Why I Replaced My Fridge Calendars with the Apolosign 15.6″ Digital Calendar (Review & Video)

My refrigerator has a magnet problem. My family collects magnets on every trip, and the door is so crowded that there’s no room left for new ones. The worst offenders are a bunch of magnetic calendars and task lists that nobody uses, some with entries from months ago, maybe years. That’s good real estate going to waste, and I’d rather give it to the magnets and make my wife and kids happy. So, I took a look at the Apolosign 15.6″ Digital Calendar as a replacement.

In this review:

• The Apolosign 15.6″ Digital Calendar is a touchscreen family calendar and organizer that you can mount on a wall or set on a desk stand.
• It syncs with Apple, Google, and Outlook calendars, and it handles to-do lists, chore routines, and stickies.
• I use it with my wife and adult kids, and it works well as a shared place to see schedules and check off tasks.
• The product page lists it at $279 on sale, down from $349, with no subscription.
• My early verdict: setup was easy, and it earned a spot on my wall, but the Wi-Fi was spotty at first, and there are sections I never use.

Apolosign provided this calendar for my review, and I had a specific job in mind for it. I have two adult children living at home, and I wanted one place to assign tasks, see what’s on their calendars, and track household routines. I’ve already made my bed and taken out the trash, but I never know whether my kids have. The box calls this “the world’s first dual mode calendar,” and I’ll explain what that means shortly.

I unboxed it, set it up, and played with it for a month or so before writing this, and I eventually mounted it on the wall near the fridge where the magnetic calendars used to be. In this review of the Apolosign 15.6″ Digital Calendar, I’ll walk through what’s in the box, how setup went, and how the calendar syncing, to-dos, and routines work in a real household.

Watch the video review

I recorded a full video review of the Apolosign 15.6″ Digital Calendar on my YouTube channel. It covers the unboxing, what’s printed on the box, the first startup and setup, and how the calendar looks on my wall now that it’s running. You’ll even see me wrestle with the very strong magnet on the wall bracket.

If you want to see the touchscreen in action, you can watch me swipe from the screensaver to the home page, check off to-dos and routines, and flip through the family calendars.

What the Apolosign 15.6″ Digital Calendar does

Calendar mode or Android mode?

The “dual mode” label on the box means you choose between two experiences during setup. Calendar mode is the Apolosign family organizer, built around calendar syncing, routines, and to-dos. Android mode, according to the product page, lets you download apps from Google Play and build a widget dashboard. The product page says those widgets can cover things like weather, music controls, and stocks, so Android mode is the one to pick if you want a dashboard instead of a family organizer. You can run both if you want, but I picked Calendar mode to keep things simple.

How does the calendar sync with iPhone calendars?

The Apolosign calendar is my default view, and on top of it I added two one-way calendars that pull from Apple calendars. One is a family calendar, and one is for my kids, so they can post things like workouts or friends coming over. When one of them updates an event on their iPhone, it shows up on the wall within about 15 minutes, as long as everything is connected. If they delete it from the iPhone, it eventually disappears from the Apolosign too.

One-way sync means the phones (or Apple Calendars, in general) feed the display, and the display doesn’t send changes back. In practice, each phone stays the source of truth, so edits happen on the phone, and the wall calendar follows along. You can set it up as a two-way sync, but I decided against it. According to the product page, the Apolosign also syncs with Google Calendar, Outlook, Yahoo, and Cozi. I used our iCloud calendars on the Apolosign by importing them as a shared calendar. It’s an easy process: share your calendar URL and add it to Apolosign.

How do to-dos and routines work?

I started with the to-do list. I made my own, and two items I got to check off almost immediately were “hanging the Apolosign calendar” and “fixing the front blinker on my Hyundai.” (I do have a YouTube video on that kind of repair, if you ever need one.) Routines are the repeating items or tasks, like making the bed or taking out the trash, and you assign them to a person (or multiple people).

Everyone in my family has the Apolosign app with their own username, so they can check things off from their phones. I can also do it directly on the wall, including for other people. The iPhone app and Android app show much of what you see on the home screen, like routines, meals, and to-dos.

Other features I didn’t test

The product page lists more features. I haven’t used most of them, so here they are as Apolosign describes them:

• Rewards: kids earn points for completing routines and redeem them for rewards. My kids are in their 20s, so I skipped this feature. (I guess their reward is that I keep paying their phone bills?)
• Stickies: reminders and countdowns that work like sticky notes. I haven’t set up any yet.
• Meal planning and recipes, including AI recipe import, plus shopping and grocery lists. I haven’t set up meals because everyone in my house wants to eat something different. Dinner here is a choose-your-own-adventure.
• Photo frame mode with Google Photos, and a live screensaver that can show your schedule, a clock, or videos.
• Voice control with Google Assistant, plus Gemini AI chat and Google Home controls for things like doorbells and cameras.
• A one-swipe privacy mode that hides the screen behind a photo cover, and auto brightness with sleep mode.

