Skylight Calendar vs Echo Show – Which Is Better?

Adulthood means having to juggle a seemingly endless stream of tasks all the time.

You have to show up for work, take out the trash, call your parents, drive your friend to the airport, plan what to eat, attend your kid’s recital, have date nights with your partner, schedule deliveries for your business, and more.

Staying on track and managing your schedule to make it all work requires some assistance. This is where tools like Skylight Calendar and Echo Show come in.

They help you and your household keep track of everything and stay effortlessly organized, so wires get crossed less and everyone is less tense and happier.

But since Echo Show and Skylight Calendar are two of the top products in the digital calendar and display niche, it can be tough to decide which is right for you.

In this post, I’ll be analyzing Skylight Calendar and Echo Show side-by-side to determine what value they offer.

Do they function the same or does one provide more features than the other? Are there any downsides to either hardware?

Let’s find out.

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What Is the Skylight Calendar?

Skylight Calendar is a smart wall calendar that allows busy individuals and families to sync and manage their schedules.

So rather than wondering what your partner is going to be doing two days from now or forgetting your meeting with your child’s teacher, you can stay updated at all times.

All it takes to get caught up is a simple glance at the calendar and you can better organize your day and coordinate schedules with your loved ones.

This way, no matter how busy or far apart you all may be, you can still make time for the events and people that matter.

Skylight Calendar automatically syncs with various Calendar apps including Apple, Google, Outlook, Yahoo, and Cozi. You can use the digital display by hanging it on the wall or positioning it on a counter in a common area like the kitchen or living room.

What Is the Echo Show?

Amazon’s Echo Show is a digital display device designed to serve as both an organization and entertainment hub. It helps families manage their schedules and to-do lists and get reminders for upcoming appointments or pending household responsibilities.

This piece of hardware eliminates the need for reliance on paper tools like sticky notes, bulletin boards, and physical calendars that are challenging to update and can easily go missing.

Echo Show is integrated with the smart voice assistant, Alexa, allowing for a hand’s free user experience. You can use it to do everything you typically depend on Alexa for, from finding recipes to viewing weather updates, and streaming music.

The Echo Show is built to be mounted on the wall like a photo frame, but you can buy a compatible stand for it if you wish to house it on a counter or console.

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Skylight Calendar vs Echo Show – Design and Dimensions

Skylight Calendar

Skylight Calendar is available in different sizes depending on your preference: 10 inches, 15 inches, and 27 inches diagonally. However, the features are the same across the board.

For this review, we’ll be focusing on the 15-inch version because it’s the optimal size range. The 15-inch Skylight Calendar measures 15.8” x 9.9” x 1.4” with a resolution of 1920 x 1080.

It’s not so small that you’ll have difficulty seeing the screen from across the room and not so big that space becomes a major constraint.

The Skylight Calendar comes with 8GB of storage space and boasts a sleek, modern design with a minimalist white exterior. It looks like a picture frame or a tablet, so regardless of where you choose to mount it, it won’t appear out of place.

Although the Skylight Calendar can function as a digital picture frame, it isn’t a default feature. You have the option of subscribing to Skylight Calendar Plus for $39 per year to unlock this feature.

As a bonus, the Plus plan will also enable you to import PDFs or emails and automatically convert them into events on your Calendar so you don’t spend extra time entering the event details.

Check Out: Best Skylight Calendar Alternatives

Echo Show

Like the Skylight Calendar, there are different variations of the Echo Show, but they generally share the same attributes with the main distinctive quality between them being size.

However, we’ll be considering the Echo Show 15 in this article, which measures 15.8” x 9.9” x 1.4”. It’s a flat-screened device with a black frame and a white mat, featuring volume buttons along the top and a slider for turning off the microphone or covering the camera lens when not in use.

The Echo Show has a 1080 display resolution which provides a crisp image when viewing photos or streaming video content.

You can turn the device into a digital photo frame by uploading full-resolution images from Facebook or your cloud storage on your Amazon Prime account and creating albums for the memories you want to showcase.

If you don’t want to display personal photos, you can use stock images or artwork collections to make a decor statement.

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Verdict

Both devices offer the same size and display resolution and can be used as a digital photo screensaver, so it’s a draw.

