What's new in Equal House

1. Latest Build 2056 · v1.12.0 6 September 2026

   Two of you did one job — now you can share it out

   A job had one owner and one tick, which left half-finished work with no honest answer: hand it over and lose the credit for what you did, or mark it done when it is not. You can now share a job out — say how much is done, say who finishes it, and each of you is credited for exactly your own share, with a child’s pocket money splitting the same way. Between you, you earn what the whole job is worth and never more. A one-off job can now be turned into a repeating one from its own edit screen, where until now the only answer was to delete it and add it again. This release also gives a task tap one destination everywhere: the calendar used to push a screen whose title could not wrap, so most of a long job name simply disappeared, and it now opens the same panel Home does. Add has moved off the top of your list and into a bar at the foot of the screen, where it cannot cover the hours you came to read. And “Family & account” is now “Your account”, rebuilt as a dashboard — with the ability, at last, to change your own name.

   • Share a job out when two of you did it. Say how much is done and who finishes it: you are credited for your share and it is marked done for you, and the rest becomes a job for them, due at the same time. Between them they earn exactly what the whole job is worth, never more — the fairness score and a child’s pocket money both split by the same fraction. It is on the ⋮ menu beside a job, in the panel that opens when you tap one on the calendar, and on a party’s jobs.
   • A one-off job can now be made to repeat. If you added a job without a repeat and then wanted one, there was no way in: the edit screen only showed the recurrence controls for a job that already repeated, so the answer was to delete it and add it again. Open a one-off job to edit it, turn Repeat on and choose how often, and that job becomes the first occurrence of the new series — it is not duplicated and not replaced — and the rest schedule themselves from it. Four kinds of job cannot be turned into a series, and for those the Repeat switch is not offered at all rather than shown and then refused: a job already ticked off or skipped, because its credit and pocket money were for the one time it was done; one half of a shared job, because a part-share must not carry into every future week; a personal job, which sits outside fairness altogether; and a job another part of the app made for itself — a party’s chores, a meal plan’s cooking, an exercise plan — because converting rewrites where a job came from, and that would cut it loose from the thing that owns it.
   • Tapping a job on the calendar now opens the same panel Home does. It used to push the notes screen, whose title is forced to a single line that cannot wrap — so beside a labelled “Mark done” button, anything longer than a few words lost most of its name. Every calendar surface now opens Home’s summary panel: the whole title, when it is due, the effort, who it is for, whether it repeats, and every action, with notes as one row inside it.
   • Add no longer covers your list. It hovered over the content, and on the calendar it sat permanently over the late-afternoon hours — the busiest part of a family evening — where no amount of spacing could shift it, because the clock scrolls inside itself. Add is now a bar at the foot of Home, the calendar and the day screen, taking up room of its own rather than covering anything.
   • “Select”, for ticking several jobs off at once, has moved into that bar. It used to sit in the To-do heading, which scrolls away with the list, so on a long list the way in disappeared exactly when it was most useful — the same reason the way out of the mode has always lived in permanent furniture down there.
   • Your account, rebuilt. “Family & account” under More is now “Your account”, and it opens with answers rather than a list of settings: who you are here, your share of the week so far, what is on your list, how last week went, and what you are paying. And you can change your own name, which was not possible before — a name typed when you signed up was permanent. Anyone may rename themselves and an owner or admin may rename anyone; notes and documents already written keep the name they were signed with. Everything else that was on that screen still is, and all of it still works on the free plan.
   • The kids’ family code no longer has to be unique. Six emojis chosen from sixteen is a small enough space that families genuinely collided, and the collision arrived as “That code is taken — pick a different mix of emojis” about a code nobody outside your house can ever see, in a picker where the obvious choices are also the popular ones. The code stopped identifying your family when children’s sign-in was tied to a device a grown-up had signed in on: the app works out the family from the device and only then checks the code. Two families may now hold the same six pictures and neither will ever know.
   • A free household opening Assistant suggestions is now told it is a Pro feature. The queue where a grown-up approves changes an assistant has suggested is part of Pro, and opening it without Pro gave one line of grey error text with nothing to do next.
   • Fixed: a pinned job could not be reassigned or unpinned from the calendar. Tapping one there opened the notes screen, which has no such action, and the panel it now opens instead hid Reassign for anything pinned — so somebody pinned to a job they could not do had no way to say so unless they found the ⋮ menu on Home. Reassign is offered on every surface again, the row says up front that the pin is in play, and it asks before releasing the pin.
   • Fixed: a pale band could show under the bottom bar. On a phone with three navigation buttons the bar’s own colour stopped short of the bottom of the screen and the page showed through underneath — on the main navigation bar, and on the box you type a note into. Both now paint all the way to the edge.
   • Fixed: work hours could read “No work hours set” for somebody with a year of shifts already entered. That screen only ever looked at the usual week, so the first thing a shift worker opened was telling them their rota had not saved.
   • Fixed: error messages written for developers. When something failed with nothing useful to pass on, the app fell through to its network library’s own diagnostic — several sentences about status-code validation, in the middle of your calendar.
   • Fixed: Kid Mode no longer reports usage data once the app has been restarted. Signing a child in has always stopped it; a shared tablet left in Kid Mode and then started up again did not, until now.
   • Also: a suggestion to move a job used to read as a brand-new event, and every card in the review queue now names what it would do and shows how the entry reads today; the red on “Leave this family” and “Delete my account & data” is dark enough to read on all ten colour schemes; and searching Settings for “change my name” now finds it.

