Four screens families put on the kitchen wall to see everyone’s week, compared only on what their makers have published: Apple HomeView (announced October 13, ships November 13), Skylight Calendar, Hearth Display, and DAKboard. One of the four doesn’t exist in anyone’s kitchen yet, so this is not a ranking — it’s who each one is for, how a schedule gets onto it, and the part the spec sheets skip.
That part: a display shows whatever calendar it’s pointed at. For a family with kids on TeamSnap, GameChanger, SportsEngine, and a school PDF, the hard problem is building the one calendar worth pointing a display at, and knowing when a game in it moved.
Updated October 16, 2026. HomeView details from Apple’s published materials; HomeView ships November 13 and we’ll revise this page the week it arrives.
Apple HomeView ships November 13, 2026. Nobody outside Apple’s demo spaces has used one, including us. Its row below is Apple’s own published description — price, screen, requirements, and how Calendar works — and nothing more. As of October 15, 2026, Apple hasn’t said whether subscribed (webcal/ICS) calendars or Google and Outlook accounts show on HomeView, how often it refreshes a calendar, or whether it alerts you to changes. The other three displays are on sale today and their rows come from their makers’ documentation or, for DAKboard, a live board we tested.
| Display | Price | Available | Whose calendar is on it | Takes a feed URL? | When a game moves |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Apple HomeView | $299 (U.S.), either model; Power Mount wall connectors from $59.95 | Unreleased — ships November 13, 2026. Needs an iPhone on iOS 27.2+ or iPad on iPadOS 27.2+. Not sold in the EU. | Personal: each of up to six enrolled people sees their own Calendar by face + paired iPhone. One household Modular face can show one member’s Calendar widget for everyone. | Not stated. No App Store; Calendar comes from the paired iPhone. Subscribed, Google, and Outlook calendars on HomeView are unconfirmed. | Not stated. |
| Skylight Calendar | $180–$380 by size; Skylight Plus $79/year optional (calendar sync is in the base) | On sale now. | Shared: whatever calendars you connect and toggle on, everyone at home sees. | Yes: Skylight app → Synced Calendars → Sync new calendar → Calendar URL. Also connects Google, Apple, or Outlook calendars. | Display updates when the synced calendar does; no published interval; nothing tells you what changed. |
| Hearth Display | See maker | On sale now. | Shared, by person: each subscribed calendar is assigned to a family member and lands in their column. | Yes: Hearth Companion app → Manage Calendars → Connect Calendars → Subscribe via URL. Hearth’s docs name TeamSnap and school-district calendars as examples. | Subscribed URLs refresh on a cycle (Hearth notes external syncs can take hours); silent. |
| DAKboard | See maker (their hardware, or your own Raspberry Pi) | Available now. | Shared, composable: each calendar widget picks which added calendars it shows, per screen. | Yes: calendar widget → Calendars tab → Add Calendars → iCal/ICS Link. Google, Microsoft, Apple iCloud, and Cozi are in the same list. | External iCal feeds refresh on DAKboard’s own cycle; silent. |
HomeView details from Apple’s product page, tech specs, Apple Store FAQ, Newsroom release, and Human Interface Guidelines, read October 15, 2026. Skylight details from Skylight’s official support pages and retail listings, verified August 2026. Hearth details from Hearth’s published Connect Calendars documentation, September 2026. DAKboard details verified on a live DAKboard, September 2026. “See maker” means we haven’t verified a price and won’t guess one. Apple HomeView, Skylight, Hearth Display, and DAKboard are trademarks of their owners; we’re not affiliated with any of them.
For an iPhone household that wants one Apple screen for the home — FaceTime, Messages, smart-home control — and each person’s own Calendar when they walk up to it. Apple’s phrase is “central to the home and personal to everyone in it.” It is not, on Apple’s description, a shared family calendar wall: Calendar is personal content shown to the recognized person, and the one household-wide spot is a Modular face where a member’s Calendar widget can appear for everyone. It ships November 13, needs an iPhone or iPad on iOS/iPadOS 27.2 or later, and isn’t sold in the EU.
The catch: Unreleased. Whether subscribed, Google, or Outlook calendars show on it is unconfirmed.
For a family that wants one always-on kitchen view everyone glances at, with chores, meals, and photos around the calendar, and that would rather set it up from an app than build anything. It connects Google, Apple, or Outlook calendars or subscribes to a feed URL directly; calendar sync is in the base product, and the extras (Magic Import, meal planning, chore rewards) are Skylight Plus at $79/year.
The catch: No published refresh interval for URL-synced calendars; routing through Google or Apple adds a 12–24-hour hop.
