How to turn an old iPad into a family wall calendar

About ten minutes, most of it settings. This works with Fridgeside, but steps 2–5 are just as true whatever you end up putting on the screen.

What you need

An iPad from 2014 or later. Yes, really — an iPad Air 2 works. If it turns on and joins Wi-Fi, it can be a board.
A charger and a cable that reaches where you want it.
Somewhere to put it. A $15 stand on the counter is a fine start. You don't have to drill anything today.

Check this first. Look at the iPad edge-on. Is the screen sitting flat, or lifted at a corner? Does a case still close properly?

If the screen is lifted or bulging, the battery has swollen. Don't mount that iPad and don't leave it charging. It's common in ten-year-old tablets and worth a repair-shop visit. Everything below assumes a healthy iPad.

1. Put your family's calendars on the iPad

This is the step that makes the board yours instead of empty. The display shows the calendars set up on the iPad itself, so whatever you want on the wall needs adding there once.

iPadOS 17 and earlier: Settings → Calendar → Accounts → Add Account
iPadOS 18 and later: Settings → Apps → Calendar → Calendar Accounts → Add Account

Add whichever services your family uses — iCloud, Google, Outlook or Exchange, Yahoo, or Other for a CalDAV or subscription link.

Turn on Calendars and leave everything else off. Each account offers Mail, Contacts, Calendars and Notes. A wall iPad has no business holding your email.

Add both parents' accounts if you want both sets of commitments on the wall. A couple of minutes once, then it's done.

About how quickly it updates

Events you add on your phone appear on the wall by themselves, but not instantly. iCloud is quickest. Google, Outlook and subscribed calendars are refreshed by iPadOS on its own schedule, which can take a few minutes. That's iPadOS, not the app, and no app can hurry it. For something happening in the next five minutes, trust your phone over the wall.

2. Stop the screen turning off

Settings → Display & Brightness → Auto-Lock → Never
Settings → Accessibility → Display & Text Size → Auto-Brightness → off. Otherwise the iPad's automatic brightness fights whatever the board is doing and the screen visibly hunts up and down.
Settings → General → Software Update → Automatic Updates → off. Stops it restarting itself overnight.

Fridgeside handles the rest: bright during the day, fading down in the evening to a soft night board so it isn't glaring into a dark kitchen.

3. Lock it to one app

Otherwise the first curious child swipes over to YouTube and the board is gone.

The easy way: Guided Access (about a minute)

Settings → Accessibility → Guided Access → on
Set a passcode. Not the same one as the iPad's lock screen, and not a birthday your children know.
Still in Guided Access settings: Display Auto-Lock → Never
Open the app, then triple-click the top button (or the Home button on older iPads) and tap Start.

To get out: triple-click again and enter that passcode.

Worth knowing: if the iPad restarts — a power cut, a flat battery — Guided Access switches itself off and the iPad returns to the Home Screen. Nothing is lost and it's one tap to get back. Put the app first on the Home Screen so that tap is obvious.

The permanent way: Single App Mode

If the iPad is going on the wall for good, this makes it behave like an appliance: it boots straight back into the app, every time, and power cuts stop mattering.

You'll need a Mac and a USB cable, and you should know up front: this erases the iPad. For one that's been in a drawer that's usually fine, but back up anything you want first.

Install Apple Configurator (free, Mac App Store) and plug in the iPad.
Prepare the iPad — this supervises and erases it.
Sign in, install the app, then set Single App Mode to it.

4. Where to put it

Eye level, where people already stand. The end of a counter, beside the fridge, the wall everyone passes on the way out. If nobody walks past it, nobody reads it.
Not over the stove, not on a radiator, not in direct sun. Heat is what wears out an old iPad, and steam is worse.
Leave the back clear so it isn't sitting in its own warmth.
Keep the cable reachable — you'll want to unplug it one day.

A countertop stand, a magnetic wall mount, or a command-strip holder all work. You don't need to commit to drilling on day one.

One honest note on distance: a 10-inch screen is a walk-up board, not a read-it-from-the-sofa one. Put it where people pass within a few feet.

5. Leaving it plugged in

Apple says an iPad is fine connected to power long-term and manages charging itself. That's true of a healthy battery. A ten-year-old one held at 100% in a warm kitchen wears faster, and the 80%-charge-limit setting on newer iPads doesn't exist on older models.

None of this is dangerous on a healthy iPad. To be kind to it:

Put it on a smart plug set to charge for a few hours overnight rather than sitting at 100% all day. Best $15 you'll spend on this.
Keep it cool, per step 4.
Glance at the edges every few months for the bulge described at the top.

If something's not right

The screen keeps going dark

Auto-Lock isn't Never (step 2), or Guided Access's own Display Auto-Lock isn't Never (step 3).

The brightness keeps shifting on its own

Auto-Brightness is still on — step 2, item 2.

The board's gone and the Home Screen is showing

The iPad restarted. Tap the app; if you're using Guided Access, triple-click and Start again.

The battery goes down while it's plugged in

The charger isn't keeping up with a bright screen. Use the one that came with the iPad, or a 12W-or-better one, straight into the wall — not a computer's USB port.

It says it's not charging

Check the cable at both ends. Charging ports on old iPads collect a decade of pocket lint — a wooden toothpick, gently, with the iPad switched off.

Then what?

Set the family up from your phone: who's in it, who does which jobs, what's for dinner. Fridgeside is free for 7 days, then $39.99 a year — or $79.99 once.

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