Happy HerdOne thing at a time,
in a steady order
Calm Mode is a different shape for the same board. Each person sees the thing they are on, with the next resting quietly behind it. No counts. Nothing moves on its own. And nothing is deleted — switch back and the whole board returns.
Built for autistic and ADHD families, and free on every plan.
Families are mixed.
One child needs one-thing-at-a-time. Their sibling wants the whole list. A parent wants the month view. A separate app makes that family choose — so it serves them worse than the app they already have.
Per device, not per household
Calm lives on the device that chose it. One kid's tablet can be in Calm while the kitchen wall is in Standard and your phone is in whatever you like. You can also set a household default that new devices inherit.
Switch either way, any time
Turning Calm on replaces what's on screen, not what's in your family. No chore is deleted, no person becomes unreachable, no setting is lost. Turning it off gives you the complete board back, exactly as it was.
The same board underneath
Same chores, same calendar, same rewards, same everything. A parent on the full board and a child in Calm are looking at one truth in two shapes.
A sequence, not a wall of twelve
The standard board shows everything a child owes today. For some children that's motivating. For others it's the reason nothing gets started at all. In Calm Mode the day becomes a sequence: the thing they're on, offered properly, with the next one resting dimmed behind it.
- The current chore is the only one you can tap
- The next one is visible but quiet — so there's no surprise, and no queue
- Time-of-day buckets become the order of the day rather than four lists
- The 27-pixel checkbox and the instant payout stay exactly as they are
- Late chips are hidden. A child who is behind does not need a badge telling them so
Calm ships a bar with no number on it
"3 of 8 done" is encouraging to a lot of children. To some it reads as a demand, and a demand is the thing that ends the morning. So in Calm Mode progress is a bar and nothing else — the same bar, without the denominator.
If the numbers help your child, they're one switch away: Show streaks and counts in Settings puts them back without leaving Calm. That's the whole change.
How long it lasts, not just when it starts
A clock time tells you when something begins. It says nothing about how much of your afternoon it takes, or how much of it is left — which is the part that's hard to hold on to. Calm Mode draws it instead.
- Every event is a block sized to its real length — 45 minutes looks like 45 minutes
- "12 min left" counts down on whatever is happening now, and disappears when it ends
- A now line across today, so where you are is a place on the page
- Calm opens on Day, not Month — a month grid is an abstraction, today is concrete
- Today and tomorrow, and no further. Two concrete days instead of a week to scan
"Five minutes until we leave" — on the screen, not in a notification
Transitions are where the day comes apart. Calm Mode puts a quiet line on the board before one arrives — the member's own colour, no animation, no sound, no alarm.
Nothing is ever scheduled
The banner isn't a push notification waiting to fire. It's computed from your board and the current time, once a minute. That means Happy Herd never needs notification permission for this to work — and it means there's no stale alert to chase.
Change the plan and it just changes
Move the event, skip today's occurrence, or delete it, and the warning recomputes from the new truth on the next minute. Nothing is left over pointing at something that isn't happening.
Quiet by construction
Calm zeroes motion everywhere, so there is nothing animated near the banner. When there's no transition coming, there's no empty box holding its place — the container is simply gone.
The visual schedule families tape to the fridge —
except it updates itself
A laminated picture schedule is the most universal tool in this house and the most tedious thing in it to maintain. Put Happy Herd on any tablet you already own, switch that device to Calm, and today's sequence draws itself: one row per person, in time order, all day.
- Now carries the person's own colour at full strength — identity is how you find yourself on it
- Next rests in a quieter ink, so what's coming is visible without competing
- Zero motion and zero controls. A wall display is for reading, not operating
- A child can still tick today's chore. Everything else stays behind the parent PIN
- No hardware to buy, and it's on the free plan
🌷Mom
🐻Dad
🦊Ella
🐢Jack
It's a shape, not a smaller product
Everyone keeps their colour
Calm settles the surfaces, never the people. Member colours stay at full strength because that's how a child finds their own row from across the kitchen.
Ticking still pays immediately
The reward lands the moment the box is ticked. Nothing is batched, delayed or held back for review — immediacy is the point.
