Turn a spare tablet into a family wall calendar (step by step)

There is a decent chance a perfectly good family display is sitting in a drawer in your house right now. An iPad two generations old, a Fire tablet from a long-ago sale, the Samsung tablet nobody uses since the kids got their own devices — any of them can become the always-on kitchen screen that dedicated family displays charge several hundred pounds for. Here's the whole process, honestly including the annoying bits.

What you need

A tablet made in roughly the last 6–8 years that still takes a charge and runs a modern browser or current apps.
A wall mount or stand (£10–30). Adhesive tablet mounts avoid drilling; a simple angled stand on a shelf works too.
A power socket within cable reach — this is genuinely the biggest placement constraint.
A family hub app with a proper display mode, like Less Mayhem.

Step 1 — Choose the spot

Put it where the family already congregates and decisions get made: by the kettle, on the wall near the fridge, by the back door. Eye height for the shortest reader who needs it. Avoid direct sunlight (glare and heat) and the splash zone behind the hob or sink. If a socket dictates the location, hide the cable with a £5 stick-on trunking strip and it looks tidy.

Step 2 — Prepare the tablet

Charge it and install pending system updates (a drawer tablet is usually months behind).
Remove old accounts and apps you don't need — this is now a family appliance, not a personal device.
Set the screen to stay awake while charging. iPad: Settings → Display & Brightness → Auto-Lock → Never. Android: enable Developer Options and turn on "Stay awake while charging", or set the screen timeout to its maximum.
Turn on auto-brightness so it dims itself in the evening, and silence notifications — the display is for looking at, not for pinging.

Step 3 — Pair it as the family display

In Less Mayhem, a parent opens Settings → Wall displays, creates a pairing code, and types it on the tablet. The tablet then shows the family dashboard — today's events colour-coded by person, routines and chores, lists, notes — and stays in read-only mode, so a curious four-year-old can look at their day but can't delete the calendar. If you use a different app, the test is the same: does it have a purpose-built display mode, or are you just leaving an app open and hoping?

Step 4 — Mount it

Stick-on mounts hold small tablets fine on smooth surfaces (tile, glass, laminate); go screw-fixed for plaster walls or heavier tablets. Mount the charging cable side facing down or sideways so the plug doesn't fight the mount. Do the cable trunking — it's the difference between "command centre" and "charger tangle on the wall".

Step 5 — Make it the family habit

A display only reduces the asking-one-parent-everything problem if checking it becomes the default. Two habits do it: kids check their routines on the tablet each morning (not by asking), and the family glances at tomorrow at dinner time. Give it two weeks and "look at the screen" replaces a hundred small questions — which is the entire point, and a real dent in the mental load.

Troubleshooting the honest problems

Screen keeps sleeping: it's not plugged in, or auto-lock got re-enabled by an update. Both have five-second fixes.
Tablet too old for the app store: if the browser is modern, a web-based display mode (like Less Mayhem's) sidesteps the app store entirely.
Battery swelling on a very old device: retire it — a bulging tablet shouldn't live on a wall. This is the one case for spending money, and a cheap new Fire tablet is still a fraction of a dedicated display.
"It's just showing my chaos in HD": fair. A display shows the system you have — if the calendar isn't being fed, fix the input side first (school email is usually the culprit).

Total damage: an afternoon, £10–30, and one drawer freed up. Compare that with the dedicated-hardware route — we've written up the Skylight comparison and the Hearth Display comparison if you're weighing it.