Happy HerdBuilt for the kitchen wall,
not squeezed onto it
This started as a tablet on a wall in Pennsylvania. Mount any tablet you already own, join with your family code, and the board becomes readable from across the room by a nine-year-old holding a bowl of cereal.
Mounting a tablet right now? Open this page on it and tap Open Happy Herd — the browser version installs to the home screen.
On the free plan. There is no hardware to buy and nothing to subscribe to. Comparing this against a Skylight? →
🌷Mom
🐻Dad
🦊Ella
🐢Jack
Not just the app, bigger
A phone screen scaled up is unreadable at two metres and unsafe on a shared device. Wall mode is its own layout with its own rules.
Everyone's column
One column per person, side by side. Nobody has to swipe to find themselves.
Tonight's dinner
Answered before the question is asked, to whoever walks past.
Tomorrow's preview
What's coming, so the school bag gets packed the night before instead of at 7:40.
Kids can tick, and only tick
Ticking today's chore works for anyone standing there. Everything else silently asks for the parent PIN.
The screen stays awake
A wake lock keeps it on while it's the board, so it's information rather than a black rectangle.
It returns by itself
Wander off mid-screen and it comes back to the board on its own. No one has to reset it.
Photo screensaver
After a few idle minutes it becomes a family photo frame. Set the delay and the photo links yourself.
Long-press corner to exit
Deliberately awkward, so a toddler can't get out of wall mode by prodding it.
Or make it a visual schedule
Switch that tablet to Calm Mode and the wall draws today as a sequence — one row per person, now highlighted, next resting quietly. The picture schedule from the fridge, keeping itself up to date.
A setup guide in the app
Including a free-TV option, if what you have is a spare screen rather than a spare tablet.
About ten minutes, most of it finding the charger
Find a tablet
Any iPad or Android tablet you already own. An old one is fine — this is a good second life for a device that's too slow for anything else.
Open it on that tablet
Open Happy Herd in the tablet's browser and add it to the home screen — nothing to install from a store. Or install the app. Either way, enter your six-character family code; there's no account to create on that device.
Turn on wall display
Settings → Wall display → "Use this tablet as our wall display". It's a per-device setting, so your phone is unaffected.
Mount it and plug it in
A wall mount and a cable run. Keep it on power — the screen stays awake by design.
🌐 What the browser version does
Happy Herd runs in any modern browser — the same board, the same family, the same code. A few things belong to the phone apps and aren't there:
- Everything on the board: chores, calendar, meals, lists, rewards, Calm Mode, the wall display
- ✦ Magic Add by photo or pasted text
- Siri, the OS share sheet and push notifications — phone apps only
- The Happy Herd Family Plan is bought in the phone apps; the browser runs the free plan
The wall came first. The app came second.
Happy Herd began as a screen in a kitchen, because a family calendar that lives on one parent's phone isn't a family calendar — it's that parent's calendar, and everyone else has to ask them. Putting it on a wall changes who can answer their own questions.
Which is why the wall display isn't an upsell here. Companies that sell a screen have to charge you for the screen. This one runs on a tablet you already own, on the free plan.
About the wall display
Do I need to buy a special screen?
No. That's the main difference between Happy Herd and the hardware products in this category. Any tablet you already own works, and the wall display is on the free plan.
Can my kids change things on it?
They can tick today's chores, which is the point of having it. Everything else — settings, money, deleting things, sharing the calendar — silently asks for the parent PIN. The tablet on the wall is the least trusted device in your household by design.
Will it burn the screen in?
The screensaver exists partly for this. Set the idle delay to something short and it cycles photos instead of holding a static layout.
Does it work in landscape?
Yes — landscape is what wall mode is built for. The layout has its own landscape rules rather than stretching the portrait one.
What about an old tablet that can't update?
Try it. If the app installs, wall mode is one of the lighter things it can do. If it doesn't, the setup guide in the app covers using a spare TV instead.
Put the week on the wall.
Free forever, on a tablet you already own. Nothing to buy, nothing for the kids to sign up for.
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