Review: How I Use the Skylight Calendar to Manage My Life

Once I first discovered of the Skylight Calendar, I believed it as a household instrument. In spite of everything, these kinds of devices that aggregate calendars and to-do lists, like the Hearth Display, typically promote to households as a strategy to keep organized. However I dwell alone and use my Skylight on daily basis, and I discover it spectacularly helpful even with out youngsters. 

The Skylight is a digital hub meant to assist arrange your life, and whereas the corporate additionally has digital picture frames, the Skylight Calendar is essentially the most helpful: It’s a calendar aggregation instrument, to-do checklist, and dinner planner, together with being a digital image body. The Skylight Calendar appears to be like like a cross between a pill and a framed image, and it is available in a typical 15-inch model or gigantic 27-inch Max model which you could mount in your wall vertically or horizontally with a easy clamp.

The Skylight’s show has a sequence of tabs on the left that scroll by its most important features, crucial being the calendar, to-do lists, and pictures. You’ll be able to set a default display by tapping the top-left menu and selecting the view you’d favor. You too can arrange hours in your Skylight Calendar to sleep by tapping the menu and choosing “Sleep Mode.” I set mine for 11 p.m. to five a.m., however a easy faucet will all the time wake the show, and I have never needed to double faucet or anticipate the display to reply from lag. 

The Calendar performance is one of the best a part of Skylight Calendar

Credit score: Amanda Blum

The calendar is well essentially the most useful a part of the Skylight. You’ll be able to pull in your current Google, iCal, Outlook, Cozi, or Yahoo calendar, they usually can seamlessly sync to your Skylight shifting ahead. You’ll be able to pull in a number of calendars from a number of sources too, every shade coded, so you’ll be able to select completely different colours for various members of your loved ones (or should you’re single like me, use shade coding to distinguish work duties from residence). You too can enter customized occasions instantly into Skylight, however I think most individuals don’t do this since most of us have already got digital calendars elsewhere, and there’s not a lot you are able to do with a Skylight calendar besides see it in your app or show. 

The Skylight Calendar can be a digital image body

Credit score: Amanda Blum

The market is stuffed with digital image frames just like the Aura and Pexar, and there are household administration hubs just like the Fireside Show that additionally can help you add customized pictures. The Skylight Calendar walks the road between the 2: It is a shared calendar and planning instrument, however it’s nonetheless a digital image body (when you have a subscription to the Professional plan), and Skylight encourages you to share footage with different customers. Folks can ship pictures to you utilizing the app if they are a shared person, or they will e mail the photographs to your designated Skylight e mail tackle. Because the administrator, you’ll be able to then select which footage you wish to present in your Calendar. As long as the show is about to pictures, your Skylight will scroll by no matter is accredited.

I used to be just a little perplexed by the thought of sending Skylight pictures by e mail, however in actuality, the Calendar isn’t meant to be cutting-edge tech. In the event you’ve received older dad and mom or family members who don’t need one other app, an e mail is simply a better strategy to ship photos. My buddies with and with out Skylights nonetheless ship me footage of their youngsters, and in return I ship them footage of no matter I am cooking and of my doberman in onesies. On this approach, I just like the Skylight as a cheaper hub that may be accessible to exterior household and buddies. 

Methods to use Sidekick for activity, chore, or occasion uploads

Credit score: Amanda Blum

Skylight has a function referred to as Sidekick (with the Professional Plan subscription), which may take any picture of textual content—a cookbook recipe, college flyer, or typed checklist, for instance—and add it to the suitable Skylight class. You’ll be able to import occasions, plan meals, and to-do lists from PDFs, emails, or photos, and it shocked me how properly it really works. I can take footage of my to-do checklist from ToDoist, and Sidekick transcribes them to separate duties on my Skylight. It isn’t technologically ahead, however it works. I additionally had my good friend ship me her most aggravating PTA flyer, and Sidekick received the occasion title, date, location, and particulars correct.  

