Turn the old tablet in your drawer into the family calendar

Old iPad: step by step

1. Update it as far as it goes (Settings, General, Software Update). Very old iPads stop getting updates, and old Safari versions can’t open some modern calendar sites. If calendar.google.com won’t load properly, the iPad is too old for this.
2. Open your calendar in Safari and switch to the week view. Add it to the Home Screen (Share, Add to Home Screen) so it opens full-screen.
3. Keep the screen on: Settings, Display & Brightness, Auto-Lock, Never.
4. Lock it to the calendar so a kid can’t wander off into YouTube: Settings, Accessibility, Guided Access. Turn it on, open the calendar, and triple-click the top button (or the Home button) to start it.
5. Mount it and plug it in.

Fire tablet: step by step

1. Update Fire OS (Settings, Device Options, System Updates).
2. Open your calendar in the Silk browser and switch to the week view. Silk is Amazon’s browser, and some calendar sites behave a little differently in it than in Chrome.
3. Keep the screen on. Fire OS limits the screen timeout. A kiosk app such as Fully Kiosk Browser (a one-time upgrade, $10.99) can keep the screen on and lock the tablet to one page.
4. Mount it and plug it in.

Watch out for

• Battery swelling. A tablet sitting at 100% charge all day for years can swell its battery. A smart plug that cuts power at about 90%, or a tablet setting that limits charging, helps. If the back ever bulges, unplug it and stop using it.
• Glare and brightness. Turn auto-brightness on, or the screen will glow all night.
• Burn-in. Most tablets are LCD, which is resistant to burn-in, but a dimmed or changing screen is still kinder over years.
• Privacy. A kitchen screen shows your family’s week to anyone in the kitchen, including guests. Use one calendar for the family and keep work calendars off it.

Where this falls short (and what we’re building)

The browser trick works, and it’s how a lot of families start. Where it gets annoying:

• Adding an event on the tablet is a fiddly form, so nobody does it.
• It’s built for one person at a desk, not a week read from across the room.
• Signing in to Google on a Fire tablet keyboard is a chore.

Magnetday is a family calendar built for exactly this screen. A color per person, the week readable from across the kitchen, and you add events the way you’d text them: dentist thu 3pm leo. It’s built on your Google Calendar, so nothing moves. We’re designing tablet setup so you scan a code with your phone and never type a password on the tablet.

We haven’t tested Magnetday on Fire tablets or old iPads yet. When we have, we’ll publish the list of tested models here.