Frequently Asked Questions

DashCal is a family dashboard you open on any screen — a TV, tablet, Facebook Portal, old iPad on the wall, whatever. It shows your Google Calendar, today's weather, meals planned for the day, a grocery list, notes, music, and news headlines all in one place. No app to install — just a URL you bookmark or set as your home screen.

Yes, completely free. No credit card, no trial period, no hidden tier. All features are available to every account. If you find it useful and want to support it, there's a donation option on the home page — but there's absolutely no pressure. It's a hobby project, not a business.

1. Register with your email address — takes 30 seconds.
2. You'll get a personal dashboard URL like dash-cal.com/display/your-id.
3. Go to Manage and connect your Google Calendar.
4. Open the dashboard URL on any screen in your home and bookmark it.

That's it. The screen updates automatically — no refresh needed.

Open a browser on the device and visit your dashboard URL. For always-on displays:

• Facebook Portal: Use the built-in browser, bookmark the URL, and set it as your home page.
• iPad / Android tablet: Open in Safari or Chrome, tap "Add to Home Screen" for a full-screen app-like shortcut.
• Smart TV / Chromecast: Cast the browser tab from Chrome, or use the TV's built-in browser.
• Raspberry Pi kiosk: Use chromium-browser --kiosk https://dash-cal.com/display/your-id.

Yes. Your dashboard URL is designed to be shared inside your home — anyone with the link can view it (no login needed to view). Just open the same URL on multiple devices. If you want a separate display with different calendars or settings (e.g., a kids' room display), you can create additional displays from your Manage page.

The family invite lets you merge a family member's Google Calendar onto your shared dashboard — so both of your events appear together in one place.

1. Go to Manage → Family and enter your family member's email address.
2. They receive an invite link. When they click it and sign in (or create a DashCal account), they are automatically added to your family dashboard.
3. Their Google Calendar is linked to your display — their events will now appear alongside yours.
4. They are redirected to your shared dashboard so they can see the merged view immediately.

The most common reason: your family member hadn't connected their Google Calendar to DashCal yet at the time they accepted the invite.

Calendar linking only happens automatically if Google Calendar is already connected on their account when they accept. If they accepted first and connected Google later, the link won't have been created.

Fix (takes 30 seconds):

1. Ask your family member to go to their own Manage → Google Calendar and connect their Google account if they haven't already.
2. Then you (the inviter) go to Manage → Calendar → Link another Google account and manually add their email address.

Once linked, their events will appear on the shared dashboard within a minute.

Yes — go to Manage → Family → Members and click Remove next to their name. This unlinks their calendar from your display immediately. Their own DashCal account is not deleted.

1. Go to Manage → Google Calendar.
2. Click Connect Google Calendar and sign in with your Google account.
3. Grant the calendar permissions when prompted.
4. Your calendars will appear on the dashboard within a minute.

You can connect multiple Google accounts (e.g., yours and your partner's) from the same Manage page.

Yes! DashCal supports any calendar that provides an ICS or webcal subscription link. No extra account or app needed — just paste the link.

Go to Manage → Other Calendars (ICS / iCal URL), paste your link, and your events will appear alongside your Google Calendar.

How to get your calendar link:

Microsoft Outlook / Office 365:

1. Go to outlook.live.com → Settings → Shared calendars
2. Under Publish a calendar, select your calendar
3. Choose Can view all details and click Publish
4. Copy the ICS link (not the HTML one)

Apple iCloud Calendar:

1. On your Mac: open Calendar, right-click a calendar → Share Calendar
2. Check Public Calendar and copy the webcal:// link
3. On iPhone: Calendar → tap ⓘ next to a calendar → Share Link

Yahoo Calendar:

1. Go to Yahoo Calendar → hover over a calendar → click the ⋯ menu
2. Select Share → copy the iCal address

Any other calendar: Look for an Export, Subscribe, or Share option in your calendar app's settings. Copy the ICS or webcal URL and paste it into DashCal.

Yes. Tap or click on any day on the calendar to open the day panel, then tap + Add event. Fill in the title and time and it's added straight to your Google Calendar. Make sure your Google account is connected with write access (reconnect if you see a "needs write access" message).

Announcements are per-event — you choose which ones matter. Tap any event on the calendar to open its details, then toggle Announce this event on.

Two independent timers:

• Visual alert — a full-width pulsing banner appears across the top of the screen at your chosen lead time (default: 45 minutes before). It shows the event name and a live countdown, and stays visible until you dismiss it or 10 minutes after the event starts.
• Audio alert — plays at your chosen lead time (default: 15 minutes before). Repeats up to 3 times every 2 minutes, then once more at event start. Choose between a voice announcement (reads out the event name and time) or a chime (a short two-tone bell).

Settings are saved per event, per device — so the kitchen display can announce dinner while the bedroom display stays silent.

Note: All-day events do not support announcements (there is no specific time to count down to). Audio requires the screen to have been tapped at least once — this is a browser security requirement, not a DashCal limitation.

Tap the grocery cart icon on the dashboard to open the grocery panel. Type an item and press Enter (or tap Add). Items sync instantly so any device showing the same dashboard sees the updated list. Tap an item to check it off, or swipe / tap the trash icon to delete it.

Go to Manage → Meal Planner (or visit /meal-planner directly). You can plan breakfast, lunch, and dinner for each day of the week. Whatever is planned for today automatically shows on the dashboard so the whole family knows what's for dinner without asking.

Go to Manage → Settings → Weather and enter your city or zip code. The weather widget updates automatically within a few minutes.

Tap the music note icon on the dashboard to open the music panel. Search for any song or artist — results come from YouTube. Tap a result to add it to the queue and start playing. You can build a queue, like songs to save them, and see your play history. Note: autoplay may require a tap/click on the screen first (browser restriction, not our limitation).

Go to Manage → Display URL. You can set a custom slug so your URL becomes something like dash-cal.com/display/smithfamily instead of the random ID. Slugs must be unique — if your chosen one is taken, try adding your family name or city.

Your dashboard URL is the access credential — only people who have your URL can view it. We never share or sell your data. Your Google Calendar is read via OAuth (you grant permission, you can revoke it any time from your Google account). We don't store your calendar events — they're fetched live from Google each time. See our Privacy Policy for full details.

Try these in order:

1. Hard refresh — press Ctrl+Shift+R (or Cmd+Shift+R on Mac), or just reload the page.
2. Check your internet connection on the display device.
3. Reconnect Google Calendar — OAuth tokens expire. Go to Manage, disconnect and reconnect Google Calendar.
4. Clear browser cache on the display device and reload.

If it's still broken, use the contact form below and describe what you see.

Most common causes:

• Google Calendar is not connected — go to Manage and click Connect Google Calendar.
• Your token expired — disconnect and reconnect Google Calendar in Manage.
• The calendar isn't toggled on — in Manage, check that the calendar you want is enabled.
• Events are in the past or far future — the dashboard shows roughly the next 4 weeks by default.