionItemContainerButtonLargeChevronChanges you make on your native calendar app, like Google Calendar and Apple's Calendar, should reflect pretty quickly onto the device. But changes you make on the device aren't always backward compatible to the calendar itself. It depends on the calendar's settings and how it was shared; I can edit my primary personal calendar no problem on the Skylight Calendar 2, for example, but my work calendar that's shared through my personal can't be edited on the device. There are also some syncing issues you can run into with the Apolosign, which doesn't two-way sync with an iPhone since it runs on an Android operating system.
How Is It Different From a Smart Display?
AccordionItemContainerButtonLargeChevronSmart displays look a little similar to these devices but have an entirely different operating system. Sure, the Google Pixel Tablet has some overlap with the Apolosign and Cozyla, since they all run an Android operating system, but the digital calendar devices are designed with specific tools to run your family and none of the clutter. You'll lose out on smart-home support, though Apolosign claims you can use Google Assistant on it (that hasn't worked for me so far), and you'll lose extras like video streaming. But as someone who uses a smart display regularly, I haven't really missed it once I switched over to the digital calendar device. I just wish there was a weather report page, but there's usually somewhere that it's showing the current weather.
Does It Have to Go on the Wall?
AccordionItemContainerButtonLargeChevronNo, and most of these devices come with a table-stand option. I only tested in table-stand mode since I had multiple of these devices in my house at one time, but the wall-mounting option is nice to put it somewhere for the kids to reach and to keep your tabletops clear. The 15-inch models are great for tabletops, but larger sizes you probably will want to consider the wall mount route.
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