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Evaluate: How I Use the Skylight Calendar to Handle My Life


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After I first discovered of the Skylight Calendar, I believed it as a household software. In any case, these sorts of gadgets that combination calendars and to-do lists, just like the Fireplace Show, usually promote to households as a method to keep organized. However I reside alone and use my Skylight day by day, and I discover it spectacularly helpful even with out children. 

The Skylight is a digital hub meant to assist manage your life, and whereas the corporate additionally has digital image frames, the Skylight Calendar is essentially the most helpful: It’s a calendar aggregation software, to-do record, and dinner planner, together with being a digital image body. The Skylight Calendar seems to be like a cross between a pill and a framed image, and it is available in a normal 15-inch model or gigantic 27-inch Max model 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 means of its essential features, an important being the calendar, to-do lists, and photographs. You may set a default display screen by tapping the top-left menu and selecting the view you’d choose. You too can arrange hours on your Skylight Calendar to sleep by tapping the menu and deciding on “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 screen to reply from lag. 

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


Credit score: Amanda Blum

The calendar is well essentially the most useful a part of the Skylight. You may pull in your current Google, iCal, Outlook, Cozi, or Yahoo calendar, they usually can seamlessly sync to your Skylight transferring ahead. You may pull in a number of calendars from a number of sources too, every colour coded, so you’ll be able to select completely different colours for various members of your loved ones (or when you’re single like me, use colour coding to distinguish work duties from house). You too can enter customized occasions immediately into Skylight, however I believe most individuals don’t try 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 also be a digital image body

The Skylight Calendar Picture Tab


Credit score: Amanda Blum

The market is filled with digital image frames just like the Aura and Pexar, and there are household administration hubs just like the Fireplace Show that additionally can help you add customized photographs. The Skylight Calendar walks the road between the 2: It is a shared calendar and planning software, however it’s nonetheless a digital image body (you probably have a subscription to the Professional plan), and Skylight encourages you to share footage with different customers. Individuals can ship photographs to you utilizing the app if they seem to be a shared consumer, or they will e-mail the photographs to your designated Skylight e-mail deal with. 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 ready to photographs, your Skylight will scroll by means of no matter is permitted.

I used to be a bit perplexed by the thought of sending Skylight photographs by e-mail, however in actuality, the Calendar isn’t meant to be cutting-edge tech. In the event you’ve obtained older dad and mom or family who don’t need one other app, an e-mail is simply a better method to ship photographs. My mates with and with out Skylights nonetheless ship me footage of their children, 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 mates. 

The best way to use Sidekick for process, chore, or occasion uploads

Sidekick in Skylight Calendar


Credit score: Amanda Blum

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

You too can use Sidekick as a microphone to inform Skylight about your occasion, to-do record, or recipe. I’d choose that Skylight sync with my voice assistants like Siri and Google Assistant so I might add issues rapidly to lists, however it’s just a few swipes to entry the Sidekick software and add objects to a grocery record.

You may create customized Skylight lists

To Do lists in Skylight Calendar


Credit score: Amanda Blum

Skylight gives a number of methods to customized to-do objects. You may 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’ll’t assign a process to a selected consumer like you’ll be able to with a Fireplace Show. I nonetheless discover these easy lists usable, however when you’re on the lookout for one thing extra useful, you’ll need to look elsewhere or use the “Chores” characteristic.

Chores are reusable, assignable lists

Though the title implies a method to farm out duties to youthful relations, Chores is definitely the useful process record. You may 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 may 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 you could’t use Sidekick on Chores, so you’ll be able to’t import lists or add to them on the fly by means of the microphone.  

The best way to create meal plans along with your Skylight Calendar

Meal Planning tab in Skylight


Credit score: Amanda Blum

The Skylight meal planning software (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 simply 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 steered oatmeal breakfasts from my planner.) You may 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 record. Whereas I can see this being an awesome household software, I prefer it as a software for myself, a single individual. There are legions of devoted meal planning apps, and a lot of them are in all probability higher than Skylight, however it’s a pleasant characteristic to have in a complete organizational software.

My largest frustration with the Skylight Calendar

After I obtained my Skylight a 12 months 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 the majority apps I take advantage of, together with ToDoist, could be synced to a Google calendar, which I then carry into my Skylight to reside on my calendar. I might clearly choose 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 value?

The Skylight Calendar runs $319.99 for the 15-inch model and the big 27-inch Max Calendar is $599 on backorder. Skylight gives an annual $39 subscription known as a Professional Plan. It isn’t required, however many of the above options, from utilizing photographs, its import software, 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 strive it out to see the distinction is significant for you.

Is the Skylight Calendar value it?

Most households are doubtless already utilizing apps for to-do lists, calendaring, and possibly meal planning. In the event you’re keen to speculate $300 in a central household hub, Skylight could be implausible. I additionally suppose 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 objects and conferences every day. There are dearer household administration instruments on the market just like the Fireplace Show, however they will run virtually $600, and I am undecided if they provide double the performance.



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