DIY family hub guide
Mother’s Day was around the corner, my idea antennas were on full alert, and one sentence from my wife turned into a DIY family hub setup that eventually became Farmark.
Mother’s Day was around the corner and my idea antennas were on full alert, trying to decode the yearly gift cipher. Then one day I volunteered for a work trip during one of our kids’ sports events, and my wife said, “We really need to have, like, a calendar on the wall we can all look at.”
Bingo.
I knew there were existing products that already solved this, right? So the search began. I started looking at Hearth Display, Skylight Calendar, DAKboard, and everything else I could find. I wanted something reasonably priced, simple, and nice enough that it would not turn the room “digital.”
But the options kept disappointing me. They were expensive, vendor locked, ugly, tracking-heavy, or some combination of all four. Everywhere I looked, I saw video ads and cloud accounts. I was not going to build our family calendar around sending private household data somewhere I did not trust.
After poring through listing after listing, I found the screen: a white Samsung M80F. It looked like something that could actually live in the house. Paired with a local web server, it could show our family’s events and the custom widgets I wanted: weather, handwritten Mother’s Day notes from the kids, reminders, a daily devotional, and sermon summaries.
I worked on it for weeks, trying to make everything perfect. And it was. My wife loved it.
But so did everyone else.
So it began. I made Farmark to give busy families a simple, secure, and elegant way to display the day where everyone already passes by. No weird command-center science project. No ugly appliance bolted to the wall. Just the calendar, the day, and the few things that help the house move.
Here’s how you can do it yourself.
Put the calendar where the day actually starts: kitchen counter, entryway, mudroom, homework zone, or family command center. If it is hidden in an office, it becomes a very pretty screen nobody checks.
Before drilling, tape a rough 32 inch rectangle on the wall and leave it there for a day. Check sight lines from the table, counter, hallway, and wherever backpacks usually explode.
Do not buy a mount based only on a product category or pretty listing photo. Check the exact model code, size, weight, and mounting support before ordering accessories.
Also confirm the mount supports the monitor weight, tilt you want, and power-cord clearance.
Use your phone or computer first. Create or sign into Farmark, add the household members, choose colors, connect calendars, and set the widgets you actually want on the display. This is where the “family hub” part comes together: shared calendar, reminders, weather, Smart Summary, and the pieces your family actually checks.
For a shared display, keep private event details hidden and use short event titles. The best wall calendar is readable from across the room, not technically complete but squinty.
For a counter setup, use the included stand and place it where the remote works naturally. For a wall setup, install the arm or mount according to the mount instructions and the Samsung model’s mounting specs.
Leave enough clearance for power, USB-C or camera accessories if you use them, and your hand if you ever need to reach the back. Future you will appreciate not needing raccoon fingers.
Use the Samsung remote to connect to Wi‑Fi, sign into the Samsung account only if your setup requires it, and run software updates before troubleshooting anything else.
Samsung menus vary by year and region, so expect names to move around slightly. The important part is that the browser and display firmware are current.
Open the built-in browser and go to home.farmarkapp.com. Sign in, or use Farmark’s display pairing flow if you do not want to type credentials on the display.
Once Farmark is open, save it to the browser’s home screen, bookmark, quick access, or whatever shortcut option your display provides. The goal is simple: if someone exits the browser, one or two clicks should bring the calendar back.
In Farmark, open the calendar dashboard and choose Wall Art on a display-size screen. Wall Art is meant for kitchen displays and smart monitors, not phones.
Farmark uses a 1920 by 1080 design canvas for this mode so smart monitors, 1080p displays, and 4K displays keep the same composition instead of inventing a new layout every time the browser reports a different size.
Look for these settings and adjust them intentionally:
Use the light display style for bright kitchens and daytime visibility. Use the darker Wall Art style when the display sits in a dim room or you want it to feel less bright in the evening.
Stand where people naturally pass by and check whether the month, today’s events, weather, reminders, and Smart Summary are readable without walking up to the screen.
If it feels crowded, remove a widget before shrinking the calendar. Farmark works best when the calendar is the main object and the widgets support it.
If you are comparing this setup with Hearth Display, Skylight Calendar, or another dedicated family calendar device, the tradeoff is simple. Dedicated hardware is tidier out of the box. A DIY family hub gives me more control over the screen, placement, cost, and future upgrade path.
Farmark is strongest when the software matters more than the frame. It can live on a Samsung M8, iPad, wall TV, computer, or another browser-based display. I am not buying a display just to find out later that the software was the only part I really needed.