   Learn more The fairness engine Shared calendar Your account
2. Build 2055 · v1.11.0 3 September 2026

   Shift work, and a calendar you can move things around on

   The work schedule was one fixed week, which cannot describe shift work at all — four on, four off has no answer for “Tuesday”, because it depends which Tuesday. Anyone on a rota was telling the fairness engine about a week they do not have. You can now set your hours by real date, and because nobody types a year of shifts, you can photograph your printed rota and have it read, or generate a pattern and run it forward to a date. This release also makes the calendar something you can rearrange rather than only read: press and hold a job to drag it to another time or another day, and tap an empty hour to put something there. Both children can be given the same chore in one go, as one job each. And Bric can now search your calendar, so “any birthdays this month?” is a question he can answer.

   • Work shifts, for weeks that are not all the same. Set your hours by real date; those dates win over your usual week, and days you leave blank still follow it. A steady week needs nothing new — this is only for the households the fixed week never fitted.
   • Photograph your rota and we read it. Point the camera at the printed sheet on the fridge and the shifts come back as a list you check before anything is saved. It reads only your line of a team grid, and anything it was unsure of is left out rather than guessed at — a wrong shift months away is the sort of wrong nobody thinks to check.
   • Or fill a year in from a pattern: four on and four off from a start date, a fortnight repeated forward, or one week copied onto another. A pattern never overwrites a day you typed by hand, so a correction survives the next time you extend it.
   • Marking a day Off is not the same as leaving it blank. Blank follows your usual week; Off overrides it — which is the only way to say “I normally work Mondays, but not this one”. Your shifts show on the family calendar too, so everyone can see who is at work.
   • Move a job by dragging it. Press and hold it on the day’s clock and drop it at a new time, hold against either edge to walk to another day, or drop it straight onto a day in the week strip — where it keeps the time it already had.
   • Tap an empty hour to add something there. The calendar asks whether you mean an event or a job, because a family’s day holds both, and opens the right form with the time already filled in. The day now shows all 24 hours and opens on the first thing you have on; before, it drew only the hours you had already filled, so there was nowhere to put anything at an hour you had not.
   • Give the same chore to several children at once. Both children make their beds — that is two jobs, not one shared one, so each child gets their own to tick and their own pocket money. Pick more than one person when you add a job and each gets a copy.
   • Ask Bric what is on. “Any birthdays this month?” or “when is the next dentist?” — he can now search the calendar across a range of dates and by what kind of thing it is. He could only read one day at a time before, which is why he used to say he had no way to answer.
   • A calendar row now says two things instead of one: the stripe on the left is who it is for, the icon beside the title is what kind of thing it is. They used to share a colour, so a school event with someone on it drew a school glyph in that person’s colour and the eleven category colours were almost never seen. There is a key behind the (i) on the calendar.
   • Fixed: a deleted event could still buzz at its original time. The reminder had been scheduled on the phone days earlier and nothing was cancelling it when the event went.
   • Fixed: a fortnight’s meal plan could time out and then turn up anyway on a refresh. It builds several times faster now, and the app waits long enough for it either way.
   • Fixed: the kid board counted jobs finished weeks ago as “done this week”, and had no way to see what is coming tomorrow.
   • Also: add your own items to a shopping list, repeat an event every other week the way a job already could, and a tour for work schedules.

   Learn more Work schedules Shared calendar Bric, your assistant
3. Build 2054 · v1.10.0 31 August 2026

   Bric now knows the house, not just the week

   Bric could plan your week but could not tell you where the stopcock was — that lived on a separate screen, "Ask about home", with its own way of asking. Two places to ask an assistant is one too many, and which one to use was never obvious. Bric now reads your house notes and your family documents as well as your calendar, so there is a single place to ask and it can act on the answer. Family documents stay grown-ups only. This release also makes adding a pet quicker by suggesting species and breeds as you type, adds five tours for the things under More, and fixes five faults — including an assistant suggestion that could be rejected but never approved, and a school year that could not be set more than a few days ahead.

   • Ask Bric about the house. Where is the stopcock, how do you relight the boiler, when does Ella’s passport expire — he searches the notes and documents you have written rather than guessing. He works only from what is there: if the note does not exist he says so, which is rather the point of writing the house down in the first place.
   • Documents stay grown-ups only, and the check is made before anything is read. Bric tells a child plainly that he cannot look at those. For a grown-up he gives a document’s name, folder and expiry date — enough to answer "when does that run out?" — and never its contents or a link to the file.
   • One assistant instead of two. The separate "Ask about home" screen has gone from the menu now that Bric does the same job, so there is one place to ask and it can suggest changes as well as answer questions. Nothing you had written is affected.
   • Species and breed suggest as you type when you add a pet. 44 species and 338 breeds, chosen for the animals UK families actually keep — Patterdales and lurchers as well as labradors, plus guinea pigs, bearded dragons and chickens. The list is a shortcut, never a rule: type a species we have never heard of and it saves exactly as written.
   • Five new tours, one for each thing under More → Your home: Family wall, Money, Pets, House notes and Documents. Each takes a couple of minutes and drops you into the screen at the end.
   • Fixed: an assistant suggestion could be rejected but not approved. The Approve button was being pushed off the edge of the screen by a sizing rule meant for full-width buttons, so the only visible choice was to say no.
   • Fixed: a school year could not be set more than a few days ahead, which made a September-to-July term impossible to enter. The date picker now offers the real range. Setting up a term still needs Pro — but it now says so, instead of looking broken.
   • Fixed: adding a meal plan to the calendar created a single entry named after the plan’s dates. Opening Thursday told you a date range rather than what was for dinner. Each meal now gets its own entry on its own day, named after what you are cooking, at your dinner time where one is set.
   • Fixed: a linked Google or Outlook calendar could import every event twice if the same calendar had been connected more than once. Re-linking a calendar you already have now simply refreshes it, and the duplicate links have been cleared up.
   • Fixed: adding a pet could fail with “You are not a member of this family”, which is a confusing thing to be told about your own family. The app had remembered which household you were in from an earlier sign-in and carried on writing to it. It now works that out from your sign-in every time — fixed across the app, not just in Pets.

