Raspberry Pi Base Family Planner

Keeping track of a busy family's schedule can be a challenge. In this Instructable, I’ll show you how to create a simple and effective smart family planner using a Raspberry Pi 5, a touchscreen display, and a custom 3D-printed stand.

This planner will display your shared family calendar, weather updates, and even cycle through shared family photos—all without ongoing subscription fees.

Let's get started!

To build this planner, you’ll need the following components:

1. Raspberry Pi 5 - Buy Here
2. MicroSD Card - Buy Here
3. SunFounder 10.1" Touch Display - Buy Here
4. M2.5 x 12mm Button Head Screws - Buy Here
5. M6 x 50mm Hex Head Bolts - Buy Here
6. M6 x 40mm Hex Head Bolts - Buy Here
7. M6 Hex Nuts - Buy Here

Tools & Equipment Used:

1. USB-C Pencil Screwdriver - Buy Here
2. Bambulab X1C - Buy Here
3. Bambulab P1S - Buy Here

Raspberry Pi 5 – This is a powerful choice, but you can also use a Pi 3, 4, or Zero 2 W if you're only running the planner - it is not particularly resource-intensive.

10.1" Touchscreen Display – I’m using a SunFounder 10.1" IPS touch display with a 1280x800 resolution, which connects seamlessly to the Pi 5 through a set of included cables.

MicroSD Card (32GB or more) – To store the operating system and software.

Power Supply – The SunFounder display includes a power adapter that supports the Pi 5’s power needs.

3D-Printed Stand – I have designed a custom 3D printable stand that allows flexible positioning, including mounting under a cabinet.

With these parts ready, we can move on to assembling the hardware.

Flash Raspberry Pi OS onto your microSD card and configure WiFi settings to connect to your home network automatically.

Mount the Raspberry Pi onto the back of the touchscreen display using the included adjustable rails and M2.5 standoffs.

Attach a small heatsink for cooling. If needed, a 40mm fan can also be installed on the acrylic cover.

Connect the necessary cables:

1. HDMI cable for video output
2. Power cable for both the Pi and the display
3. USB cable for touchscreen functionality

I designed a 3D printable stand that supports the display vertically, or it can be hung from the underside of a kitchen cabinet - download the 3D print files

The stand should be printed in PETG for long-term strength.

It is really easy to assemble - it only requires three M6x50mm bolts. Push the head of the bolt into a 3D printed bolt end cap (one without the hole) and the nut into the other (one with the hole). You can then used these to assemble the three stand joints.

The display then attaches to the stand with four M2.5x12mm button head screws.

You might need to tighten the joints a little so that they support the weight of the display.

We're going to be using Dakboard for the software. Dakboard is simple and easy to set up, offering a sleek interface with calendar, weather, and photo display features. For this Instructable, I’m using Dakboard’s free tier to display our family calendar and shared photo album.

Dakboard is quite intuitive and easy to set up. Once you have created an account, open your Predefined Screen, and you're ready to start setting it up.

There are three main features that I set up,but you may require others to suit your needs;

1. Background - Dakboard has a lot of integration options for the background. I used the Apple Photos integration to pull photos from a shared family photo album on our iOS devices.
2. Calendar - Similar to the above, we run a shared family calendar, and Dakboard makes it easy to sync this with the dashboard. They allow two integrations on the free tier, so I used a Google Calendar integration to display the Australian public holidays as well.
3. Weather - This is as straightforward as just setting your location.

For the photos and calendar, you need to create public share links on your device and then copy these links across to Dakboard. If you need help with this, I go into more detail on my blog.

Once the layout is set up. Create a new display and then link it to your Raspberry Pi by following Dakboards instructions. It'll ask you to enter a code displayed on the device and will then create a link that you can copy over to the Pi to open to display your dashboard.

We obviously don't want to have to open Chormium and navigate to the Dakboard link each time the Pi starts up, so we can automate this.

To automatically launch Dakboard when the Pi starts up, we create an autostart entry:

Open the terminal and create an autostart directory by entering;

mkdir -p ~/.config/autostart

Create a new file in this directory and add the following lines:

[Desktop Entry]

Type:Application

Exec=chromium --kiosk https://dakboard.com/display/uuid/<replace with your url>

This opens Chromium in full-screen mode and loads your Dakboard display.

I then also set my Pi to shutdown at 9pm every evening to save power. I did this by adding the below line to crontab;

0 21 * * * /sbin/shutdown -H now

Now that the planner is running, you can fine-tune its setup:

1. Adjust the Dakboard layout to display your preferred widgets like calendars, weather, and news.
2. Mount the planner in a convenient location, such as a kitchen, passage or home office.

That’s it! You now have a fully functional smart family planner powered by a Raspberry Pi. It keeps your family’s schedule organised, displays useful updates, and even acts as a digital photo frame. Let me know if you try this build and what customisations you make in the comments section below!