I won’t lie to you: I hated the first digital wall calendar I tried.
I tested out the
Hearth Display last year and was left unimpressed. It was very expensive and I found it difficult to import my information. It felt more like clutter than a useful addition to my home. To my surprise, though, digital wall calendars have only picked up in popularity and options since then. If you're not familiar, these gadgets 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 countertop or table.
These devices usually also double as chore charts, meal planners, and sometimes even
digital photo frames. 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. 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, I love being able to see that calendar in the middle of the kitchen without my phone. My husband and I have also been using the extra features more and more, especially the meal-planning function, although many of those require a monthly fee. Here's everything you need to know about digital wall calendars and whether they're right for you.
Updated June 2026: I've added the Everblog HomeCal, and additional testing notes on the Apolosign.
My Favorite Digital Calendars
What's a Digital Wall Calendar? What Else Can a Digital Wall Calendar Do? Is a Digital Wall Calendar Worth It? The Best Digital Calendars The Best Overall Best Without a Subscription Another Good Subscription-Free Option Others I've Tested How Do Digital Wall Calendars Work? Will Changes to My Calendar Appear Instantly? How Is a Digital Calendar Different from a Smart Display? Does It Have to Go on the Wall?
What’s a Digital Wall Calendar?
You might have heard these gadgets 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 lets your entire family see the schedule and allows for family members to update or add to it without needing their own phone or separate account. It also erases issues like unreadable handwriting or forgetting to write down an event you've already scheduled digitally, and the color-coding makes it easy to see who's on the hook for what activities.
While these are often called wall calendars, you can usually choose to place them on a tabletop instead. Some models come only with wall-mounting hardware, but I've been able to prop them up on tables without stands during my testing. I did find I preferred the models with a tabletop stand included, but if you want it right on the wall, any device will work.
What Else Can a Digital Wall Calendar Do?
These 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 screensaver, but you'll need to be a Plus subscriber to get that and some of the other bonus features. Basically, you can use these calendars to manage your family's full schedule, chores, meals, and more in a single device.
Is a Digital Wall Calendar Worth It?
I didn't expect it, but 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 grocery shopping. 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).
My husband and I have found it so useful in part because we're both good about adding events to our individual calendars, so now this device can reflect that work. It lets us skip pulling out our phones when discussing plans for the next day or the upcoming weekend.
The Best Digital Calendars
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 its three digital calendars: the older
10-inch Calendar ($170), the newer Calendar 2 ($320), and the Calendar Max ($630). The main difference between these is size, but Calendar 2 is the newest model, with improved performance and interchangeable Snap Frames ($30 to $60) 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 between. Calendar, Lists, Tasks, Rewards, Meals, and Recipes are the main areas you'll interact with, and you can access the Photos, Sleep, and Settings pages from the same menu.
The app and device interface are clean and intuitive compared with other models that feel like
Android tablets 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 with both of our colors added to show they applied to both of us.
Lists and Tasks sound similar, but Tasks are meant to function as 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 are 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 those ingredients on your shopping list.
The downside of Skylight is the paywall. To get access to the meal planning, rewards, photo screensaver, 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 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.
The Everblog HomeCal has an operating system that feels pleasantly similar to the Skylight. It still has a bit of Android undertone to it, but doesn't feel like a giant tablet as much as the Apolosign or Cozyla calendars do. Setup was pretty seamless, but there was a delay for the device to update with my calendar invites, and it would take a while for changes I made to my Google Calendar on another device to be reflected on the Everblog. I occasionally noticed events missing from my calendar while I was testing it, but for the most part it worked well. The Everblog also turned each calendar email account I connected to the device into a separate profile, which was annoying. I could toggle off the extra emails when I was on the other pages outside of the calendar, though, so I didn't have three different profiles for myself on my Chores page for example.
The menu on the left-hand side is very similar to the Skylight's with options like Calendar, Chores, and Meal Plan. There isn't a recipe section, which I miss, but there is a fridge section for you to track what's in your fridge. Part of why this exists is because Everblog also has a smaller, battery-powered version of this calendar that's designed to sit on your fridge, aptly named the
FridgeCal ($249). Still, I prefer the recipe tab on the Skylight. There's also only a Chores tab, no additional tab for tracking regular chores or other to-dos separately.
There's a free photo option, but the uploader tool in the app only lets you ass one photo at a time. Painful, but I'm sure many would feel it's worth the free price tag. You'll also need to go into the settings on the physical device to turn on photo slideshow as your screensaver. The Everblog defaults to pinging loudly at the start of any calendar event, which you can only change on the device, not in the app.
There's a button on the bottom right hand corner of the screen that will take you to a home page with an overview of the calendar and chores, and access to other applications like Spotify and Netflix if you set up your accounts on this device for streaming content. It also comes set up for wall mounting, but you can purchase the
Calendar Stand ($39) if you want it to stand on a tabletop, and there's a wooden frame ($99) you can buy to snap on to give it a nicer look.
Like Skylight, Apolosign's digital calendar has three sizes: 15.7 inches, 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 has two modes, Calendar and Android. Calendar mode worked similarly to Skylight. I seamlessly connected it to my Google Calendar, imported over most of my various shared calendars, and color-coded them.
The Calendar mode 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 items off directly 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.
WIRED Reviewer Kat Merck also tested Apolosign, but used Android mode instead of Calendar mode. That version allows you to customize widgets and layout, so she opted for a monthly view. This mode also lets you use photos from Google Photos as a background and screensaver. She says it's nice to be able to customize the layout in this mode, but it doesn't have two-way sync between the calendar and your phone or the Apolosign app.
I don't like the Apolosign experience quite as much as the Skylight or Everblog, and Kat agreed that this device in general is not very intuitive and takes a lot of patience to set up. But having no paywall is a huge plus, and many people will feel 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.
Others I’ve Tested
Cozyla Digital Calendar (15.6 Inches) for $350: This calendar is similar to Apolosign with an Android-based operating system, but it didn't import my shared calendars, meaning it took more work to 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 a Family Membership ($6 a month) and a much higher price point. It's only available in a 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?
Digital wall calendars sync with your existing digital calendar app of choice, like Google Calendar, and display it on the physical screen. There are usually additional tools for 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 useful for the whole family.
Will Changes to My Calendar Appear Instantly?
Changes you make on your native calendar app, like Google Calendar and Apple's Calendar, should reflect 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 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 a Digital Calendar Different From a Smart Display?
Smart 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 it'll usually show the current weather.
Does It Have to Go on the Wall?
No, 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.
<small>Source: Wired</small>