Echo Show vs Skylight Calendar – Set Up and Installation

Echo Show

Amazon provides a metal mounting bracket, four plastic anchors, four screws, and a space template for installing the Echo Show 15 on the wall safely.

Depending on your taste or available wall space, you can mount the device in portrait or landscape mode or switch back and forth as the situation demands.

Unfortunately, if you prefer a desktop or counter placement, you’ll need to purchase the stand separately because it’s not included in the package.

When the installation is complete, you can plug in your Echo Show and start creating user profiles for each family member who will be using the device.

You can use the Visual ID or Voice ID feature to switch between profiles and everyone can customize their profiles to show the information that they would like to see.

Before finalizing the setup process, you’ll be asked if you want to activate the Amazon Sidewalk function to create a long-range network that consumes minimal data.

Doing so means that any device using Sidewalk can connect to the network and leverage your internet connection to transfer data from the cloud.

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Skylight Calendar

Once you take the Skylight Calendar out of the box, you have two options: leave it on the counter or mount it on the wall. If you plan to keep it on the counter, you’ll have to attach the stand that’s included in the package to the device’s back.

If you want to hang it on the wall like a TV, you’ll need a power drill. Either way, It’s a relatively simple process that only takes a few minutes.

After placing the Skylight Calendar where you want, you can plug it in and connect to a WiFi network, then download the Skylight app on your phone and pair it with the device using your email account.

Voila! Your calendar is ready to be used.

You can invite your partner, children, and other members of your family to access and manage the digital calendar with you.

Verdict

It’s a tie. The Skylight Calendar and Echo Show come ready to be used right out of the box. All you have to do is connect them to WiFi, and you’re good to go.

If you prefer wall-mounting to using your device on a counter, you can easily put it up by following the manual even if you’re not very handy.

Skylight Calendar vs Echo Show – User Experience and Performance

Skylight Calendar

The allure of the Skylight Calendar lies in how easy it is to use. Everything feels exactly where it should be or does what you’d expect it to.

You won’t have to spend minutes staring at the screen in confusion and wondering how to add information or bring up the details you want to see.

With the companion mobile app, you can easily sync up all your respective calendars—work and personal—and view them separately or together.

In cases where you choose to display a photo screensaver instead of having the calendar showing 24/7, all it takes is a simple scroll up or down to bring forth your calendar.

The Skylight Calendar’s interface is very kid-friendly. You can use it to give your kids some control over their schedule, while also keeping track of the status of their assigned chores.

One issue the Skylight Calendar has is that tactile feedback from the touchscreen is a tad laggy, but not so much as to make you want to abandon the program or tear your face off.

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Echo Show

The Echo Show 15 is the first in the series to use Amazon’s latest processing chip, the AZ2 neural edge, so it’s faster than its predecessors. However, the touch and response time still leaves something to be desired.

There’s a two to three-second lag between when you take an action like swiping or tapping the screen and when it responds. Even on-screen animations tend to be a little slower than you’d expect.

Amazon has also included a new Widgets feature in the Echo Show 15 that enables you to personalize the display however you like rather than sticking to the default. While this is admirable, the execution is far from perfect.

You can customize the number of widgets that show up on your Echo Show’s home screen, but you can’t resize them, or minimize the widget tray so they take up less space on the display.

Also, there’s a limited number of widgets so there’s only so much customization you can enjoy at the moment.

The Echo Show’s user interface is pretty simple, so everyone in your household including little kids should have no trouble figuring out how to use it. Thanks to Alexa, you can control the device without using your hands much.

Verdict

I declare a draw.

The Skylight Calendar and Echo Show are highly intuitive and both touchscreens have a negligible lag between prompts and responses.

Echo Show vs Skylight Calendar – Core Features

Echo Show

The Echo Show is designed to be an all-in-one smart display so it does a lot of things. Here’s a breakdown of its most prominent features:

Calendar

With support for the major calendar services—Microsoft, Google, and Apple—the Echo Show allows you to import your individual and shared calendars to better align and manage your commitments.

You can add the calendar widget to the home screen if you want to be able to view your schedule at a glance. The Echo Show uses dots to represent events, but you won’t be able to see what’s scheduled for that day and time unless you tap the dot to expand the details.

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Household organization

The Echo Show provides a bunch of features that can help you manage, structure, and organize your home for maximum efficiency.