   Learn more Bric, your assistant House notes Family documents
4. Build 2053 · v1.9.0 28 August 2026

   The calendar shows what is coming, and lets you clear a whole run of it

   A repeating chore only existed on the calendar for a fortnight — far enough ahead to do it, nowhere near far enough to plan around it. Look at a date in October and the week appeared empty, when in fact the bins, the piano practice and two school runs were already on it. Recurring chores now show three months ahead, greyed out until they become jobs you can tick off, so a date you are planning around tells you the truth about itself. This release also adds a way to delete a whole run of repeating entries in one go rather than one day at a time, puts a swipe on the month grid and the day panel, and gives free Pro an end date you can actually see. It fixes a fault where adding a note to a job failed instead of saving, and corrects a plan comparison that had the school run on the wrong side of it.

   • See three months of repeats, not two weeks. Recurring chores now appear on the calendar long before they become real jobs. They are greyed and cannot be ticked, moved or reassigned — they are there so that a Tuesday in October shows it already has the bins and piano practice on it. They turn into ordinary jobs nearer the time, exactly as before.
   • Delete a whole run in one go. A school run is one entry per school day and a recurring chore is one per occurrence, so clearing either used to mean deleting them one at a time. “Delete all of these” removes every upcoming one — and, for a chore, the repeat behind it, so it cannot quietly come back overnight. It counts them first and tells you the number before it does anything, and everything already done is kept.
   • Swipe the calendar. Left and right moves a month in the month grid and a day in the day panel, alongside the week strip that already worked that way. Crossing the end of a week carries the week along with it.
   • Free Pro now tells you when it ends. Pro that came from a code has always run out on a date, and nothing in the app ever said which. You saw “Pro is active” — the same words a subscriber sees — until the morning the calendar stopped three days out. The date is now on the Pro screen from the day the code is applied, with a reminder on the home screen in the fortnight before.
   • Fixed: adding a note to a job could fail with an error instead of saving. The note was in fact being saved every time; it was the app’s reading of the reply that broke. Fixed on the server for everyone the same day, and this build no longer depends on that.
   • Corrected: the plan comparison said the school run was free. Setting one up spans a whole term, and the free plan reaches three days ahead, so it has always needed Pro. It has moved to the Pro list, and the exercise planner — which is free, and which Pro does not extend — is now named on the free one.

   Learn more Shared calendar Pricing
5. Build 2052 · v1.8.0 27 August 2026

   A child with their own phone can now set it up themselves

   Until now, a device could only sign your children in after a grown-up had signed in on it — fine for the family tablet, wrong for a child who has their own phone, because it meant putting an adult’s whole account on a child’s device just to set up the child’s sign-in. Now a grown-up makes a setup code in Family & account and sends it; the child enters it once, or taps the link, and their phone is set up. The code trusts the device and nothing more: they still need the family’s six pictures and their own PIN afterwards, so a code that reaches the wrong person does not open your household. Codes work once and expire after 30 minutes, you are told when one is used, and the device can be removed with one tap. This release also fixes a kid sign-in fault that could leave a device permanently stuck, and adds step-by-step help for every part of the app.

   • Set up a child’s own device without signing in on it. More → Family & account → “Set up a child’s own device” makes a code you can send however you already message them. On their phone: Kids sign in → “I have a setup code”. There is a link too, which sets the device up in one tap.
   • Tie a phone to one child. A setup code can be bound to a single child, so a phone that is genuinely theirs will only ever sign them in — and cannot be used to sign in as a sibling, or to see who their siblings are. A shared family tablet still takes the unbound version.
   • A setup code buys trust and nothing else. It signs nobody in and identifies nobody: the family picture code and the child’s PIN are still required. Each code works once, expires after 30 minutes, and can be cancelled before it is used. When one is used the grown-ups are told, naming the device, and the devices list shows which child it belongs to.
   • Kid sign-in fixes itself now. A device whose access had been withdrawn used to say “ask a grown-up to sign in again” and then ignore the grown-up who did, leaving it permanently stuck. It now clears the dead credential and sets itself up properly on the next sign-in. Tidying up unused devices also no longer removes the one you are holding, which was how devices got into that state in the first place.
   • Help for everything, at equal.house/help. Fifty-eight short how-tos — one for each part of the app — each one saying exactly where to tap and whether it needs Pro. Reachable from Support, and it will grow with every release.
6. Build 2051 · v1.7.0 26 August 2026

   Bric, an assistant who asks before he changes anything

   Equal House now has an assistant of its own. Bric sits in the middle of the bottom bar, reads only your household’s own plan, and answers in plain words — “what problems do you see next week?”, “reorganise my busiest day”. When the answer is something that should actually happen he proposes it rather than doing it, and a grown-up approves each change before it reaches anyone’s calendar. He is part of Pro, not a separate purchase. Elsewhere: adding a school from the UK list now brings the term dates we hold with it, and shows them as a list you can check against the school’s own calendar rather than asking you to take our word for it; removing a school clears the drop-offs and pick-ups it had already put in your diary; and adding a task or an event is noticeably quicker.

