Display

Wall mode and ambient mode

The reason a lot of families bought an iPad stand.

Coming soon

iPad · iPhone · Built on Google Calendar · 30-day free trial

The short version

Wall mode is a big, readable, across-the-room view of today.

Ambient mode is what the iPad drifts into when nobody has touched it for a while.

Both live in Settings under Display and ambient.

Step by step

Setting up a wall iPad

Sign in on the iPad

Use any account in the household. A parent account shows everyone.

Turn on wall mode

Settings, then Display and ambient, then Wall mode. It switches to the large layout: the greeting, the weather, who is on today, what is next, and how the chores are going.

Set the idle timeout

Two, five, ten or fifteen minutes. After that the iPad slips into ambient mode on its own.

Stop the screen sleeping

In the iPad's own Settings, set Display and Brightness, Auto-Lock to Never. Leave it plugged in.

This is an iPad setting, not a HomeHQ one. Without it the screen goes black no matter what the app does.

Good to know

Ambient mode

Ambient mode is the calm version: the living sky, the date, today's events and tonight's dinner, in large type. It is meant to look like something you would actually want on your kitchen wall.

Touch the screen and it goes straight back to the full app.

Good to know

The Home Screen widget

There is also a Family Today widget for iPhone and iPad. Long-press the home screen, tap the plus, search for HomeHQ, and add it. It shows what is next and how the chores are going without opening the app.

Common questions

Questions people ask.

Anything running iPadOS 18. Old iPads work fine for this, which is the point.

No. Sign in as any household member. Most families use a parent account so the whole family shows.

Set Auto-Lock to Never in the iPad's own settings and keep it charging.

Yes, roughly every minute while it is awake.

Keep reading

The family calendar

Adding events, day and week and month views, and how the two-way Google sync behaves.

Getting started with HomeHQ

Install it, sign in, name your household, connect a calendar, add your family. About ten minutes.

Still stuck? Send us a message — we reply within a day on weekdays.

Ready when you are

Bring the calm home.

30 days free. Then $12/mo billed annually, or $14.99/mo. Your whole household, on the iPad and iPhone you already own.