You too can use Sidekick as a microphone to inform Skylight about your occasion, to-do checklist, or recipe. I’d favor that Skylight sync with my voice assistants like Siri and Google Assistant so I may add issues rapidly to lists, however it’s only some swipes to entry the Sidekick instrument and add gadgets to a grocery checklist.

You’ll be able to create customized Skylight lists

Credit score: Amanda Blum

Skylight gives a number of methods to customized to-do gadgets. You can also make as many lists as you want, from purchasing to to-do lists, with just a few notable limitations: subtasks aren’t obtainable, you’ll be able to’t reorder duties, you’ll be able to’t assign deadlines, and you may’t assign a task to a specific user like you can with a Hearth Display. I nonetheless discover these easy lists usable, however should you’re in search of one thing extra useful, you’ll must look elsewhere or use the “Chores” function.

Chores are reusable, assignable lists

Though the title implies a strategy to farm out duties to youthful members of the family, Chores is definitely the useful activity checklist. You’ll be able to create chores and assign them to members of your loved ones, assign deadlines, make it recurring if wanted, and assign a reward worth for the duty (Skylight calls these “stars”). You’ll be able to entry Rewards in a separate tab in your app and assign them, let customers redeem them, or take away them. 

Once more, this isn’t as useful as, say, Asana or ToDoist—you’ll be able to’t break chores out to separate lists, solely particular person chores, and I query why “Lists” exists when it’s a much less useful model of Chores—however you’ll be able to select how these instruments match your loved ones. Maybe my biggest annoyance is which you could’t use Sidekick on Chores, so you’ll be able to’t import lists or add to them on the fly by the microphone.  

Methods to create meal plans along with your Skylight Calendar

Credit score: Amanda Blum

The Skylight meal planning instrument (with a Professional Plan subscription) can take your preferences into consideration and plan a complete menu round them. (I used to be curious how properly the meal planner would work round my preferences given that you just inform the planner your preferences in a plain textual content field, so I entered, “I do not like oatmeal,” and it eliminated all of the recommended oatmeal breakfasts from my planner.) You’ll be able to add your individual recipes, use Sidekick to add footage of your favourite ones, or save Skylight recipes you to your recipe field. You too can simply add the deliberate meals to your grocery purchasing checklist. Whereas I can see this being an amazing household instrument, I prefer it as a instrument for myself, a single individual. There are legions of devoted meal planning apps, and plenty of them are in all probability higher than Skylight, however it’s a pleasant function to have in a complete organizational instrument.

My largest frustration with the Skylight Calendar

Once I received my Skylight a yr in the past, my largest disappointment was that it had all this extra performance—from to-do lists to meal planning—however it didn’t can help you combination from current apps like ToDoist, Asana, or any variety of meal planning apps. As a workaround, I discovered that almost all apps I exploit, together with ToDoist, might be synced to a Google calendar, which I then convey into my Skylight to dwell on my calendar. I might clearly favor to have these duties within the To Do tab of my Skylight, however I am going to have to attend till that performance is added. 

How a lot does a Skylight Calendar price?

The Skylight Calendar runs $319.99 for the 15-inch model and the large 27-inch Max Calendar is $599 on backorder. Skylight gives an annual $39 subscription referred to as a Professional Plan. It isn’t required, however many of the above options, from utilizing pictures, its import instrument, and meal planning, are solely attainable with the Professional Plan. The primary month of the Skylight Professional Plan is free although, so you’ll be able to attempt it out to see the distinction is significant for you.

Is the Skylight Calendar price it?

Most households are possible already utilizing apps for to-do lists, calendaring, and possibly meal planning. In the event you’re keen to take a position $300 in a central household hub, Skylight might be unbelievable. I additionally assume it is nice as one individual: As an individual with ADHD, it’s invaluable. I’ve my calendar mounted in my lavatory, so it is one of many first issues I see every morning and jogs my memory of my to-do gadgets and conferences every day. There are dearer household administration instruments on the market like the Hearth Display, however they will run nearly $600, and I am unsure if they provide double the performance.