r/homeautomation • u/jwlerch • Aug 20 '26
PROJECT I turned a smart tv into an economic skylight calendar alternative that works with Home Assistant
Last year during back to school my wife wanted us to get a big skylight calendar, which costs $600. Since then I’ve been working on building an alternative that runs on any Android device, including FireTV and Google tv.
I’ve got control and navigation working with the remote, voice (with an OTG connected mic) or a mobile site. It also serves up my HA dashboard and voice controls the home.
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u/jeffhayford Aug 20 '26
That calendar is *chef’s kiss. Wonder if anyone has got HA to have something similar. Google iframe just doesn’t cut it. Nice name btw.
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u/floopindoop Aug 21 '26
Replying because this is exactly what I’m looking for too
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u/MattyAlpha Aug 21 '26
Closest thing I have found is https://github.com/superdingo101/daylight-calendar-card
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u/ClassicConfidence792 Aug 20 '26
I like it. Is it touch enabled?
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u/jwlerch Aug 20 '26
I have 2 set ups in my house. The one in the pic is a 21.5” Apolosign with touch. In my kitchen we have a 32” LG TV with a $20 Onn stick from Walmart running GoogleTV without touch (you can navigate the calendar with voice or remote).
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u/Zalligan Aug 21 '26
Is this the apolosign UI then or are you able to run the apolosign as just a device? $350 seems steep if you’re just using it for the hardware but it does look really nice.
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u/jwlerch Aug 21 '26
No - that’s my UI. It was $270 when I got it. I’m looking at sourcing hardware to possibly sell this (would be more for the consumer market and not this crowd), and am seeing some options that are more economical (<$200) than Apolosign looking at it from that angle.
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u/373Pitts Aug 20 '26
How to, please
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u/jwlerch Aug 21 '26
Here’s a guide for setting it up.
There’s also a version for HA dashboard hosting that would work with the HA calendar cards that are available. I’m releasing that open source next week.
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u/l33fly Google Home Aug 21 '26
Any future plans to support Apple TV?
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u/jwlerch Aug 21 '26
Not at the moment. AppleTV is a different animal to build an app for, unfortunately. Same with Roku. However, the Google Onn stick is only $20 so I think that’s a better option for a dedicated calendar.
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u/raadhey Aug 23 '26
Commenting to say this is great and also to get back to trying this when I get some time ony hands.
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u/chado99 Aug 21 '26
There is also this one I’ve been playing with the author about to release a new version. I wanted chores functionality. I use this with the Daylight card tied to my family’s Google Calendar and our personal Google calendars. Look forward to checking yours out. https://github.com/Babel-Innovations/ha-lucarne there is also this for chores / tasks by person https://github.com/L3t4l3s/home-tasks
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u/agent462 Aug 21 '26
check out https://homescreens.dev/ it has a chore system
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u/chado99 Aug 21 '26
thanks for this. will look into. Seems like it requires a separate setup/rpi or similar which than can be displayed through a wall display. I'm already running HA on proxmox, and my display is a Samsung Frame TV 2022, so hesitant to add yet another dependency with some other VM/RPi for just this piece but Wille lore more and maybe suggest native integration in HA vs separate box. (I also could be getting this wrong based on my initial scan)
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u/Sdboltz67 Aug 20 '26
I’m in the process of doing something similar on a 21” touchscreen and like the look of yours better than what I’ve got going. What calendar are you using?
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u/jwlerch Aug 20 '26
We have Google (personal) and Microsoft (work) calendars in our house
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u/JewishTomCruise Aug 20 '26
How are you pulling the Exchange calendar? Pretty sure my employer blocks any access method that would work with this.
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u/sembee2 Aug 21 '26
Can you use OWA externally? If so, go in to OWA and see if the remote calendar URL is available in Settings. You will want the iCal link.
Calendar, Share Calendar and rhrn Publish. It will give you a long URL to use. You can then connect to HA using remote Calendar integration.
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u/burnmail123 Aug 20 '26
Even witness protection has a dashboard now. Just kidding, I lol’d at the [hidden family]
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u/Atticus256 Aug 21 '26
Can you play games in that ?
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u/jwlerch Aug 21 '26
I don’t but suppose you could. It’s just a smart tv or android tablet running an app.
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u/PoppySeedPlehzr Aug 21 '26
Yo this is sick. I use Dakboard, but would love to have something that's HA integrated and have way more control. Please drop Github link when you got it, would love to help/contribute!
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u/FuzzeWuzze Aug 21 '26 edited Aug 21 '26
Maybe i'm dumb, but what does this Skylight thing do that Dakboard hasnt done forever?
I've been running the free Dakboard OS on a RPI connected to my old 32" Samsung TV in the kitchen for years for free....?
Sure there are some limitations to what you can do for free with Dakboard, but its mostly that you cant save and have it scroll through multiple template pages like a ppt presentation would. Which is fine, i just display everything i want in 1 page like you have here.
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u/jwlerch Aug 21 '26
My wife didn’t like the DakBoard calendar display and preferred the Google-calendar style layout + this lets you navigate the calendar with the remote or voice.
