Plannie vs Home Assistant: the full comparison.
Home Assistant is the tinkerer's dashboard: open, local and free, with nothing built for a family. Plannie is the finished family hub. Both have an open API and MCP, so you can connect them rather than choose.
Feature by feature
| Plannie | Home Assistant | |
|---|---|---|
| Shared colour-coded family calendar | ✓ | ● The calendar card shows events from one or more calendar entities. Colour per member isn't documented for the built-in card; community builds add it with HACS cards. |
| Calendar sync | Two-way Google & Outlook, Apple & ICS feeds in | Google, CalDAV, Local Calendar Google Calendar reads and creates events. CalDAV (iCloud, Nextcloud) refreshes roughly every 15 minutes. Outlook and ICS aren't on the vendor pages. |
| Chores, routines & rewards | ✓ | ✗ No native feature. Community builds use to-do lists or Grocy; the request for a native points system for kids is unanswered. |
| Weekly meal planning | ✓ | ✗ |
| Shared and private lists | ✓ | ● Local to-do lists and a shopping list you can add to by voice. Per-user privacy isn't documented. |
| AI import of emails, photos & PDFs | Premium | ✗ |
| Wall display | Kiosk mode on any tablet | DIY dashboard in a kiosk browser |
| Per-member personal mode on own phones | ✓ | ● Multiple user accounts and per-device notifications in the Companion App. A per-member family view is whatever you build. |
| Open API & MCP for your own agents | Premium + MCP | ✓ |
| Smart-home devices & automations | ✗ | ✓ |
| Hardware to buy | None | Green $199, or your own Pi or PC A wall screen is extra and unpriced by the vendor; one community build used a roughly $100 touchscreen. |
| Subscription | $99/yr whole household | $0, HA Cloud $65/yr optional Home Assistant Cloud (Nabu Casa) adds remote access, text to speech and voice assistants at $6.50/month or $65/year. Nothing calendar-related is paywalled. |
| 3-year cost, family of four | $297 Premium | $199 to $394, plus a screen Green $199 with $0 software, or $394 with three years of Home Assistant Cloud. Add a display; the vendor doesn't price one. On a Pi or PC you already own, $0 plus the screen. |
Home Assistant prices and platform details from home-assistant.io and nabucasa.com, checked 18 September 2026. In fairness, Home Assistant runs your whole smart home, lights, locks, sensors and thousands of integrations, and its calendar and to-do entities can trigger automations. Plannie does none of that; it is the family layer you can connect to it.
Sources: home-assistant.io: Home Assistant Green, nabucasa.com: pricing, home-assistant.io: Calendar integration, developers.home-assistant.io: REST API, home-assistant.io: MCP Server integration
A toolkit and a finished hub
Home Assistant is a home-automation platform first. Every piece of a family display exists somewhere in it: a calendar card, to-do lists, a browser in kiosk mode on a tablet or a touchscreen. You assemble them. The community recipes for a Skylight clone walk through Google Cloud OAuth credentials, HACS cards and regex filters, then note the occasional updates, dashboard tweaking and troubleshooting that follow. One builder puts it plainly: expect some hacky solutions.
The family layer is what's missing. The stock calendar card has no documented colour per member, there is no chore chart or reward system, no meal planning and no way to email a school schedule in. Editing an event from the wall isn't as smooth as on a phone. Plannie starts from that layer: everyone's days side by side in their own colour, chores that pay out in tickets, a weekly meal grid, and a Family Inbox that files a forwarded PDF under the right child. Each parent's phone runs personal mode on the same plan.
On openness the two agree. Home Assistant has a REST API and an MCP server; Plannie has a documented REST API with scoped tokens and a full MCP server on Premium + MCP. That means you don't have to choose. Keep Home Assistant for the house, put the family in Plannie, and let one agent read both.
Choose Home Assistant if…
You already run it, you like building dashboards, and you want everything local with $0 software under non-profit stewardship. The calendar is one card among the lights, locks and sensors, and you're happy to spend a few evenings getting it right.
Choose Plannie if…
You want the family hub finished on day one: colour per member, chores and rewards, meals, a Family Inbox, kiosk mode on the tablet you already own, for $99/year. If you run Home Assistant too, connect the two through the open API and MCP.
Frequently asked
Can Home Assistant replace a Skylight calendar?+
If you build it, yes. The community has published Skylight-clone recipes: one Google Calendar per person, the Week Planner Card from HACS, a touchscreen running a browser in kiosk mode. Budget hours for Google Cloud OAuth credentials, card installs and regex filters, and the author of one build warns to expect some hacky solutions. Plannie gives you the same wall display in kiosk mode on any tablet, with chores, meals and AI import already in, for $99/year.
Does Home Assistant have a family calendar?+
It has calendar entities (Google Calendar, CalDAV for iCloud and Nextcloud, and a fully local calendar) and a calendar card with month, day and list-week views. Colour per member isn't documented for the built-in card, and a calendar entity can only track a single upcoming active event, so overlapping events are a known limit. There is no chore chart, no rewards and no meal planning; the request for a native family suite is still unanswered.
Does Plannie work with Home Assistant?+
Yes, through the open side of both products. Plannie has a documented REST API with scoped tokens and a full MCP server on Premium + MCP ($159/year). Home Assistant has a REST API and its own MCP server at /api/mcp. Your automation or your AI agent can read Plannie's calendar and chores and act in Home Assistant, so the family layer lives in Plannie and the house stays in Home Assistant.
How much does Home Assistant cost for a family?+
The software is $0. Home Assistant Green is $199, or you run it on a Raspberry Pi or PC you already have. Home Assistant Cloud is optional at $6.50/month or $65/year for remote access and voice. A wall screen is extra and the vendor doesn't price one; one community build used a roughly $100 touchscreen. Over three years that is $199 to $394 plus the screen, against $297 for Plannie Premium.
Is Home Assistant hard to set up as a family hub?+
For a family calendar, it is a project rather than a sign-up. You create Google Cloud credentials, install community cards, tune the dashboard and then keep up with occasional updates, dashboard tweaking and troubleshooting. Editing events straight from the wall is also less smooth than on a phone, by the builders' own account. That is fine if you enjoy it. Plannie is for the household that wants it working tonight.