Frequently Asked Questions

Reclaim The Day was started by a working dad who got tired of Sunday night calendar chaos and bedroom screen battles. We build free automations and open-source hardware to take logistics off parents' plates so families can actually exhale. Learn more on our About page.

Yes! Both the Family Calendar Sync tool and the Bedside Spotify Clock (firmware, 3D CAD files, and parent dashboard) are 100% free and open-source on GitHub (pneedleman/reclaim-spotify-clock). We build these tools because we use them in our own households every single day.

Reclaim The Day was created by Paul Needleman. You can reach out directly via email at [email protected]. We love hearing suggestions, bug reports, and stories from fellow parents!

No. We have zero database storing your calendar events, sports schedules, or account credentials. All sync logic runs inside your own private Google account via Google Apps Script. Even our web server hosts only static pages (HTML, CSS, images).

Never. We don't host third-party advertisement networks, behavioral remarketing cookies, or data-broker trackers. Our project exists to free parents from digital chaos, not to harvest family data.

Our Google Apps Script application uses only the minimum required scopes necessary to read public iCal links and write events to your selected Google Calendar. Our scopes and architecture have been reviewed and approved by Google's OAuth Verification team.

Any public calendar feed! Our sync engine works with virtually any platform or website that publishes standard calendar links—whether the URL starts with https:// or webcal://, or ends in .ics. There are hundreds of thousands of compatible platforms, including:

• Youth Sports & League Software: Team practices, weekend tournaments, game schedules, and league divisions.
• School Districts & Portals: Academic calendars, holidays, parent-teacher conferences, minimum days, and bell schedules.
• Clubs, Camps & Activities: Swim teams, martial arts, dance studios, scouts, gymnastic clubs, and summer camps.
• Community & Work: Volunteer rosters, church or civic groups, shift rotations, and community centers.

If your coach, school, or club provides a "Subscribe to Calendar", "iCal Export", or an .ics link, you can paste it right in and it just works.

Unlike traditional SaaS companies that demand you upload your calendar data to their corporate cloud servers, our sync tool runs 100% inside your personal Google account using Google Apps Script.

Because it operates in your own account, Google asks for your explicit permission once to allow the script to read the feed and write events to your calendar. Reclaim The Day never sees, stores, or handles your calendar credentials or events.

To protect your security, modern mobile browsers (like iOS Safari and Android Chrome) block Google sign-in and authorization screens from loading inside frames on third-party websites.

Opening the tool in a new tab opens the script directly on Google's own verified domain (script.google.com), allowing your device to authenticate securely.

Yes! If you select your native Google Family calendar as the destination, Google automatically pushes every game and event update to everyone in your Google Family group (spouses, partners, kids) on their phones, tablets, and smart displays with zero device setup required.

The sync engine runs in the background every 15 minutes. It compares the latest feed from your coach or league with your calendar:

• Time or field changed: Your Google Calendar event updates automatically.
• Game canceled/removed: The event is automatically cleanly deleted from your calendar so no one drives to the wrong field.
• No changes: The script makes zero changes, preventing duplicate alerts or battery drain.

Yes! When adding or editing a feed in the sync portal, you can select from 11 native Google Calendar event colors (such as 🍊 Tangerine, 🦚 Peacock, 🍌 Banana, or 🍃 Sage). All events imported for that team will automatically display in your chosen color.

You maintain total control at all times:

• To remove an individual feed, open the Calendar Sync page and click Remove next to that schedule.
• To revoke all permissions entirely, visit myaccount.google.com/connections in your Google account, click Reclaim Day Cal Sync, and select "Delete all connections". The script immediately loses all access and ceases execution.

Smartphones bring notifications, endless doom-scrolling, and blue light into children's bedrooms. Commercial smart speakers (like Alexa or Nest) introduce open microphones, voice data tracking, and unpredictable ads.

The Spotify Clock is purpose-built to do only what helps a child sleep and wake peacefully: warm sunrise light simulations, physical rotary knobs, Spotify music or sleep playlists, countdown timers, and school calendar awareness—with zero cameras, microphones, or social media.

The Spotify Bedside Clock is 100% open source! We publish the full PlatformIO C++ firmware, LittleFS web dashboard, complete bill of materials, and 3D printable enclosure files in our GitHub repository so anyone can build or adapt it.

For parents who don't have a 3D printer or soldering iron, we are exploring a small pre-fabricated batch on Etsy. You can join the waitlist by emailing [email protected] or following our Substack for production updates.

We designed the clock with a hardware-level local failsafe. If home Wi-Fi drops at 3 AM and Spotify cannot stream, the clock automatically defaults to locally cached gentle chime tones and its onboard real-time clock. Your child will never be late for school because of a router hiccup.