   • Bric is the third tab. Ask him anything about your household in the words you would use out loud — what is coming up, who is carrying more this week, which jobs keep not getting done — and he answers from your own calendar, tasks and fairness figures. Nothing leaves your household: he cannot see any other family, and there is nothing to connect or set up.
   • He proposes, you approve. When Bric thinks something should move, be added or be marked done, it arrives in Assistant suggestions for a grown-up to accept or reject, and nothing reaches the family calendar until somebody taps approve. A single ask that produces six suggestions now sends one notification rather than six.
   • Conversations, not questions. Each chat keeps its own thread, so a follow-up carries on where the last answer left off instead of starting again, and Past chats lets you find the conversation you had on Sunday about half term. Threads are kept for a fortnight and then removed.
   • Pick your school from the UK list and the term dates come with it. For the schools whose dates we hold, adding the school fills in the holidays, half terms and training days we have — and the card says how many were added, so a school we hold nothing for promises nothing. School dates shows the full year as a list you can read straight down against the school’s own calendar, because ours can be incomplete and yours is the one that counts.
   • Removing a school now clears up after itself. Deleting a school used to leave every drop-off and pick-up it had already created sitting in the calendar, one entry per day with no way to select them all. Its future entries now go with it; the ones already past stay, so your history and your fairness record are unchanged.
   • Adding is faster. Creating a task or an event no longer waits for the notification to be delivered before it answers — the work is saved, you get on with your day, and the notification follows a moment later. Devices that no longer exist are forgotten instead of being tried forever.
   • Smaller things: the opening screen is quicker and quieter, trusted devices show the real phone rather than “Android device” and old ones can be cleared out, you can swipe in from the left edge of any screen to go back, and the Family Wall closes with a cross in the corner rather than a back arrow.
7. Build 2050 · v1.6.0 22 August 2026

   One calendar screen instead of three, and a tick that checks with you first

   The Calendar tab is no longer three views to choose between. Your week sits as a strip of seven days across the top, the day you pick is drawn as a clock underneath, and the month is a panel you pull up over it. Ticking a task that is not yours, is not due yet or is pinned to one person now asks before it credits anyone. The Fairness Score will show you its working and turns green only when the split really is close, last week’s recap allows for working hours, and Settings has lost its Save button — every change applies as you make it, and you can search for the one you want. Exercise plans and assistant suggestions have somewhere to be opened from at last, one feature stops answering to three different names, and “Speak it” in Magic Add is now part of Pro.

   • The Calendar tab is one screen now. The Coming up / Week / Month switcher has gone, and with it the sixty-day list and the stack of collapsible day cards. All seven days of your week sit on one row across the top — each with its date and a small pill saying how much is on, amber or red when the day is heavy — and tapping a day gives the whole rest of the screen to it. The back and forward arrows now sit either side of the days they actually move, and you can swipe the strip instead.
   • The day you pick is drawn as a clock by default, so "am I free at four?" is a question you answer by looking rather than by reading. A small switch above the day flips it back to the familiar list of cards. Anything without a time has its own lane built into the top of the clock, where a trip reads "Whitby · continues" or "Whitby · starts today" — and a holiday that finishes today is drawn as a real block running down to the time it ends, so the clock finally says your afternoon is free.
   • The month is a panel you pull up by tapping the month name, instead of a bare date picker asking you to name a day you could not see anything about. Arrows browse other months without moving the week underneath, each square carries one small coloured number rather than a scatter of dots and a bar, and picking a date drops you onto that week with that day chosen. The (i) explains the shading where the shading actually is, so the two permanent legend strips above the calendar are gone.
   • A task on the calendar now wears exactly the same card as the same task on Home — the big tick ring on the left, the photo and first name of whoever has it, the colour stripe down the edge — and every block on the clock carries that ring too, so finishing something is one tap. "Open day" has moved to the top of the day rather than the bottom, an empty day names the day instead of saying "Nothing in this period", and a trip no longer repeats its start time on every morning it covers.
   • Ticking a task off now checks with you when it is not yours, is not due yet, or is pinned to one person. One short box, "Mark this done?", offers "Take it over" or "Just mark done" on somebody else’s task, and explains that finishing something early puts the points on this week rather than the week it was for. Your own task, due today, is untouched. Ticking a batch asks once about the pinned ones — skip them or credit them anyway — and tells you what was left behind.
   • The Fairness Score will show you its working. "How is this worked out?" under the dial opens a plain account of what each grown-up did, the gap between you and how that becomes the number on the dial, with the colour bands spelled out — all four of them, in the dial’s own words, so a score of 92 no longer reads “Beautifully balanced” on the dial above a key that does not contain the phrase. The bands themselves have moved: green used to start at 80, which painted a household where one person did two-thirds of everything a reassuring green. Green now starts at 86, amber runs down to 75, and the day summary reads the same bands, so one score can no longer be two colours on two screens.
   • Last week in review counts working hours. A household where one grown-up works full time could be told the week was Lopsided in red from the very same points the Home dial scored green; the verdict now uses the availability-adjusted figures the dial uses, and says so when the hours have shifted it. The percentages add up to exactly 100 again, a partner who joined after the week began no longer drags it down, nobody is crowned top when the top two are level, and the once-a-week popup no longer skips a week each spring.
   • Settings has lost its Save button. It is a short menu of eleven rows over six screens instead of one enormous page, every row reads back what it is set to without you opening it, and a change applies the moment you make it — with an Undo on the three that are expensive to get wrong, and a message on the row itself if a change fails to save. There is a search box: type "fingerprint", "allowance" or "teatime" and you land on the exact control, not near it. Currency has its own row now and warns before it rewrites pocket-money amounts.
   • Your sign-in renews itself in the background, so an app left running for days no longer fails the next thing you tap, and a refused request is renewed and re-sent rather than showing an error. If your sign-in really has run out you land on the login screen with a plain note saying so, and getting back in is one tap. A wobbly connection no longer bounces a signed-in family back to "create or join a family", and a request refused for any other reason no longer blames your sign-in for it.
   • “Speak it” — dictating into Magic Add instead of typing — is now part of Equal House Pro. It was sold as Pro on the store listings and on this site while working perfectly well on the free plan, and we have made the app match the promise rather than quietly keep charging for something we were giving away. Photographing a newsletter and pasting text into Magic Add stay free, and speech is still turned into a transcript on your own device before anything is drafted.
   • One name per thing. The More row that used to say “Rebalance week” opened a screen headed “Fairer week ahead”, and the store listings called it “a weekly Rebalance” — three names for the one tool you have to tell apart from Auto-Balance. It is “Fairer week ahead” everywhere now. “Last week in review” and “Your week in review” are both “Your week in review”, and habit stacks are “Routines” in the More list, on the screen, in its empty state and on a child’s own board.
   • Two screens that existed but had no door. Exercise plans could only be reached by tapping a grown-up in the members strip on Home — which is not what a members strip looks like it does — and assistant suggestions could only be reached by tapping a notification, so anyone who dismissed one could never find the screen again. Both now have a row in More.
   • The projected score after Auto-Balance is measured over the same week the dial is showing. It was worked out over a fortnight while the caption underneath still read “over the past 7 days”, so the number you were shown and the period you were told it covered were two different things. Last week’s recap now says on screen that it is a blunter, once-a-week read and not the rolling score on Home, which is why the two can land on different words from the same work.
   • The upgrade screen says what you actually get. The free plan used to be summed up as “everything else — fairness, kids, meals, money”, which quietly left out Safe Space, Ask about home, the review inbox and the assistant connector; the store listings, meanwhile, charged for family documents, which have never been anything but free. Both lists are now written from what the app actually enforces.

