The Skylight Calendar 2 is a polished product with one expensive assumption built in: that you need to buy another screen. If there's a tablet in a drawer somewhere in your house, you probably don't.
30 days free, every feature, no card. About 10 minutes to set up.
Both put a shared family calendar on the kitchen wall, pull in Google Calendar, and handle chores, meals and grocery lists.
Skylight sells you the screen: $299.99 for the 16″ Calendar 2, plus $79/year for Skylight Plus once the included year runs out. It's a nice screen. It's also $300 for something most households already own.
Family Kiosk is just the software: $69/year on a tablet, spare monitor or old laptop you already have. Photograph an invitation and it becomes an event. And if you ever cancel, you still own the screen.
With the screen included, because the screen is the point.
| Family Kiosk | Skylight Calendar 2 | |
|---|---|---|
| The screen | $0 you already have one | $299.99 16″ touchscreen |
| Subscription | $69/year Family + Wall plan | $79/year Skylight Plus, after year one |
| Three years, all in | $207 | $536.99 |
| Wall display | Yes — your tablet, monitor or laptop | Yes — their screen |
| Photograph an invitation → event | Yes, with a review step before anything is added | Yes, on Plus plans |
| Google Calendar sync | Yes, two-way and optional | Yes |
| Chores, meals, grocery lists | Yes | Yes |
| Screen still useful if you cancel | Yes — it goes back to being a tablet | No |
Prices as published August 2026: myskylight.com. Skylight's first year of Plus is included with the device; $79/year applies after. Also comparing? Hearth Display runs $699 plus from $86.40/year — $958.20 over three years.
Fair is fair. The Skylight Calendar arrives in a box, works out of that box, and everything about it is tuned for exactly one job. There's no setup beyond plugging it in, the hardware is purpose-built and looks it, and if something breaks there's one company to call. If you want an appliance — and some households do — it's a good appliance.
The trade is that the appliance is the subscription. The screen has no other life: stop paying and you own a $300 photo frame. And the price of entry is the $300, before it has shown your family a single dentist appointment.
The screen is yours, so the risk is small. Try it for 30 days free on the iPad that's been in a drawer since 2019. Worst case, the iPad goes back in the drawer and you've spent nothing.
It reads paper. A birthday invitation, a school newsletter, a whole term's swim schedule — photograph it, check what it read, tap Add. A recipe becomes a grocery list the same way, skipping what's already on there. Nothing is ever added until you've seen it.
Google Calendar stays your home base. Family Kiosk makes its own calendar in your Google account rather than writing into your personal one — family events reach your phone, and your work meetings never reach the kitchen wall.
Kids don't need accounts. Everyone gets a name and a colour. The app asks who you are instead of making a nine-year-old remember a password.
Any screen works. An iPad from 2017 on is comfortable. A $90 Android tablet, a Fire tablet, a spare monitor with a streaming stick, an old laptop — all fine. No touchscreen? Add things from your phone and the wall just displays.
Over three years, yes, by about $330. Family Kiosk: $0 hardware + $69/year = $207. Skylight Calendar 2: $299.99 + $79/year after the first year = $536.99. If you already pay for nothing and want the cheapest possible shared calendar, Cozi's free tier beats both — without a wall display.
No. If your household has a tablet from roughly 2017 onwards, a spare monitor, or an old laptop, that's the screen. We don't sell hardware and take no cut if you buy some.
Yes — photograph the paper, or forward the school email, and the dates come back as events you approve. The review step is deliberate: nothing lands on the family calendar until a person has seen what was read and tapped Add.
You keep read access to your calendar and can export everything. The screen was yours to begin with, so it goes back to being a tablet. That's the structural difference between renting software and buying a device that rents software.
Not yet — Google Calendar only today, both directions. If Apple Calendar is your dealbreaker, tell us; it's the request we hear most.
Every feature free for 30 days. No card. About ten minutes to the wall.
Or read how to turn an old iPad into a family wall calendar first.