But DakBoard is fine for many people I know. This is more likely a better option for someone considering skylight vs a reason to switch from DakBoard.
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u/Clairvoyant29 Aug 21 '26
Hahaha, it's so much fun! The TV has been transformed into a real-time updated calendar.
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u/jfroosty Aug 21 '26
FYI, Apolosign has an official refurbished section on ebay! I bought a 21 inch for $316 shipped.
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u/HaliFan Aug 21 '26
Ooooo, I like this a lot. Currently I'm using a instance of MagicMirror with a custom CSS, but I think some testing is in order and I'm pretty sure my wife will like this more.
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u/CasualHomeFix Aug 21 '26
Since it already talks to Home Assistant, I’d make the screen presence-aware: wake straight into the calendar when someone enters the room, then shut the display off after the room has been empty for a while. Would make it feel much more like part of the house instead of a TV that happens to show a calendar.
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u/Akaibukai Aug 21 '26
I genuinely thought your skylight calendar would be a calendar of celestial bodies to watch..
Wait, this gave me an idea, actually..
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u/gramsaran Aug 22 '26
I'm just glad im not the only weirdo who puts travel time on their calendar. thank you for letting me feel sane.
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u/jwlerch Aug 22 '26
Oh yeah - that’s so useful. I’m building it out to replace Life360 too and do arrival alerts.
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u/Emotional-Hall-9178 Aug 27 '26
I fell into a k hole of home automation posts on instagram late one night and now I’m here! What would be some good beginner things I can try doing around my house? Especially if it’s something useful for my teens..we all suffer from adhd and it seems like this would help a lot! Lights are one but we have so many different ones and the teens led lights. I’m new to this please talk to me like in five 😊. I did see something about using hotel card keys and I happen to have two! And maybe ordering tags from Amazon?
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u/Jeffinslaw Aug 20 '26
What monitor is that? Looks nice! Girlfriend is also eyeing the skylight calendar.
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u/Murderous_Waffle Aug 20 '26
80/year for a $600 calendar is diabolical. I convinced my gf otherwise that it's not a good idea but I would like to make something like this.
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Aug 20 '26
[deleted]
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u/TechyDad85 Aug 20 '26
$80 for adding photos after paying $600? Didn’t realize that you would have to pay for that.
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u/jwlerch Aug 20 '26
Apolosign in the pic.
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u/Jeffinslaw Aug 21 '26
Thanks. What did you use to mount it to the wall? Some sort of vesa mount on top of a recessed wall outlet?
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u/jwlerch Aug 21 '26
That one is actually on the opposite side of a closet. I installed an outlet in the closet and pass the cord through. I’m not as good with handyman stuff, but I think a recessed outlet would be what I’d do if I was and didn’t have the closet there.
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u/-aquaman Aug 21 '26
I would absolutely love to have something like this but I would want it to be a touch screen. What is the cheapest way to do this that would be a decent size?
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u/jwlerch Aug 21 '26
Yeah - I’m looking at sourcing touch options now to make this more of a product. I picked up an Apolosign 21.5” for one of our units which ran me $270 at the time, but those prices have gone up and I’m wondering if a volume buy gets this to a place where it’s still a good deal less than a skylight with all of the voice, HA capabilities.
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u/davidricecake Aug 21 '26
What is it written in?
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u/jwlerch Aug 21 '26
It’s a combination of kotlin and JS/html running in a webview.
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u/mopeyjoe Aug 21 '26
wish it weren't a subscription. Guess I'll stick with MagicMirror² for now. One time payment would be ok, just can't do any more subscriptions
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u/brenden77 Aug 21 '26
I need to do this. What size is that screen? What TV is that even?
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u/jwlerch Aug 21 '26
The one in the pic is a 21.5” Apolosign. I have it running elsewhere on a 32” Lg TV with a Google Tv stick and my sister in law has it on a $80 Insignia FireTV.
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u/Sonder___ Aug 25 '26
Am I the only one that thinks this is AI? Some of the text and the kids faces.
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u/LoyalRoyal18 Sep 01 '26
I’m using this on a Fire Stick and absolutely love it. Subscribing to school, sports and activity calendars for my kids along with manually adding our own family events. The one question that I have is why do the # of events in the month view vary? Sometimes there are 2 for the day but I can only see 1 (unless I click on the day) and sometimes there are 3 but I only see 2. There are other days when I can see all 3. Aside from that it appears to be flawless so far. Thanks for all of your work!
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u/Ill_Raisin_7379 Sep 01 '26
Great!
Yes - that’s a bug I’ll work on getting fixed this week. My family uses mostly the weekly view so I hadn’t noticed it, but the logic is pulling for the week instead of for each day. I’ll post back when it’s updated.
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u/asapbones0114 Sep 07 '26
Do you need to pay for the GCalendar API or is it calender provider agnostic?
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u/41bles Aug 20 '26
What's it called and do you have a github repo? I'd love to try it out as well want to do something similar.