   Learn more Shared calendar Fairness Engine
8. Build 2048 · v1.4.0 18 August 2026

   A ready-made list of family chores, and a to-do list you can read at a glance

   Getting the chores in no longer means an empty form: pick from 53 of the chores most families actually have and each becomes a repeating task that Auto-Balance shares out. The shared to-do list has been rebuilt around a tick-ring and the face of whoever has the task, day headings stay put while you scroll, Magic Add is the one place to snap, paste or speak, and tapping a family invite link now joins you outright. Calendar sync takes webcal:// addresses too, so your own Google, Outlook or Apple calendar can come in without being published — and a calendar with more than one event in it finally links.

   • Start from a ready-made list instead of a blank form. Ready-made tasks offers 53 of the chores most families actually have — shelved under Kitchen, Cleaning, Laundry, Life admin, School, Pets, Outdoors, Money and more — and each one you tick is added as a repeating task that goes to nobody in particular, so Auto-Balance shares it out. It tells you roughly how many tasks that puts on the next fortnight before you commit, checks with you if you have ticked a lot, and leaves alone anything you already had rather than doubling it up.
   • The shared to-do list has been rebuilt. You tick a ring on the left instead of hunting a Done button on the right, the person it belongs to leads the second line with their own photo, and a colour stripe down the card says whose it is — an unassigned task has no stripe. Open tasks sit on a soft shadow and finished ones lie flat, so what is still left stands out before you read a word.
   • Day headings now stick to the top of the list while you scroll that day, so you can always see which day you are looking at. The to-do filter chips fit on one line again on a small phone, and "Repeating" is now "Repeats" — the same word the cards use.
   • Magic Add is the single door for snapping, pasting or speaking. The separate "Speak a task or event" row has gone, "Speak it" sits at the top of Magic Add rather than buried under the text box, and speaking now adds to whatever you have already typed instead of wiping it. The Add menu is five choices instead of seven: "Add an announcement" has gone, because an event already puts a notice on the calendar, and announcements you added before still open and edit from the calendar.
   • A piece of household work is a "task" everywhere in the app now. The same thing used to be a "job" on one screen and a "task" on the next, sometimes in the same sentence — and "Starter jobs" is "Ready-made tasks" under that name wherever you meet it.
   • Last week in review has left Home and become its own screen under More, and it now says when it is loading or has nothing to show instead of quietly showing nothing. The once-a-week popup is unchanged.
   • Tapping a family invite link now joins you outright — you land on "Joining the Kellys…" rather than a screen asking you to press Join. Invite links last 24 hours instead of a fortnight, the message you send says so, and so does the invite page on this site.
   • Calendar sync takes the webcal:// address that Apple, Outlook and every desktop calendar app hands out, so a private calendar can finally be linked without publishing it (Pro). The dialog says where each provider hides its secret address and that linking does not make your calendar public, and "Show me where to find it" opens a step-by-step walkthrough for Google, Outlook, Apple and self-hosted calendars, including how to revoke access.
   • Linking a calendar with more than one event in it works again — it had been failing with "That change clashed with a concurrent update". And when a linked calendar cannot be read, the message on screen no longer quotes your secret address back at you.
   • More now says "Calendar sync" and offers to link your own Google, Outlook or Apple calendar, not just school and club feeds. The tour has a chapter on why that is worth doing: a day full of meetings should stop quietly earning you a pile of tasks at six o’clock.
   • A task pinned to one person can be handed to someone else, or handed back. "Reassign…" and "Decline" are on its menu again, each marked with a small pin, and Equal House tells you what the pin is and whose it is before it comes off. While the task is moving you see "Moving…" where the name was, on Home and in the calendar day view alike.
   • The tour is about half as long to read. Every chapter, step and hand-off is where it was — the words are just cut down.