Unboxing and setting up the Apolosign 15.6″ Digital Calendar

The box shows the frame in portrait mode, lists features like calendar syncing, routines, dashboards, and a smart hub. Inside, everything is carefully packed. The frame comes in a recyclable protective container, along with a power adapter with a fabric-covered cord, a two-piece desk stand, a wall-mounting bracket, and a user guide. A separate box inside the main box holds a fairly heavy-duty full-size screwdriver, a drill bit, drywall anchors and screws, a small level, and a few smaller screws for the stand.

On the back of the frame, you’ll find a USB-C port, the power port, mounting screw holes, and channels for routing the power cord. There are buttons for power and for volume or brightness up and down. A light sensor sits on the front. The wall bracket is magnetic, and the magnet is so strong I didn’t think I’d ever get the pieces apart. I had to pry them.

I set it up first on the desk stand in landscape mode. Note: only the smallest frame (this one) comes with a desk stand. On first startup, the Smart Calendar automatically detected its position and flipped the screen to landscape. Setup follows the usual Android steps: pick a language, connect to Wi-Fi, and answer some optional questions. Wi-Fi connected with no trouble, and it looks like it handles both 2.4 GHz and 5 GHz on my mixed router. I chose to set it up fresh instead of copying apps from another device, skipped location sharing, data sending, and backup, and skipped the face-video step since this device has no camera. I use an iPhone and don’t use many Google apps, so the Google prompts mattered less.

The last choice was Calendar mode or Android mode, and I went straight to Calendar mode. From there, I used the Apolosign phone app and a QR code on the calendar to connect the device, then created a family group. I don’t usually read manuals, and I got through it fine. I had some challenges early on, but I worked around them, and the setup felt pretty intuitive.

Living with the Apolosign calendar day to day

In the video, I said I’d leave the calendar on the desk stand. I lied. I mounted it on the wall near all the magnets on my fridge. When it’s idle, it runs a screensaver, and you can pick the background and even add sound effects, which you control with the volume buttons. Swipe up, and you land on the home page. Everything is touch, so jumping to to-dos, calendars, or routines takes a tap. I set sleep mode to shut the screen off in the evening, so it isn’t glowing in the kitchen, and it wakes up around five or six in the morning, when my wife and I get up.

Routines turned out to be the fun part. I set up everyone in the family, so the home screen shows each person’s list. The screen showed me three days late on taking out the trash, but I had actually done it, and so had my kids. Once that was sorted, it told me I was all done for the day. Points are something you set up for the kids, so the adults get the quiet satisfaction of a checked box. I’ll take it. I’ve been a big proponent of it in the house, and I’ve been working on getting my kids and my wife to use it too.

Around Halloween, the calendar had an optional Halloween-themed look, and now I’m waiting to see whether a Thanksgiving or Christmas theme shows up. In the calendar’s own settings, you can configure the family members, set up sections, pick your time zone, and choose the first day of the week. Swiping down gets you to some of the Android settings, including sleep mode.

The one thing that gave me a little trouble was Wi-Fi. Early on, it was spotty and would disconnect, and I had to restart the calendar frame to reconnect. I stabilized my Wi-Fi and made sure I had the latest versions of the calendar and system apps, and it has been pretty stable since. The placement and my setup may also have played a role. I can’t say for sure which change fixed it, but if you hit the same problem, those are the two things I’d try first.

This is the smallest Apolosign, at about 15 inches. A larger one would have been nice for the space I have, but I do like that I can take this one off the wall and put it back on the stand whenever I want.

Is the Apolosign 15.6″ Digital Calendar good for families?

Yes. It’s built around shared schedules and household tasks, so it makes the most sense where more than one person needs to see the same information. Here are some situations where I’d use it:

• Households with adult kids or roommates, like mine, where you want to assign tasks and see everyone’s calendars in one place.
• Families with younger kids, since the rewards system turns chores into points. I haven’t tested it, because my kids are too old for it.
• Mixed phone households, where some people use iPhones and others use Android. I pulled my iPhone calendars in, and there are apps for both platforms.
• Anyone whose refrigerator door has turned into a magnet graveyard of unused calendars, which is exactly where I started.

If you want a bigger display, Apolosign also sells 21.5-inch and 27-inch versions, plus a 27-inch 4K model. I would have liked a larger screen for my wall, but I tested the 15.6-inch size, so I can only speak to that one.

Before you buy: what I’d check first

A shared calendar only helps if the whole house uses it, so a few things are worth sorting out before you order one. These come from my own setup and from what the manufacturer lists.

