Any iPad from 2018 or later — including the cheap base model and any iPad mini — is more than capable of running as an always-on family calendar display. The screen is sharper than a Skylight (Retina vs Skylight's non-Retina LCD), the panel is more colour-accurate, and the OS gets security updates for ten years instead of going EOL when the manufacturer pivots.
The reason most people don't do this is not technical. It's that nobody has written down the three settings you need to change for an iPad to behave like a dedicated display: Auto-Lock off, screen brightness automation, and a single app pinned to the screen. Once those are set, the iPad behaves exactly like a Skylight or Hearth — except it cost you nothing.
How to do it.
Pick the iPad.
Any iPad from 2018 onwards works. The base iPad, iPad Air, iPad Pro, and iPad mini are all fine. You want the screen to be 9.7" or larger if you can — a mini works but you'll squint at it from across the kitchen.
A newer iPad gets you a brighter, sharper screen and more years of OS updates, but almost any iPad from 2018 on makes a great always-on family display. The screen is the point — large, legible, and glanceable from across the kitchen while someone is cooking with their hands wet.
Mount it somewhere visible.
Three options, in order of cost. (1) Kitchen-counter stand — $25–$60 on Amazon, no installation, easy to take down for video calls. Search "iPad kitchen stand" and pick anything with a 4+ star rating and an adjustable angle. (2) Under-cabinet swing-arm — $30–$50, screws into the underside of a cabinet, flips down when you want it and up when you don't. (3) Wall mount — $30–$120, looks the most permanent, requires drilling. The Belkin TabletPlus or any VESA-compatible iPad case works.
Whichever you pick, plug it in via a long Lightning or USB-C cable run along the back of the counter. An iPad displaying a calendar will burn through battery in 6–8 hours; you want it plugged in continuously.
Set Auto-Lock to Never.
This is the most important setting. Open Settings → Display & Brightness → Auto-Lock → Never. The iPad will now stay awake as long as it has power. Without this, every time someone walks past the kitchen the screen is dark.
You can also dim the brightness manually overnight or set up an Automation (Settings → Shortcuts → Personal Automation) to drop brightness to 5% between 10 PM and 7 AM. Tiny touch, makes a huge difference in a kitchen at midnight.
Pin a single app to the screen.
You don't want family members accidentally swiping into Safari or seeing your work emails. Use Guided Access (Settings → Accessibility → Guided Access → On) to lock the iPad to a single app. Triple-click the side button while the calendar app is open to start a session.
For an even stronger lock, set Screen Time → Always Allowed and restrict everything except your chosen family-calendar app. That way the iPad reboots back into the calendar even after an update.
Choose the calendar app.
The app determines the experience. Three realistic choices: (1) Google Calendar — free, syncs everywhere, but the iPad app is a phone app at heart and looks wrong on a big screen. (2) Cozi — built for families, with a free tier that added a 30-day calendar limit in May 2024. (3) HomeHQ — built specifically for the kitchen-iPad use case, with per-person colour coding, two-way Google Calendar sync, chore rotation with points, and meal planning.
Whichever you pick, the iPad mount + Auto-Lock Never + Guided Access combination is the same. The app just decides what fills the screen.
Add family members and color-code them.
The single biggest upgrade from "calendar on a screen" to "family-calendar display that actually gets used" is per-person colour coding. Mom blue, Dad orange, kids purple/green/etc. Once events inherit their owner's colour automatically, anyone can read the week in three seconds from across the kitchen.
In Google Calendar you do this by creating one calendar per person and assigning each its own colour. In HomeHQ it happens automatically when you add a family member. We wrote a full guide on this — see "Color-coded family calendar" in the Guides menu.
Test the 6 PM check.
The real test of a family calendar display: at 6 PM on a Tuesday, can anyone walk past it and answer "what's happening tomorrow?" in under five seconds? If yes, the system works. If no — usually the issue is that the week view isn't pinned by default, or the text is too small to read from 4 feet away.
Most family calendar apps let you set a default view. Pick the week view (5 or 7 days), font size large, weekend included. Then leave the iPad alone for a week and notice when people actually start using it.
A few things that\'ll save you time.
- !Don't use a 2017-or-older iPad. They're too slow for always-on use and the battery has usually swollen from heat, which is a fire risk near a kitchen.
- !Run iPadOS Stage Manager if you have an M-series iPad — you can pin the family calendar in one window and a small clock/weather widget in another. Looks great, no extra app needed.
- !If anyone in the family uses Apple Watch, they get the same colour-coded events on their wrist automatically. The kitchen iPad becomes the family's shared "source of truth"; the Watch is the personal mirror.
- !For privacy, don't mount the iPad facing a window or front door. Calendar events show full text by default — anyone walking past from outside can read your kids' schedules.
- !A 5W or 10W USB charger is enough — you don't need a fast charger. Slower charging runs cooler and extends battery health, which matters when the iPad is plugged in 24/7.
HomeHQ is built specifically for this setup.
Per-person colour coding, always-on display mode, two-way Google Calendar sync, chores and meal planning, and a calm interface designed to be read from across a kitchen. $12/month billed annually for the whole family, 14-day free trial, no hardware to buy.
See HomeHQ →Questions families ask.
Bring the calm home.
14 days free. Then $12/month billed annually, or $14.99 monthly. Your whole household, on every device you already own.