An honest comparison from the smallest company on the list.
All three put your family's day on a screen in the kitchen. The difference is what that screen costs — and what your kids actually do with it. Skylight and Hearth sell beautiful dedicated displays. Pax is software that turns any tablet you own into a family command center. Here's the whole picture, math included.
A tidy shared calendar on a $280 touchscreen. Nice for seeing everyone's week at a glance — but the kids' side is a basic chore chart, and the extras you'd actually want (photo frame, meal planning, imports) cost another $79 a year.
A gorgeous 27" screen for the wall — and priced like furniture at $699, plus a required membership. Beautiful if a statement display is the goal. Mostly, you're paying for the hardware.
The one built to get kids doing their day — not just looking at it. Every child gets their own page with school, chores, and activities to check off, plus streaks, reminders, and reports that show you how they're really doing. No screen to buy — it runs on the tablet already in your house. Built by a homeschool dad of 7.
All the math, out in the open — hardware plus subscription, no asterisks buried in a footer.
| Skylight 15" | Hearth Display | Pax Family | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Hardware | $279.99 | $699 | $0 — your tablet |
| Subscription | $79/yr (Plus) | $86.40/yr (required) | $9/mo founding |
| Year 1 total | ~$359 | ~$785 | ~$108 |
| Year 3 total | ~$517 | ~$958 | ~$324 |
No problem — a ~$60 Amazon Fire tablet makes a great dedicated kitchen screen, and the Pax totals above now include it. Still hundreds less than a smart display.
✓ included · Plus / Member paid add-on · ✗ not offered
| Skylight 15" | Hearth | Pax | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Works on devices you already own | ✗ | ✗ | ✓ any browser |
| Hardware required | $279.99 | $699 | None |
| Manage from desktop / web | ✓ | ✗ phone app only | ✓ full web admin |
| Works on many screens at once | App companion | App companion | ✓ tablet + every phone + grandma's iPad |
| Skylight 15" | Hearth | Pax | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Shared family calendar | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| Color coding & recurring events | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| External calendar sync | ✓ Google two-way; others one-way | ✓ Google, iCal, Outlook in | ✓ iCal feed out (Apple, Google, Outlook) |
| Big-event highlights | — | — | ✓ birthdays & holidays get the spotlight |
| Per-child calendar view | ✗ | ✗ | ✓ each child sees their own day |
| Liturgical calendar | ✗ | ✗ | ✓ optional |
| Skylight 15" | Hearth | Pax | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Kids' checklist / chore chart | ✓ | Member | ✓ |
| Advanced recurrence (every-X-weeks, monthly, annually) | ✗ | ✗ | ✓ |
| Per-child personalized pages | Profiles | Profiles | ✓ own colors, patterns, photo, page |
| School tasks as a first-class type | ✗ | ✗ | ✓ School / Chore / Activity |
| Parent verification (PIN check-off) | ✗ | ✗ | ✓ |
| Consequences for missed tasks | ✗ | ✗ | ✓ |
| Day off & vacation management | ✗ | ✗ | ✓ excuses tasks, protects streaks |
| Excuse individual tasks | ✗ | ✗ | ✓ |
| Sticky notes for kids | ✗ | ✗ | ✓ |
| Streaks & milestone celebrations | ✗ | Stars (Member) | ✓ streaks, 100/200/500 milestones, confetti |
| Sibling leaderboard | ✗ | ✗ | ✓ weekly podium |
| Per-child goals | ✗ | ✗ | Coming soon |
| Skylight 15" | Hearth | Pax | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Daily parent report | ✗ | ✗ | ✓ |
| Progress trends & heatmaps | ✗ | ✗ | ✓ per child |
| AI weekly summary | ✗ | Member | ✓ narrative of each child's week |
| Weekly email digest | ✗ | ✗ | ✓ Sunday 8 PM |
| Real-time missed task notifications | ✗ | ✗ | ✓ |
| Push notification alerts | ✗ | ✗ | ✓ |
| Skylight 15" | Hearth | Pax | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Photo screensaver | Plus | Member | Via free kiosk apps today — built-in Frame Mode coming soon |
| Weather on the dashboard | ✓ | Member | ✓ |
| Lock the screen to just this | ✓ it's all it does | ✓ it's all it does | ✓ 5-min built-in kiosk setup, guide included |
| Skylight 15" | Hearth | Pax | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Meal planning | Plus | Member | ✗ |
| Grocery lists | ✓ | ✓ | ✗ |
| Email / photo / PDF magic import | Plus | ✓ | ✗ |
| Furniture-grade hardware & frames | ✓ | ✓ | Your tablet's case |
Let's be plain about it. If a meal planner and grocery list are the center of your family operations, both Skylight (with Plus) and Hearth (with membership) have you covered, and Pax doesn't. If you want email and PDF magic import — forward a sport schedule, watch events appear — that's genuinely great, and it's theirs, not ours (at least not yet). And nothing we do will make your old iPad look like a custom-framed 27" display hanging in a decorated kitchen.
If those are your top three needs, buy one of them — sincerely. They're good products.
We built Pax for a different family. Keep reading.
Skylight and Hearth are built to be looked at. Pax is built to be answered to — each child works their own list, and you decide what needs proof: a simple tap, a parent check-off, or a 4-digit PIN for the tasks that matter. Miss something? Consequences surface on your report, not in an argument.
Pax is the only one of the three where schoolwork isn't shoehorned into a chore chart. School, Chore, and Activity are distinct types with their own colors, schedules, and reports — built by a homeschool dad of 7 who needed exactly that.
Daily reports, per-child trend heatmaps, a Sunday email, and an AI-written summary of each child's week — what's improving, what slipped, and what to encourage. A wall display can tell you what's due today. Pax tells you how the month went.
The kitchen tablet is where the day lives — but Pax follows your family anywhere there's a browser. A smart display stays bolted to the wall. Your family's day comes along.
"The kids enjoy using the app so much that chores and school work went from getting barely any of them done each day to getting almost 100% done every day."
NR Nick R. · Father of 6
The screen on your counter matters less than what your kids do with it. Try the whole thing free for 21 days — no hardware to unbox, no credit card to enter, nothing to mount on the wall.
Try Pax free for 21 days →Founding-family price: $9/mo for life, locked in writing.