   Learn more Shared calendar Fairness Engine
9. Build 2047 · v1.3.0 13 August 2026

   Photograph a party invitation and let it fill itself in

   Point your camera at the invitation on the fridge and Equal House reads the name, date, times and place off it, then hands you the form to check. Parties now have a place on the map, an entry on the calendar and their jobs listed with who has each one — and adding someone to the family is a tap away on Home again.

   • Add a party by photographing the invitation. Equal House reads the name, date, times, place and any theme off it and fills the form in — you check it, and nothing is saved until you do. The photo becomes the attached invitation too.
   • Parties have a place. Pick it on the map and the summary shows it with directions in a tap, handing off to your maps app rather than guessing at a drive time.
   • Every party now gets its own entry on the family calendar, spanning the party itself.
   • A party summary lists the jobs it made — the card, the present, the lift — with who has each one and what is already done, and each opens with a tap. The invitation shows as a picture, and the places to buy a present are one tidy menu instead of a row of buttons.
   • The to-do filters count what is behind them, so All, Repeating and One-off tell you how much of the list each holds.
   • A new household gets a hand with the first few things worth setting up, and joining a family now explains what you have joined instead of dropping you on an empty screen.
   • Present ideas link to the shops in your own country, and searching for a school returns it once — some Welsh schools were listed twice.

   Learn more Smart planners Shared calendar
10. Build 2046 · v1.2.0 9 August 2026

    Invites that actually open, and a Fairness Score that waits for both of you

    Sharing an invite now sends a link that opens straight into Equal House, adding another adult gives them their own login by default, and the Fairness Score no longer claims a perfect split while one person is doing everything.

    • Invite links now open properly wherever you share them — WhatsApp, Messages, email — so the other grown-up can join in a tap instead of typing a code out.
    • Adding another adult now sets them up with their own login by default, rather than a name only you manage.
    • The Fairness Score waits until both grown-ups are in before it shows a number — a home with one adult in it was being told the split was perfect, which is the one thing it should never say.
    • An invite that has expired or been used up now tells you so, instead of leaving you stuck on it.
    • The calendar is clearer about which days your plan covers, rather than simply looking empty.

    Learn more Fairness Engine Shared calendar
11. Build 2045 · v1.1.1 8 August 2026

    Swipe through your days, and gift ideas you can actually buy

    Move between days in the calendar with a swipe, jump straight from a party gift idea to somewhere selling it, delete a party you no longer need, drop a single day out of a repeating event, and take the tour one tab at a time.

    • Swipe left or right on a day in the calendar to move between days.
    • Party gift ideas now come with shopping links, so you can find them in seconds.
    • Delete a party you no longer need — jobs already ticked off are kept.
    • Remove a single day from a repeating event, from anywhere in the app.
    • Pick the part of Equal House you would like shown around, a tab at a time.

    Learn more Party planner Shared calendar
12. Build 2044 · v1.1.0 22 July 2026

    Add events on the day you tapped, cancel in a tap, and a fuller tour

    Adding an event from a day now starts on that day, cancelling a one-off event is a tap away, the welcome tour now covers Meals and Safe Space too, and the kids’ sign-in fits smaller phones.

    • Add an event from a day and it starts on that date — no more re-picking the day you just opened.
    • Cancel a one-off event in a tap, right from the event screen (a repeating event removes the whole series).
    • The welcome walkthrough now covers everything — Home, Calendar, Meals and Safe Space.
    • A tidier kids’ sign-in that fits comfortably on smaller phones.

    Learn more Shared calendar Kid Mode
13. Build 2043 · v1.1.0 20 July 2026

    Clearer answers from Ask about home

    A polish release: answers from "Ask about home" now come back neatly formatted — with headings, bullet points and highlighted details — so they're easy to read at a glance.

    • "Ask about home" answers now read cleanly — the household assistant's replies are laid out with headings, bullet points and highlighted key details, instead of one block of plain text.
    • A round of small fixes and polish.

    Learn more Ask about home
14. Build 2042 · v1.1.0 20 July 2026

    Money jars, chore pricing your way, and a Family Wall for the kitchen

    Split kids' pocket money into Spend, Save, Give and Invest jars, set exactly what each chore pays, say thanks with a family gratitude feed, get answers drawn from your own family data, see a fairer split of the week ahead, and put today up on a full-screen Family Wall — now tuned for phones as well as tablets.

    • Money jars — split each child's pocket money into Spend, Save, Give and Invest, the classic four-jar way to help kids learn to budget. Turn it on and choose how each reward divides up across the jars.
    • Set what a chore pays — price any job exactly how you like, separately from how hard it counts towards fairness. Leave it to the difficulty amount, or set your own (even nothing at all).
    • Say thanks — a family gratitude feed for the little things everyone does, so appreciation gets noticed.
    • Ask about home — get answers drawn from your family's own plans and notes, like a household brain you can just ask. Part of Equal House Pro.
    • A fairer week ahead — Equal House suggests a rebalance of the jobs coming up so the week shares out more evenly, for you to review and apply in a tap.
    • Family Wall — prop up a tablet or cast it for a full-screen display of today's plan, who's on what, and your fairness score. Now laid out for phones too, not just wide screens.

    Learn more Kid Mode Money The Fairness Engine
15. Build 2041 · v1.1.0 18 July 2026

    Pocket money your way, tasks that fit school life, and worldwide support

    Set pocket money by chore difficulty and choose your currency, give recurring tasks a start and stop date or pause them over the holidays, and jump from a cooking task straight to its recipe — plus Equal House now adapts to the country you're in.

