When a Paper Wall Calendar Got Too Messy, I Switched to This Pretty Digital One

At one early point in our relationship, my husband and I bought a very cute and stylish paper calendar to solve the problem of “Do you have plans tonight?” or “When is so-and-so’s wedding again?” I imagined a life where we’d convert our Google Calendars to old-fashioned pen and paper, and it would look good—check—and keep us wholly organized and aware of each other’s schedules. It was an epic fail.

Sometimes, when technology is available, like an ever-updating calendar that you can hold in the palm of your hand, it’s hard to go back. With the paper one, we’d forget to add things, write events on the wrong day (and then have to scratch them out), and worse, just neglect the thing altogether. We thought using a shared Google Calendar would solve all of our problems—but adding events without notifications meant we were missing things, too. Now we put events on our own calendars, and invite each other to them so that we know exactly what’s going on. 

And yet, we still longed for a physical calendar display in our apartment so that we could keep track of who’s where and when. (I admittedly go out a lot. Like five-days-a-week a lot, and my husband’s work schedule changes week to week.) When I saw an ad for the Hearth Display on Instagram, it was marketed as a way to keep track of family schedules, from picture day to soccer practice, but let me tell you: It’s made all the difference, even for our family of two. 

Hearth Display

Hearth Display, Hearth ($599 was $699)

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With little wall space and few outlets left in our apartment for the Hearth, which measures 16.5 inches wide and 26.7 inches high, we installed it in our bedroom in a high-traffic area that’s right outside our home office, so my husband can see if I’m on a call or not before he knocks on the door. And even though it’s in the same room where we sleep, we programmed it to go dark at 10 p.m. and turn on at 9 a.m. There are three frame options—black, white, and light wood—and the whole thing sits flush enough against the wall that you might mistake it for art. 

Setup was quick—minus a hiccup with my work email, which was not the Hearth’s fault—and I was able to invite my husband to share his calendar and color-code his schedule so that all of his events are in blue (mine are in pink). One thing to note: You can’t drag and drop events to change their timing; instead, you have to do that by way of your Google Cal, but you can add new ones via the touch screen. 

And it’s not just a calendar. You can also add to-dos for your family (my favorite passive aggressive move, hee-hee) and set up routines via the Hearth app. And that’s my one note on its functionality: The “app” is a website, not mobile software, and it’s pretty bare bones at the moment, but I imagine as Hearth grows so will the technology. Additionally, the price is up there—$600—but I think it’s something that we’ll always keep around to use and for when our family grows.

A couple months into using it, I’m already noticing a difference in how my husband and I communicate about our ever-changing schedules. We spot conflicts sooner, and checking the Hearth every morning has become a routine that gets us ready for each day. And when we don’t want to stare at another screen, we set it to display my husband’s art. Sure, we still occasionally ask, “What do you have going on today?” But it sure beats keeping up with a paper wall calendar.