• Check your Wi-Fi where the calendar will hang. Mine dropped its connection early on, and it settled down after I stabilized my Wi-Fi and updated the apps, so signal in that spot is the first thing I’d test.
• Decide where the power cord will run. The back of the frame has channels for routing the cord, so figure out where the outlet is before you drill any holes.
• Pick between the desk stand and the wall. The 15.6-inch model includes both. According to the product page, the 21.5-inch and larger sizes only include a wall mount.
• Plan on some nagging. Everyone in my house has their own login in the app, and I’m still working on getting my kids and my wife to use it. A calendar can tell you what’s coming, but it can’t make anyone look.

Apolosign 15.6″ Digital Calendar specifications explained

Screen size and resolution tell you how much of the schedule fits on the display at once. Memory, storage, and Wi-Fi shape how the Android side behaves and whether the calendar stays connected. The table below comes from the manufacturer’s product page, plus the dimensions printed on the box.

Spec	Details
Screen size	15.6 inches
Display	LCD, 10-point touchscreen
Resolution	1920 x 1080 (1080p), 16:9
Contrast ratio	1000:1
Brightness	300 nits
Processor	RK3576 octa-core
Memory	4GB
Onboard storage	64GB
Operating system	Android (EDLA licensed)
Wi-Fi	Wi-Fi 6 (802.11 a/b/g/n/ac/ax)
Bluetooth	5.4
Audio	Two 4?/3W speakers, quad microphones
Frame size	15.8 x 9.9 x 1.23 inches
Colors	Teak Yellow, Spruce Grey, Black, White (I tested black)
In the box	Calendar, power adapter, wall mount bracket, desk stand, user manual
Warranty	1 year

The screen is 1080p, the same full HD resolution you’ll find on many TVs, and the frame works in portrait or landscape. The 64GB of onboard storage is where the calendar app and anything you install in Android mode live. Wi-Fi 6 is listed on the spec sheet, and on my mixed router it looked like it handled both 2.4 GHz and 5 GHz. The page lists voice control with Google Assistant, which is where the speakers and quad microphones would come in, and I haven’t tried it yet. The product page also says the screen has an anti-glare matte glass finish.

What I liked and what to consider

After weeks with the Apolosign 15.6″ Digital Calendar, here’s my take, based on how I have been using it at home.

What I liked:

• Setup was easy, even though I don’t usually read manuals.
• The one-way sync with my family’s iPhone calendars works the way I wanted. Events show up within about 15 minutes.
• Everyone has their own login in the app, so my family can check off tasks without walking up to the wall.
• The wall bracket and desk stand are both in the box, so I can move it around.
• Sleep mode lets me turn the screen off at night and wake it in the morning.

What to consider:

• The Wi-Fi was spotty at first. I had to restart the frame frequently until I stabilized my Wi-Fi and updated the calendar apps.
• There are sections I don’t use, like Recipes, and I couldn’t hide them.
• This 15.6-inch model is the smallest in the lineup, and I would have liked a larger screen for my wall space.

The Apolosign 15.6″ Digital Calendar did the job I wanted it for. It gave my family one place to see schedules and tasks, and the early Wi-Fi problem calmed down once I stabilized my Wi-Fi and updated the apps.

Common questions about the Apolosign 15.6″ Digital Calendar

Where to buy the Apolosign 15.6″ Digital Calendar and what it costs

When I last checked at the beginning of November, the Apolosign product page listed the 15.6″ Digital Calendar at $279, marked down from a regular price of $349. You can also find it on Amazon. It comes in Teak Yellow, Spruce Grey, Black, and White, and mine is black. Prices change, so check both links for the current price.

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Final thoughts: a smarter spot than my fridge door

The Apolosign 15.6″ Digital Calendar replaced a pile of unused magnetic calendars with one screen that shows what’s coming up, who has to do what chore, and what’s on my kids’ calendars. Setup was straightforward, and syncing my iPhone calendars and assigning routines worked the way I hoped. The Wi-Fi gave me trouble early on, and sections like Recipes that I don’t use can’t be hidden. However, I’m keeping it on my wall.

If your household is juggling schedules and chores, this digital calendar is worth a look. Families with younger kids may get more out of the points and rewards system than I did, since I haven’t used it. If you have the wall space for something bigger, check the larger Apolosign sizes, because I’d have liked more screen. Overall, it is a good addition to a busy household and one step closer to becoming a bit more organized and informed.

Disclosure: I have a material connection because I received a sample of a product for consideration in preparing to review the product and write this content. I was/am not expected to return this item after my review period. All opinions within this article are my own and are typically not subject to editorial review from any 3rd party. Also, some of the links in the post above may be “affiliate” or “advertising” links. These may be automatically created or placed by me manually. This means if you click on the link and purchase the item (sometimes but not necessarily the product or service being reviewed), I will receive a small affiliate or advertising commission. More information can be found on my About page.

HTD says: My fridge door finally has room for more magnets, and my wall finally knows who took out the trash. And the Apolosign Digital Smart Calendar made it happen!