For a family that thinks in columns: one per kid, each showing exactly that kid’s events. Hearth’s Companion app subscribes to URL-based calendars and lets you assign each one to a person, and its own docs name TeamSnap feeds and school-district calendars as the kind of thing you paste in. It can also export its own calendar URL for other tools.
The catch: Hearth notes external syncs can take hours, and the display updates silently.
For the family with a tinkerer in it. DAKboard runs on their hardware or a Raspberry Pi you build yourself, and you compose the screen: calendar widgets, photos, weather, each widget showing whichever added calendars you choose, styled from its Settings and Formatting tabs. Its calendar widget accepts an iCal/ICS link directly, so no Google account is needed in the middle.
The catch: External feeds refresh on DAKboard’s own cycle, silently — and you’re the one maintaining the screen.
Every display on this page is only a screen. It shows whatever calendar it’s pointed at, and it shows it exactly as wrong as the source. A family with two or three kids on TeamSnap, GameChanger, SportsEngine, and a school PDF doesn’t have one calendar to point a display at — they have five, one of them is paper, and when the coach moves Saturday’s game on Thursday night, none of the four screens above will tell you.
Schedule Caddie builds the one calendar. It’s free: paste every team app’s calendar link (20+ platforms, with step-by-step guides), upload the school PDF, and you get one merged family calendar, color-coded by kid inside Schedule Caddie. It re-checks every source hourly, and when a game moves it emails you naming exactly what changed. The display updates silently; Schedule Caddie tells you it changed. Then hand that one feed to whichever screen you chose:
If you want a shared family calendar on the wall today, choose among the three that exist: Hearth if you think in one-column-per-kid, Skylight if you want one kitchen view with chores and photos around it and an app-based setup, DAKboard if you’d rather build and style the screen yourself. All three take a Schedule Caddie feed URL as-is.
If you want an Apple screen for the household and the calendar is one of several reasons, HomeView is what Apple is describing — but it doesn’t ship until November 13, Apple hasn’t said whether subscribed calendars appear on it, and we won’t pretend to know. If the calendar is the main reason, wait for the hands-on reviews, or for ours.
There isn’t one answer, and we’d distrust any page that gives you one. Skylight, Hearth, and DAKboard all take a calendar feed URL today and show one shared view to the household — they differ in layout (Hearth’s per-kid columns, DAKboard’s compose-it-yourself widgets, Skylight’s single kitchen view with chores and photos around it) and in how much setup you want to do. Apple HomeView is a different kind of product: a personal Apple screen where each enrolled person sees their own Calendar, and it hasn’t shipped yet. Pick the display by how your family wants to look at the wall, then make sure the calendar you point it at is right.
No. Apple announced it October 13, 2026 and opened pre-orders the same day; it ships November 13, 2026. Everything on this page about HomeView comes from Apple’s own product page, tech specs, Store FAQ, Newsroom release, and developer guidelines — there are no hands-on reviews yet, and we haven’t used one. We’ll revise this page the week it arrives.
Skylight (Calendar URL in the Skylight app), Hearth (Subscribe via URL in the Hearth Companion app), and DAKboard (iCal/ICS Link in the calendar widget) all do today. Apple hasn’t said whether subscribed calendars show on HomeView; HomeView has no App Store and Apple says it syncs with your paired iPhone to show your Calendar, so the one step you can take now is to subscribe the feed in the Calendar app on that iPhone and choose iCloud.
Not that any maker has published. Skylight, Hearth, and DAKboard each re-read a subscribed feed on their own cycle and update the screen silently; Apple hasn’t said how HomeView refreshes a calendar or whether it alerts you. That half of the job is upstream: Schedule Caddie re-checks every source hourly and emails you naming exactly what changed, whichever screen is on the wall.
Because we haven’t verified them. We only publish prices we’ve checked against the maker’s own pages or retail listings — Skylight’s pricing was checked in August 2026 and Apple’s is from its October 13 announcement. For Hearth and DAKboard, check the maker; if you tell us what you found, we’ll verify and add it.
HomeView details are from Apple’s product page, tech specs, Apple Store FAQ, October 13 Newsroom release, and Human Interface Guidelines, read October 15, 2026. Skylight details are from Skylight’s support pages and 2026 retail listings, checked August 2026. Hearth details are from Hearth’s published Connect Calendars documentation, September 2026. DAKboard details were verified on a live DAKboard in September 2026. If any company changes something, tell us and we’ll update this page.
Every kid, every schedule, every app — merged, color-coded, and watched for changes.
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Team apps, school calendars, and paper schedules — merged, color-coded, change-alerted.