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You have a spare screen. A monitor on the desk, an old laptop, a tablet or a TV. You have probably looked at DAKboard.
The question is what you want on it. If it is the family’s photos and calendar, DAKboard is built for that. If it is your own work day and the numbers you keep checking, that is what Context Board is for. Context Board is ours, so weigh the bias. Everything about DAKboard below was read on its own site on November 1, 2026.
What DAKboard is built for
DAKboard turns a screen into a digital wall calendar and photo frame. It shows calendars from Google, Apple iCloud, Microsoft 365, Facebook Events or any ICS feed, photos from services like Google Photos, Dropbox and Flickr, plus weather, news, to-do lists and stock quotes. Chores, with a column for each person and points that turn into rewards, need Essential or Plus. TouchHub, which puts smart home controls on the screen, is on every plan.
It runs through a browser, native Fire TV and Android apps, a free operating system for a Raspberry Pi, or its own Wall Display and CPU hardware.
What a Context Board spare screen shows
Start from the Calm desk template. It has a clock, the time in four cities, a 25-minute focus timer, a month calendar, a note for today, three things to do and your habits, and it works the moment it opens. Add the weather for your city, and your calendar from its iCal link.
Then add the numbers you check. Stripe, beehiiv, GitHub and Search Console each connect once, and their widgets stay current while the board is open. MRR, subscribers, repo stars and search clicks sit beside the clock.
Your own agent can add to it. Connect Claude, ChatGPT, Claude Code, Codex, Cursor or VS Code, then ask in plain words, like “add call the accountant to my to-do list”. If you use Claude Code or Codex, a small program on your computer also puts your sessions and plan limits on the screen: which are working, which are waiting on you, and how much of each plan is left. The personal dashboard page shows the whole desk, and our guide to building a life dashboard goes through what to put on it.
Putting it on the screen
- Open board.contextbolt.com in the screen’s browser and sign in with an email code.
- Choose New board, then Calm desk.
- Connect your calendar and the apps you want numbers from.
- Press F. The board’s buttons hide and the board fills the screen. On a second monitor, move the window there first.
The screen’s own sleep setting decides when it turns off, so turn sleep off there if you want the board up all day.
What each one costs
DAKboard has a free plan. Essential is $6 a month, or $5 billed yearly, with a 30-day trial. Plus is $10 a month, or $8 billed yearly, and adds unlimited calendars, a photo change every 5 seconds and screen scheduling. Its hardware is sold separately: the Wall Display starts at $699.95, and a CPU for a screen you already own starts at $99.95.
Context Board is free for 3 days, then $12 a month, with a card required up front. One plan covers every board type, widget and connection. It has no free plan, and there is nothing to buy, since it is a web app.
Where DAKboard still fits
Pick DAKboard when the screen is a photo frame and a family calendar: photos from your albums, chores for the kids, a smart home panel, or a display you can hang without a computer. Its free plan may be all you need for that. Context Board shows one picture per Image widget and does not rotate photos, track chores or run your smart home.
If the screen is a team’s office TV, see Context Board vs Geckoboard.
Try it on the screen you have
Put Calm desk on the spare screen for a morning and see what you check. Start your Context Board, free for 3 days.