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When I first learned about the Skylight Calendar, I thought it was a family tool. After all, this Types of devices that collect calendars and to-do lists, such as the Hearth Displaygenerally advertised to families as a way to stay organized. But I live alone and use my Skylight every day, and I find it amazingly useful even without kids.
Skylight is a digital hub that aims to help organize your life, and the company does too Digital photo framesThe Skylight Calendar is the most useful: it’s a calendar compiler, to-do list, and dinner planner, as well as a digital photo frame. The Skylight Calendar looks like a cross between a tablet and a framed photo, and comes in a 15-inch Standard version or a massive 27-inch Max version that you can mount to your wall vertically or horizontally with a simple clip.
The Skylight’s screen has a series of tabs on the left that scroll through its main functions, the most important of which are the calendar, to-do lists, and photos. You can set a default display by clicking on the top-left menu and choosing the display you prefer. You can also set up your own Skylight Calendar sleep hours by tapping the menu and selecting “Sleep Mode.” I set the clock from 11pm to 5am, but a simple tap would always wake the screen, and I never had to double-tap or wait for the screen to respond from lag.
The calendar function is the best part of Skylight Calendar
Credit: Amanda Bloom
The calendar is easily the most functional part of Skylight. You can pull up your existing Google, iCal, Outlook, Cozi, or Yahoo Calendar, and they can seamlessly sync with your Skylight going forward. You can pull multiple calendars from multiple sources too, each color coded, so you can choose different colors for different members of your family (or if you’re single like me, use color coding to differentiate between work tasks and home tasks). You can also enter custom events directly into Skylight, but I suspect most people don’t do that since most of us already have digital calendars elsewhere, and there’s not much you can do with Skylight Calendar except see it in your app or display.
Skylight Calendar is also a digital photo frame
Credit: Amanda Bloom
The market is full of digital photo frames such as aura and PixarThere are family management centers like Hearth Display that also let you upload custom photos. Skylight Calendar walks the line between the two: It’s a combined calendar and planning tool, but it’s still a digital photo frame (if you have a Pro plan subscription), and Skylight encourages you to share photos with other users. People can send you photos using the app if they’re subscribed users, or they can email photos to your designated Skylight email address. As the administrator, you can then choose which photos you want to display in your calendar. As long as the screen is set to Photos, your Skylight will scroll through whatever has been approved.
I was confused about the idea of emailing Skylight photos, but really, the calendar isn’t meant to be sophisticated. If you have parents or older relatives who don’t want another app, email is just an easier way to send photos. My friends who have or don’t have skylights still send me pictures of their kids, and in return I send them pictures of everything I cook and pictures of their Dobermans in underwear. In this way, I like Skylight as a less expensive center that is accessible to outside family and friends.
How to use Sidekick to upload tasks, chores, or events
Credit: Amanda Bloom
Skylight has a feature called Sidekick (with a Pro Plan subscription), which can take any text image — a cookbook recipe, a school bulletin, or a printed menu, for example — and add it to the appropriate Skylight category. You can import events, meal planning, and to-do lists from PDFs, emails, or photos, and I was amazed at how well this worked. I can take photos of my to-do list from ToDoist, and Sidekick copies them into separate tasks on my Skylight. It’s not technologically advanced, but it works. I also asked my friend to send me the most annoying PTA post, and Sidekick got the exact name, date, location, and details of the event.
You can also use the Sidekick as a microphone to tell Skylight about an event, to-do list, or recipe. I prefer that the Skylight syncs with my voice assistants like Siri and Google Assistant so I can quickly add things to lists, but it only takes a few swipes to access the Sidekick and add items to my grocery list.
You can create custom Skylight Lists
Credit: Amanda Bloom
Skylight offers several ways to customize to-do items. You can create as many lists as you like, from shopping lists to to-do lists, with some notable limitations: subtasks are not available, you cannot reorder tasks, you cannot set deadlines, and you Assign a task to a specific user as you can with Hearth Display. I still find these simple menus usable, but if you’re looking for something more functional, you’ll have to look elsewhere or use the Chores feature.
Reusable, customizable chore lists
Although the name suggests a way of distributing tasks to younger family members, “housework” is actually a list of job tasks. You can create household tasks and assign them to your family members, set deadlines, make them recurring if necessary, and assign a reward value to the task (Skylight calls these “stars”). You can access rewards in a separate tab in your app and set them, allow users to redeem them, or remove them.
Again, this isn’t as functional as Asana or ToDoist, for example – you can’t break down routine tasks into separate lists, only individual tasks, and I’m wondering why “lists” exist when they’re a less functional version of chores – but you can choose The suitability of these tools for your family. Perhaps my biggest annoyance is that you can’t use Sidekick on Chores, so you can’t quickly import or add to lists via the microphone.
How to create meal plans using your Skylight Calendar
Credit: Amanda Bloom
Skylight’s meal planning tool (with a Pro Plan subscription) can take your preferences into account and plan an entire menu around them. (I was interested in how well the meal planner handled my preferences since you tell the planner your preferences in a plain text box, so I entered “I don’t like oatmeal,” and that removed all suggested oatmeal breakfasts from my planner.) You can upload your own recipes, or use Sidekick to upload Photo your favorite recipes, or save Skylight recipes to your recipe box. You can also easily add planned meals to your grocery shopping list. Although I see this as a great family tool, I like it as a tool for myself, for one person. There are hordes of apps dedicated to meal planning, and a number of them are probably better than Skylight, but it’s a nice feature to have in an all-in-one organizational tool.
My biggest frustration is the Skylight calendar
When I got my Skylight a year ago, my biggest disappointment was that it had all this extra functionality — from to-do lists to meal planning — but it didn’t let you combine from existing apps like ToDoist, Asana, or any number of others. Meal planning apps. As a workaround, I’ve found that most of the apps I use, including ToDoist, can Synchronized To Google Calendar, which I then bring into my Skylight to stay in my calendar. Obviously I would prefer to have these tasks located in the To Do tab in my Skylight, but I will have to wait for that functionality to be added.
How much do Skylight braces cost?
The Skylight Calendar is $319.99 for the 15-inch version, while the massive 27-inch Max Calendar is $599 on backorder. Skylight offers a $39 annual subscription called the Pro Plan. It’s not required, but most of the features mentioned above, from using photos, the import tool, and meal planning, are only possible with the Pro plan. The first month of the Skylight Pro plan is free, so you can try it out and see if the difference works for you.
Is Skylight Calendar worth it?
Most families probably already use apps for to-do lists, calendars, and perhaps meal planning. If you’re willing to invest $300 in a central family hub, the Skylight could be great. I also think it’s great as a single person: as someone with ADHD, it’s invaluable. I have my calendar installed in my bathroom, so it’s one of the first things I see every morning and reminds me of things to do and meetings every day. There are more expensive family management tools Like a fireplace displaybut they can run close to $600, and I’m not sure if they offer double the functionality.
