A family wall calendar for the iPad you already own

A family wall calendar is a shared view of the day, not a private phone agenda. The useful jobs are simple:

• See who is doing what today, from the kitchen or hallway.
• Let more than one parent add or change a plan.
• Keep school runs, activities, and meals in one place.
• Avoid a situation where each adult is looking at a different calendar.

Those jobs can be done with a dedicated touchscreen you buy for the wall, with a shared app on phones, or with software on a tablet you already have. None of those options is “the right” one for every household. The differences that matter are hardware cost, how you pay for software, how far away you can read the screen, and whether the product is already shipping.

Two well-known dedicated displays are Skylight Calendar and Hearth Display. Both are hardware you buy. Skylight lists an optional Plus plan; Hearth requires a Family Membership at setup (sources below).

On Skylight’s official shop on 10 Nov 2026, listed hardware prices were: 10" Calendar US$169.99, Calendar 2 US$299.99, and Calendar Max US$599.99 (shop.myskylight.com). The official comparison page on the same day listed the 10" Calendar as “Starting at $149.99” (myskylight.com/compare-calendars). Those two official figures do not match. We are not choosing between them; check the live checkout price before you buy.

Skylight’s shop marks standard features with “No subscription required!” (shop.myskylight.com). Calendar Plus is listed at US$79/year on the shop and on a Calendar 2 plus-plan product page, which also says the first month is free (Calendar 2 with Plus plan). We do not list which features sit behind that plan, because official pages do not all describe the split the same way.

Hearth Display is a 27" wall screen. On 10 Nov 2026 the official product page listed US$699.00 and a sale price of US$559.20 with the code BLACKFRIDAY (20% off) (hearthdisplay.com/products/hearth-display). A Family Membership is required to set up the display and can be cancelled after setup. Official pages on that date described plans ranging from US$5.76/month on multi-year billing to US$9/month billed monthly, with the first month on the company (product page; membership). Without a membership, Hearth says you can still view the calendar, basic profile details, and settings (membership).

Cozi is a shared family organiser for phones, tablets, and the web, not a dedicated wall display. On 10 Nov 2026 its official compare-plans page listed a Free plan, Gold at US$39/year, and Max at US$79/year (cozi.com/compare-plans).

A full side-by-side, with sources for each cell, is on our compare page.

A bring-your-own-tablet calendar does not include a screen. You supply an iPad or similar tablet, put it in landscape on a stand or mount, and leave it on in a shared room. The cost to compare is then the software, plus any mount you lack — not a new dedicated display.

That trade-off is real on both sides. You do not pay for a purpose-built family screen, and you can reuse a device you already have. You also do not get that company’s hardware, or (today) a finished product from us. Dayreef is still a waitlist. Other tablet-on-the-wall calendar apps already exist; this page does not claim the idea is new.

Search interest for “iPad wall calendar” is small (Google Ads Keyword Planner, US, Oct 2025–Sep 2026, accessed 10 Nov 2026: 10–100 monthly searches). This page exists so people comparing dedicated displays can also see a bring-your-own-tablet option described plainly.

Dayreef is planned as:

• A landscape, always-on family wall calendar for a tablet you already own.
• A view you can read from across the room, with large type and colour-coded people.
• A Today and Tomorrow layout first, rather than a dense month grid.
• Updates from parents’ phones.
• A one-time price if we launch, not a monthly fee. The working figure for this test is US$49. No payment is taken on this site.

It is not launched and not for sale. Recurring events, school-calendar integrations, and notifications are not claimed as available.

Use a short checklist, not a slogan:

1. Do you want to buy a screen? If yes, compare current official hardware prices and return policies. If no, look at shared apps and bring-your-own-tablet software.
2. How do you want to pay for software? Note whether a core calendar works without a paid plan, and what the paid plan actually costs on the official site this month.
3. Where will people read it? A phone app is close-up. A 15" or 27" dedicated display, or a landscape tablet on the wall, is meant to be read standing up.
4. Is the product shipping? A waitlist is not a purchase. If you need something this week, use a product that is already for sale.

If a bring-your-own-tablet, one-time-price calendar is what you want, you can join the Dayreef waitlist below. If you want a dedicated display or a mature shared app, the official Skylight, Hearth, and Cozi sites are the place to buy them.