Rewards still work
Goals, banks and payouts run exactly as they do on the full board. In Calm the reward is shown, not edited — editing goes through the parent PIN like everything else.
The calendar is still the calendar
School feeds, Google sync, published links, carpool asks. Calm changes how today is drawn, not what's in it.
Nothing new to unlock
No second PIN pad, no separate settings area, no parallel set of screens to learn. It's the same app with one switch flipped.
One tap back
Every mode declares its own way out and every one of them leads to Standard. "Off" always means the whole board.
Pick the shape that fits the person
All three are free, all three are per device, and all three are one tap from each other.
| 🗂️ Standard | 🎯 Focus | 🌿 Calm | |
|---|---|---|---|
| The idea | The whole board at once | One thing at a time, in bigger type | One thing at a time, in a steady order |
| Chores | Every chore, grouped | Now and next, enlarged | The day as a sequence |
| Counts & percentages | Shown | Put away | A bar, no number |
| Type size | Normal | 125% | Normal |
| Contrast | Normal | High | Normal |
| Motion | Normal | Stilled | Stilled |
| Calendar opens on | Week | Week | Day |
| Duration blocks & "min left" | — | — | Yes |
| Transition banner | — | — | Yes |
| Late chips | Shown | Shown | Hidden |
| Wall display | The family board | The family board | The visual schedule |
Every switch inside a mode is individually adjustable — one at a time, counts, calmer motion — without leaving the mode.
Two taps, on the device that needs it
Open Settings on that device
The gear on the board. It's a per-device choice, so do this on the tablet or phone the person actually uses.
Choose 🌿 Calm
One switch. The board redraws immediately — no restart, no sign-out, no setup wizard.
Adjust if you want to
Counts back on, motion back on, one-at-a-time off. Each is its own switch and none of them takes you out of Calm.
Optionally set the default
"Make this the household default" is a separate, deliberate action — so a new device starts in Calm without you touching every screen.
About Calm Mode
Does it cost anything?
No. Calm Mode is free on every plan, forever, on every device. We're not going to charge families for the shape of the screen that works for their child.
Does turning it on change what my other children see?
No. The choice lives on the device that made it. One child's tablet can be in Calm while the kitchen wall is in Standard and your phone is in Focus. The only thing that reaches other devices is the separate, deliberate "make this the household default" action — and even that only affects devices that haven't chosen for themselves yet.
Will my child see the word "autistic" or "ADHD" anywhere in the app?
No. In the app the mode is called Calm, and that is the only name it has on any screen, including the one on your kitchen wall. Those words appear on this website, where a parent is reading, and nowhere else. A diagnosis is a family's business and not something the fridge should announce.
Is anything deleted or hidden permanently?
Nothing. Calm changes how the day is drawn. Every chore, every event, every reward and every person is exactly where they were, and one tap returns the full board.
Do I need to allow notifications for the transition warnings?
No. The warning is drawn on the board itself, recomputed once a minute from your actual schedule. Nothing is scheduled and no permission is requested for it.
My child likes seeing the numbers. Can I keep them?
Yes — "Show streaks and counts" is a switch inside the mode. Calm ships with the numbers off because a denominator reads as a demand to some children, but it's your call, not ours.
What about a child who needs bigger type and stronger contrast?
That's Focus mode — one thing at a time at 125% with high contrast. Calm and Focus are different answers to different needs; try both, they're both free and both one tap away.
Does Calm Mode work on the wall tablet?
Yes, and it's the strongest thing about it. In Calm the wall becomes a visual schedule: one row per person, today in time order, now highlighted and next resting quietly. Zero motion, zero controls.
Is this a therapy tool?
No, and we won't describe it as one. Happy Herd is a family organiser. Calm Mode changes what's on the screen — how many things at once, whether there's a number on the bar, whether you can see how long something lasts. What that's worth in your house is yours to judge.
One board. Whatever shape each person needs.
Calm Mode is free on every plan. Get an email the day Happy Herd is live — nothing else, ever.
Free forever for the whole family · The Family Plan is $4.99/mo with 7 days free · Nothing for the rest of your family to install