Hearth Companion App

I am very underwhelmed by my Hearth Display. It lacks creativity and obvious features any tech product in 2025 should have. 1. It does not make sounds of any kind. No alarms. No reminders. It can’t set times and you can’t talk to it like other “ai helpers.” Very disappointing. The Hearth cannot be a central part of our lifestyle if we must continue using our other tech for these most basic functions. 2. There are almost no display customization options. No dark mode. No way to view widgets of its functions on a Home Screen. The display doesn’t even “know” that it shouldn’t show all the empty space from midnight to 8 am if it’s EMPTY. It shouldn’t make me scroll down to awake hours to see if anything is on the calendar. 3. No add on widgets which could be fun - like a vocab word of the day or an AI powered “daily briefing” which could be verbally given aloud in addition to visually. Even the weather forecast is the most basic unhelpful information ever. You can’t actually use it to check the weather as there is no hourly forecast, humidity, uv index, etc. 4. There is no “toddler mode” 5. No user identification to stop siblings from messing with each other. There is a camera. Let’s get faceID rolled out. 6. While we’re on the camera - let’s get video calling set up! 6. Part of the appeal of a wall display is that it is NOT a smartphone. Unfortunately you will still need to use your smartphone for everything that is actually useful, because those features are not available on the display.

We love our hearth, the entire family uses it multiple times a day on a daily basis. Here’s what I love and what i wish would improve (I’ve actually shared this feedback with their team but none of this has been implemented thus far): - Meal planning is super helpful, but I wish there was a way to have an archive of your go-to meals and their corresponding recipes that you can look through and choose from when planning your meals. A notes section would help too for when you try a new recipe but want to jot down some notes about it, or if you tried it already and want to note what you’d do differently next time perhaps. - Routines are the main thing my kids use, they’ve been great and are removing some of my mental load. However, I really dislike that you can see all the various routines of the day even if they’re not “active”. For example, the bedtime routine should only SHOW UP at bedtime. Otherwise it feels overwhelming at times for my children too see a bunch of routines all at the same time. Additionally, I’d love to be able to put an end time to routines so that there’s urgency to get it done by a certain time. So if I have a morning routine, for instance, I don’t want my kid to be doing it at 4 pm. - I love that I can display a picture of my family while the hearth isn’t in use. But would love it even more if it had a slideshow option so I can see more than just one picture. Overall, I truly do love my hearth and its corresponding app. But there are just minor tweaks that they can do that would make me that much more satisfied with it.

I love the concept of Hearth and appreciate the schedule, meal planning, to-do lists, and reward system. It has great potential for keeping the family organized. That said, the functionality could be improved. The calendar would be far more useful if it integrated with existing calendars so changes in Hearth reflected everywhere. Meal planning is nice, but links to recipes or videos would make cooking much easier. It’s tedious to use another app to plan my weekly menu and then add each grocery item individually to Hearth’s list. My kids enjoy the routines, but since we keep the Hearth in the kitchen, we tend to stop using it for tasks done upstairs. Once the kitchen is “closed” for the night, the rest of the routine falls off. I also don’t love letting the kids finish their routines in the app because the fun is lost that way. I think the cost of the initial product is steep, though I will say it’s beautiful and blends seamlessly into my space—so I do appreciate the investment into its elevated look. However, the annual fee also feels high, and I don’t see enough benefit to justify it. Realistically, I wouldn’t move it out of the kitchen, so some flexibility for multi-location use would help. With better integration, more seamless features, and more value for the cost, this could easily be a five-star tool.