    • Pocket money, your way — set how much each completed chore pays by its difficulty level, and choose the currency your family uses. Kids' pots and payouts follow it everywhere.
    • Recurring tasks that fit real life — give a repeat a start and stop date, or add breaks so a task pauses over the school holidays and quietly picks back up afterwards.
    • Tap a cooking task to open its recipe — the ingredients and method are a tap away from the job on your list or calendar.
    • Now beyond the UK — the school finder and all money adapt to the country you're in, so families outside the UK feel at home too.

    Learn more Kid Mode The school run
16. Build 2040 · v1.1.0 15 July 2026

    Email straight to your planner, and tap-to-open reminders

    Forward a school email or invite and Equal House pulls out the dates and jobs for you to review, a tap on any reminder jumps straight to it, and a more secure kids’ sign-in.

    • Forward emails to your planner — send a school newsletter, invite or letter to your Equal House inbox and we read it for you, suggesting the events and jobs so you just check and add. Nothing lands on the calendar until you say so. Part of Equal House Pro.
    • Tap a reminder to open it — a task, event or routine nudge now takes you straight to the day it’s about, so you can act on it in a tap. New suggestions get their own alert and a badge, too.
    • A more secure kids’ sign-in — the family emoji code is longer and better protected, alongside a round of behind-the-scenes safety and privacy improvements.

    Learn more Smart planners Shared calendar
17. Build 2039 · v1.1.0 14 July 2026

    Reminders that arrive, and a calmer Safe Space

    On-device reminders that actually land — for tasks and now events too — a Safe Space you can time and tidy, and a dinner time your cooking works back from.

    • Reminders that arrive on time — a gentle nudge before a task or event is due lands right on your phone. Reminders are on by default now, and you can set your own reminder on any event, just like tasks and routines.
    • Safe Space, improved — choose any conversation timer length up to 60 minutes, with a soft chime and buzz when time’s up, and once you’ve talked something through, tuck it into an archive or delete it for good. Part of Equal House Pro.
    • A dinner time on your meal plan — set when you actually eat and Equal House schedules the cooking to be ready for then, working the prep time back automatically. Set one time for the whole household, or a different time on any day.
    • A few finishing touches — a warmer “task done” moment and small polish throughout.

    Learn more Shared calendar Wellbeing & Safe Space Smart planners
18. Build 2038 · v1.1.0 13 July 2026

    Safe Space, and places on the calendar

    A kinder way to raise something tricky, event locations you can map and get directions to, and a tidier More tab.

    • Safe Space — a calmer, kinder way to raise something tricky with another grown-up. Jot down what’s on your mind, choose who to share it with, and Equal House gently lets them know you’d like to talk it through calmly, with time. It’s now in the bottom bar. Part of Equal House Pro.
    • Event locations — add a place to any event, search the address, see it on a map and tap for directions, so everyone knows exactly where to be.
    • A tidier More tab — everything is grouped into clear sections, so it’s quicker to find what you need.

    Learn more Wellbeing & Safe Space Shared calendar
19. Build 2037 · v1.1.0 12 July 2026

    Work schedules, task places, and 1,000+ meals

    Working hours that shape the fair share, task locations you can map, a shopping list the whole family ticks off, a much bigger recipe library, and search on your to-do list.

    • Work schedules — set each grown-up’s working hours and Equal House expects fewer chores of them while they’re at work, so a full-time job isn’t quietly punished with a full load of chores too.
    • Task locations — give a task a place, search the address, see it on a map and tap for directions. Repeating tasks can even be somewhere different each week.
    • A shared shopping list — tick items off for the whole family, so nobody buys the milk twice, and clear all the ticks in a tap for a fresh week.
    • 1,000+ new meal ideas — the meal planner now draws from a library of over a thousand recipes.
    • Search & filter your to-do list — find a task by name and filter by one-off or repeating, or tap a person to see just theirs.
    • Birthday & Anniversary events — dedicated yearly event types, plus smoother multi-day events that show as one clean band across the days they span.

    Learn more The Fairness Engine Smart planners
20. Build 2030 · v1.0.0 8 July 2026

    A fresh look, and a smoother week

    A brand-new app icon, a fuller party planner, a clearer calendar, and friendlier offline messages.

    • A fresh new look — Equal House has a brand-new app icon, inside the app and on your home screen.
    • A fuller party planner — set the party’s start and end time, choose who’s taking them (a family member, who gets the lift job, or an outside lift), and attach the invite so it’s always to hand.
    • A clearer calendar — a busy or overloaded day is now gently shaded with a simple key and a tap-to-explain note, instead of a lone warning icon you had to guess at.
    • Friendlier when you’re offline — losing signal now says so plainly (“You appear to be offline”) rather than showing a technical error.

    Learn more Shared calendar Planners
21. Build 2027 · v1.0.0 6 July 2026

    Fairness over time, and repeats your way

    See the household split by day, week, month or year, and set chores to repeat on any interval — every 2 days, every 3 weeks, whatever fits.

    • Fairness over time — the Home dial now switches between day, week, month and year, so you can spot a short-term blip or a longer pattern instead of only ever seeing this week.
    • Custom repeats — schedule a chore for “every 2 days”, “every 3 weeks”, or any interval you like, right alongside the familiar daily / weekly / monthly / yearly quick picks.
    • Recurring chores from the assistant — the Equal House assistant can now set up repeating tasks for you, custom intervals included.

    Learn more The Fairness Engine Shared calendar
22. Build 2026 · v1.0.0 1 July 2026

    Plan together, and close the loop

    Heads-up when a task is done, connections with friends and colleagues, editable school entries, one-tap follow-ups, and a richer day summary.

