Happy HerdSame wall. Same glance.
No screen to buy.
If you're reading Skylight reviews with a tab open on the Costco listing, this page is for you. Happy Herd does the thing you actually want — a calendar on the kitchen wall the whole family reads without asking — on a tablet you probably already have in a drawer.
Want to see it before you decide? Tap Open Happy Herd — it runs in the browser, nothing to install, no card.
Written by us, so read it accordingly. We've tried to be straight about what Skylight does better, and there's a section below that does exactly that.
🌷Mom
🐻Dad
🦊Ella
🐢Jack
What each one costs to put on a wall
Skylight's subscription price is from Skylight's own support page, checked August 2026. Hardware prices move with model, size and retailer, so we've described rather than quoted them — check the current number yourself before you decide.
Skylight Calendar
A purpose-built touchscreen, bought once, in one size, for one wall. Then Skylight Plus at $79 a year for the features most people end up wanting.
The screen itself is a few hundred dollars depending on size and where you buy it — a 15-inch bundle was listed around $270 at one big-box retailer when we looked in August 2026.
Happy Herd
Runs on a tablet you already own. The wall display, the calendar, the lists, the chore board and Calm Mode are free, forever. The Happy Herd Family Plan is $4.99 a month, with 7 days free, and adds rewards, allowance, meals and Magic Add.
And it's on every phone in the house at the same time, at no extra cost, because there's no device to buy per surface.
The honest summary: if you already have a spare tablet, the wall calendar costs you nothing. If you don't, a used tablet is still well under the price of a dedicated screen — and it stays a tablet if you ever change your mind.
What Skylight genuinely does better
We'd rather you buy the right thing than buy ours. Three of these are real and we can't match them.
It's a nicer object
A purpose-built screen in a frame looks better on a wall than a tablet in a mount. That's just true, and if you want a beautiful piece of hardware that arrives working, that's a legitimate thing to want.
It arrives working
Open the box, plug it in, done. Ours asks you to find a tablet, find the charger and mount it — about ten minutes, most of it looking for the cable.
One purpose, no distractions
A Skylight can't wander off to YouTube because it isn't a tablet. Ours long-presses to exit and returns to the board on its own, which is close, but it isn't the same as physically not being able to.
Chores and lists are on both
Skylight added chores and lists too. This isn't a feature-count argument — it's about what the screen costs and what else it does.
The parts a screen on the wall can't do
It's on everyone's phone too
The wall is one view of the board, not the whole product. The same family board is on every phone and tablet in the house, and there's no second device to buy for the second parent.
Allowance in real dollars
Chores pay out in actual money and a screen-time bank, with parent approval and undo. See how that works →
Photograph the flyer
Point your camera at the paper that came home in the school bag and it becomes dated events, the "bring a white t-shirt" note and the fee. Magic Add →
Calm Mode
The same wall, redrawn as a visual schedule: one thing at a time, in a steady order, with time drawn as length instead of numbers. Built for autistic and ADHD households, free on every plan. Calm Mode →
No accounts for the kids
No child email addresses, no logins to hand out, no passwords to reset. A six-character family code and a card each.
No ads, ever
Not on the free plan, not anywhere. Nothing is sold, nothing is tracked across the web.
Turning a tablet you own into the wall board
This is the whole "DIY Skylight" project, and it's shorter than the ones on Pinterest.
Find a tablet
Any iPad, Fire or Android tablet. An old, slow one is ideal — this is a genuinely good second life for a device that can't keep up with anything else.
Open Happy Herd on it
In the tablet's browser, then add to the home screen — nothing to install from a store. Enter your six-character family code. No account is created on that device.
Turn on wall mode
The layout changes: one column per person, tonight's dinner, tomorrow's preview, readable across a kitchen. The screen holds itself awake.
Stick it to the wall
A $15 adhesive mount and a charging cable. If what you have spare is a TV rather than a tablet, there's a guide for that in the app.
Before you spend the money
Do I need a subscription to use Happy Herd on the wall?
No. The wall display, the shared calendar, the lists, the chore board and Calm Mode are free forever, with no ads and no card. The Happy Herd Family Plan is $4.99 a month, with 7 days free, and adds rewards, allowance in real dollars, meal planning and Magic Add. The free plan is a product, not a trial.
Is there a Skylight alternative that doesn't need any hardware?
That's this. Happy Herd runs on the phones and tablets you already own — there is no Happy Herd device and there won't be one. If you want a screen on the kitchen wall, you supply the screen; a drawer tablet, a cheap new one, or a spare TV all work.
Can I use an old iPad or Fire tablet?
Yes, and it's the most common setup. Wall mode is deliberately light so an older tablet handles it comfortably. It needs to be new enough to run a current browser, and it needs to stay plugged in — the board holds a wake lock so it doesn't sleep.
My Skylight isn't syncing with Google Calendar. Can Happy Herd help?
We can't fix a Skylight — for that, Skylight's own support is the right place. What we can tell you is how ours behaves: Happy Herd syncs Google two ways, so an edit on the wall goes back to Google and an edit in Google shows up on the wall. You can also subscribe to school and sports calendars by link, and publish your family's calendar out to someone else.
Can I keep the Skylight I already bought?
Of course, and plenty of people will. If both are pointed at the same Google calendar they'll show the same events. Happy Herd's chores, allowance, lists and meals live in Happy Herd — those aren't going to appear on a Skylight.
What does it cost to put Happy Herd on a second wall?
Nothing, beyond the second tablet. There's no per-device charge and no device limit — the same family code works on every screen in the house, and on every phone.
Try it on the tablet in your drawer first.
Free forever for the wall display, calendar, lists and chores. If it doesn't earn its place on the wall, you've spent nothing.
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