Skylight Calendar Is Here To Help You Reclaim Your Scheduling Sanity
Color-coded and connected
Skylight
We’re just one quarter into the school year and already it’s impossible to keep track of who’s doing what and when.
Sure, you have a family Google calendar that you share…but no one seems to update it, instead keeping unshared calendars on their phone, or writing things down on paper, or just not recording anything at all. Then there’s the “death by a thousand cuts” types of questions. Like what’s for dinner and did the kids clean their bathroom like they’re supposed to each week?
It’s this constant peck, peck, pecking at your resolve that leads to everyone needing a ride to three different places at the same time, grabbing whatever fast food is on the way.
What you need is a physical version of your shared family calendar that’s also digital so that you can update it (and it can get updated) on the fly, that keeps track of things like dinner plans, chores, and grocery lists. You need Skylight Calendar.
What is it?
Skylight Calendar 15 and 10
Skylight
Skylight Calendar is a 10- or 15-inch digital touchscreen that you can mount on the wall or stand on your counter. It syncs to your Google, Outlook, Apple, Cozi and Yahoo calendars and displays a variety of calendar views. It also has built-in chore chart, list, and meal planning functions.
In a welcome twist on today’s “loss leader hardware that really sells a subscription” market, that base functionality is all included in the price of the device. You don’t have to sign up for anything unless you want to add the ability to use Skylight as a digital picture frame or be able to “magically” import events in PDFs to your calendar. And even then, it’s a measly $39 a year to add those features.
How do I set it up?
Y’know what, box inspo message, you’re actually right about that
Anthony Karcz
The Skylight Calendar comes pretty much ready to go out of the box. I chose the 15-inch model over the 10-inch. The border on the smaller model feels like it takes as much space as the screen itself. The 15-inch Skylight has a minimalist white frame with a border that fades into the background once the screen is on.
If you’re using the Skylight on the counter, you’ll need to install a surprisingly chunky stand to the back of the device. I suppose it’s over-engineered to keep the screen stable while people poke at it but I feel like there must be a solution that doesn’t keep the Skylight six inches from the back of the counter.
That’s really my only issue with the hardware though. Once you plug in Skylight, you’ll connect it to WiFi, pair it with the app on your phone, and start using it like, well, a calendar.
Does it work?
You can sync any number of Google calendars to Skylight so that you can see everyone’s schedule in one place. What’s nice is that you can add and modify events on the calendar using the touchscreen (though the onscreen keyboard is a bit laggy) and they’ll sync back to the associated Google Calendar.
Everything’s better with a confetti toast
Skylight
The chore chart, dinner plans, and lists all sync back to the Skylight app. Though it’d be nice if I could get the lists to export to Reminders in iOS, since I use that on my Apple Watch when grocery shopping (Skylight doesn’t have a watchOS app).
I’ve found Skylight to be extremely helpful, especially in week view (there are a number of ways to see your calendars). The screen is large enough and the event cards have enough real estate that I can see what’s going on at a glance. Different calendars are color-coded, so it’s easy to figure out who’s doing what (or who’s overscheduled for the week).
About the only thing that Skylight doesn’t have in Calendar view is the ability to search. I was trying to remember when I’d scheduled my haircut (when it didn’t pop up in week view) and had to punt back to the Calendar app on my phone to find it. I’d love to see that added at some point.
If you want Skylight to be a digital picture frame, you can do that too (as long as you’ve signed up for their Calendar Plus plan), though the display’s viewing angle means pictures only really pop when viewed from the front. To be fair, if I hadn’t spent time with Aura and Meural devices, that are purpose-built as digital picture frames, I might not have noticed.
Still, it’s a nice extra and means that you don’t have to have a digital calendar sitting on your counter all the time. For my Swiss-cheese brain, I’ve found that hiding the calendar behind a photo screensaver defeats the purpose. For Skylight to work its magic, I need it in calendar mode 24/7.
But does it work? Well my Luddite family that keeps paper calendars or no calendars at all haven’t taken to it but I find it quite helpful. If you have significant others who do use Google Calendar or want to give your kids a bit of agency over their schedule, and chore lists, and the grocery list (be ready to delete a lot of cookie entries), it’s a fantastic addition to your home organization arsenal.
Where can I get it?
Skylight Calendar starts at $149 for the 10-inch calendar with the Plus Plan (free for the first month, then $39 annually). You can also buy just the device with no plan for $10 more. The 15-inch calendar starts at $289. The price is pretty steep but, again, Skylight isn’t forcing you into a digital subscription and subsidizing the cost of the hardware. I’ll take paying more for a device I can use without a subscription any day.
Skylight Calendar is a refined package with an easy-to-use touchscreen interface, seamless calendar syncing, and more. It’ll instantly become part of your daily routine.
Check it out on the Skylight website.