    • Task-done nudges — when someone ticks off a task, the other grown-ups get a gentle heads-up (and it never pings the person who did it), so nobody has to chase.
    • Connections — the extended-family link now covers family, friends and colleagues: link another household by a share code, tag it, and plan across all of them (still free/busy only — never their details). Sharing your own code, finding a time and proposing a shared event are part of Equal House Pro; joining someone else’s link and replying to invitations are free.
    • Edit a school — change a school entry’s days, times, term dates and per-child details, not just add or remove it; the calendar updates to match.
    • One-tap follow-ups — just finished a task like “book the car service”? Add a follow-up event or task in a tap, prefilled and ready.
    • A richer day summary — a full-screen “your day” with who’s doing what today and a clear “how busy” rating, expandable for the detail.

    Learn more Shared calendar The Fairness Engine
23. Build 2025 · v1.0.0 30 June 2026

    Notes, pets, wellbeing & extended family

    House notes you can dictate, pet care that shares fairly, a private wellbeing corner, and planning across your whole extended family.

    • House notes — keep the family how-tos and reference info (the boiler, bin day, the wifi, emergency contacts) in one place, so anyone can find them. Type them, or just dictate with your voice.
    • Pets — add each animal with its details, then turn feeding, medication, walks and clean-outs into repeating jobs that appear on the calendar and are shared fairly, like any other chore.
    • Wellbeing — a quiet corner just for you: a guided breathing “time out”, a private journal kept only on your device (never uploaded), UK helplines a tap away, and a private way to reach a trusted grown-up at home.
    • Extended family — link relatives with a share code, see when everyone’s free (only free/busy, never the details), let Equal House suggest times that suit everyone, and plan a shared event that lands on each family’s calendar with RSVPs. Sharing your code, finding a time and proposing an event are part of Equal House Pro; joining someone else’s link and replying to invitations are free.

    Learn more Shared calendar Smart planners
24. Build 2017 · v1.0.0 28 June 2026

    A calendar that keeps up with the family

    Repeating events, syncing your other calendar, automatic UK bank holidays, colour-coded entries and document expiry reminders.

    • Repeating events — set anything to repeat daily, weekly, monthly or yearly, then change or delete just one occurrence or the whole series.
    • Link your other calendar — sync a Google or Outlook calendar so work, school and personal dates sit alongside the family’s, all in one place. Part of Equal House Pro.
    • UK bank holidays — they now appear automatically for your nation (England & Wales, Scotland or Northern Ireland), and you can switch them off in Settings.
    • Colour-coded entries — every event and task is tinted by who it’s for, so you can see at a glance whose day is whose.
    • Document expiry reminders — add an expiry date to family paperwork (passports, insurance, the MOT) and Equal House keeps it tidy and reminds you before it lapses.

    Learn more Shared calendar Money & documents
25. Build 2016 · v1.0.0 27 June 2026

    Speak it, lock it, find it

    Add tasks and events by voice, lock the app with your fingerprint or device PIN, get a daily summary, and keep documents in nested folders.

    • Voice Add — tap the mic from the home add menu or Magic Add and just say it (“book the dentist by Friday”). On-device speech becomes a transcript that Magic Add turns into suggested events and tasks for you to review and confirm. Nothing is ever auto-created. Part of Equal House Pro.
    • App Lock — a new Device security setting (on phones with a secure lock screen) asks for your fingerprint or device PIN every time Equal House opens. It’s per device and fails safely, so you can never be locked out of your own family’s data.
    • Daily summary — one on-device notification each day, at a time you choose, with the day’s events and the tasks assigned to you. It’s per-person, not a household setting.
    • Nested document folders — family documents now live in folders within folders, with a tidy expandable view. Existing folders simply stay where they are, and downloads remain secure, signed and time-limited.

    Learn more Smart planners Money & documents Pricing
26. Build 2015 · v1.0.0 26 June 2026

    A clearer week, balanced for real life

    A weekly recap, a smarter Auto-Balance, instant task sync across the household, and tap-a-day to expand it.

    • “Last week” recap — look back at how the home was actually shared over the past week, so your Fairness Score has context and progress is easy to see.
    • Smarter Auto-Balance — it now factors in person-specific jobs when sharing the load, so chores that only suit one person are handled sensibly rather than redistributed blindly.
    • Instant task sync — mark a task done and it updates straight away everywhere: calendar, day view, Kid Mode and Money.
    • Tap a day to expand it — tap any day in the calendar to open its events and tasks on their own.

    Learn more The Fairness Engine Shared calendar
27. Build 2014 · v1.0.0 25 June 2026

    Equal House launches

    The first release — the Fairness Engine and Fairness Score, a shared family calendar, Magic Add, the meal planner and Kid Mode.

    • The Fairness Engine & Fairness Score — a live 0–100 score that weights every task by effort and shows, honestly, how fairly the household is shared.
    • Shared family calendar — events, dated tasks and subscribed feeds in one colour-coded family agenda.
    • Magic Add — paste or snap a school newsletter and Equal House suggests the events and chores hidden inside; you review and confirm before anything is saved.
    • The meal planner — build a budget- and diet-aware weekly menu that becomes shared cooking tasks and an aisle-by-aisle shopping list.
    • Kid Mode — a safe space of their own, signed into with a family picture code, an avatar and a PIN on a grown-up’s trusted device, where children complete chores and routines to earn stars, streaks and pocket money, with a parent approving every completion.

    Learn more The Fairness Engine Kid Mode

Updates roll out on the App Store and Google Play. Get the app to receive them automatically.