This includes weather widgets, to-do lists, sticky notes, shopping lists, and a “What to Eat” option that suggests step-by-step recipes you can try or nearby food places you can order from when you’re not in the mood to cook.

Unfortunately, if you already have existing apps that you use for these things, you won’t be able to import the data into the Echo Show. You’ll have to enter them from scratch.

Camera

The Echo Show 15 is fitted with a 5MP camera, allowing you to make video calls. However, the camera lacks the automatic tracking feature present in Show 8 and Show 10.

This means that if you move out of the frame while chatting over video, the other people on the call won’t see you until you’re back in full view of the camera.

I was dismayed by the realization that the camera produces pixelated images and the video frequently lags and freezes, resulting in a frustrating video calling experience.

Smart home controls

Using your Echo Show, you can control other Alexa-compatible smart devices in your home with ease; from your lights to your doorbell, baby monitor, and security cameras.

Fire TV support

The Echo 15 is the only device in the series that offers Fire TV support, enabling it to function as a smart TV in your kitchen. You can listen to the news, let the kids watch cartoons, or catch up on your favorite shows while cooking, cleaning, or dining.

Fire TV includes all your go-to streaming platforms like YouTube, Netflix, Hulu, Prime Video, HBO Max, Disney Plus, and more.

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Skylight Calendar

Unlike the Echo Show which has competing features vying for the most attention, the calendar feature is the star in the Skylight Calendar. Your calendar is displayed all the time on the home screen except you choose to hide it behind a photo screensaver.

The device lets you sync as many calendars as you want so you can view them all in one place. You can modify or add events directly using the touchscreen and onscreen keyboard or the Skylight app when you’re on the go.

To avoid confusion, you can use color codes to differentiate each family member’s schedule and events.

Skylight Calendar allows you to customize how you want to view your calendar. You can set the display view to a day, a few days, a week, or a month. It even includes the weather report for future events that have a location added.

Although calendar management is the main event, the Skylight Calendar offers some other features geared towards home organization such as:

Custom lists

You can create personalized lists for to-dos, grocery shopping, other stuff you want to buy, or important dates you need to remember.

Chore chart

With Skylighter Calendar’s interactive chore chart, you can build healthier habits in your household and execute routine tasks efficiently to ensure nothing gets forgotten or ignored.

Meal planning

Tired of asking or getting asked about breakfast or dinner plans? Skylight Calendar helps you curate and display meal plans so everyone knows what to expect at meal times.

Verdict

Echo Show wins this round because it’s packed with a lot more features than the Skylight Calendar.

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Skylight Calendar vs Echo Show – Pricing

Skylight Calendar

The 15-inch Skylight Calendar goes for $299.99. If you want to add the Plus Plan for access to the photo screensaver and magic import features, it’ll cost you an additional $39, billed annually.

You can check out Skylight Calendar’s pricing page for more information.

Echo Show

Amazon sells the Echo Show 15 for $249.99, which is pretty affordable for all that it does. Remember that the tabletop stand is sold separately, so budget an extra $30 if you want one. However, prices may vary if you purchase from other retailers.

Verdict

Echo Show is the cheaper product of the two, so it takes the win.

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Echo Show vs Skylight: Pros and Cons

Skylight Calendar

Pros

• Big and bright screen.
• It’s very kid-friendly and easy to set up.
• It automatically syncs with your calendars.

Cons

• The cord is visible and can be tough to hide.
• You have to pay extra to display photos and videos on the home screen.

Echo Show

Pros

• It’s a feature-rich device.
• It has a picture-in-picture function.
• Fire TV supports make it a great TV for your kitchen.

Cons

• Shoddy camera quality.
• Customization options are limited.
• Visual ID function can be poor sometimes.

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Skylight Calendar vs Echo Show – Final Verdict

The Echo Show and the Skylight Calendar are both excellent devices in their own right but with slightly different use cases and target audiences.

If you’re wondering which is better based purely on the availability of features, the answer is the Echo Show.

It functions as a smart hub so beyond schedule management and household organization features, you can use it to stream audio and video content, make calls, and control your smart home devices.

But if all you want is a dedicated scheduling tool with few side distractions, Skylight Calendar handles this better.