Help center.

Create a Household

When you first sign in with Google, you'll be prompted to either create a new household or join an existing one with an invite code.

Invite Family Members

After creating a household, share your 6-character invite code with family members, partners, or roommates. They sign in with their own Google account and enter your code.

You can also add placeholder members during onboarding — useful for kids who don't have Google accounts. These show up as assignable profiles without requiring a separate login.

Guided Onboarding

First-time users go through a 6-step setup wizard:

1. Welcome — Name your household
2. Family — Add members
3. Goals — Pick what matters (chores, shopping, rewards, smart home, AI)
4. Chores — Select common chores to get started
5. Shopping — Add stores you shop at
6. Smart Home — Connect Home Assistant (optional)

You can skip any step and set things up later. After the wizard, an interactive tutorial highlights key features with spotlight tooltips.

Navigating the App

homerun has four main views accessible via the bottom navigation or by swiping:

Set Up a Wall Tablet

homerun works best on a tablet everyone walks past. The short version:

• Tablet: An iPad (10th gen or newer) is our pick. A Samsung Galaxy Tab A9+ or S-series FE is a good Android choice, and an Amazon Fire HD 10 works on a budget.
• Size: 10–11 inches suits most homes. Go 12–13 inches for five or more people.
• Screen type: Choose LCD over OLED for an always-on screen to avoid burn-in.
• Placement: Kitchen, hallway or mudroom, in landscape, centered about 57–60 in (145–152 cm) off the floor. Drop it to about 48 in (122 cm) if young kids use it most.
• Mount: Magnetic, adhesive, flush-frame or a counter stand, near an outlet.

Install the App

homerun is a web app (PWA). Installing it adds an icon, opens it full screen without browser bars, and is required for notifications on iPad and iPhone.

Keep the Screen On

• iPad: Settings › Display & Brightness › Auto-Lock › Never. Turn off Low Power Mode, which can override it.
• Android: Set Settings › Display › Screen timeout to the longest option. For always-on while charging, enable Developer options (tap Build number seven times in About tablet), then turn on Stay awake.
• Amazon Fire: Set Settings › Display › Screen Timeout to the longest option. For always-on while charging, tap Serial Number seven times in Device Options › About Fire Tablet, then turn on Stay awake in Developer options.

Creating Chores

There are three ways to create a chore:

Recurring Schedules

Chores can repeat on flexible schedules:

Set an optional end date to stop recurrence automatically (e.g., summer chores that end in September).

Completing & Skipping

• Complete: Tap the circle/checkbox on any chore card. It turns green and records who completed it and when.
• Undo: Tap the completed chore again to revert it to pending.
• Skip: Use the skip button (⏩) to mark a chore as skipped — it won't count against you or earn points.

Drag to Reschedule

Need to move a chore to a different day?

1. Long-press (hold for ~800ms) on a chore card
2. A ghost label appears — drag it to the target day in the date strip
3. Release to reschedule

Time Slots

Organize chores by time of day: Morning, Afternoon, and Evening. This groups tasks visually so everyone knows what to do and when.

Time slots are configurable per household — you can customize the labels and time hints in settings.

Assigning to Members

Chores can be assigned to:

• One person — Always appears in their column
• Multiple people — homerun auto-rotates fairly between assigned members each recurrence
• Nobody — Appears as unassigned; anyone can claim it

Calendar View

A day-focused timeline with a horizontal date strip at the top. Swipe left/right to navigate days. Today is highlighted. Chores are grouped by time slot.

Key interactions:

• Swipe date strip to navigate
• Tap checkbox to complete
• Swipe a card left to reveal delete
• Long-press to drag-reschedule
• Tap a card to edit

Kanban View

A per-member column layout. Each family member gets their own column showing their assigned chores.

Switch between:

• Daily mode — One day, all members side-by-side
• Weekly mode — 7 days across, grouped by member

Saved Chores / Templates

Frequently used chores are saved as templates for quick reuse:

• Tap a saved chore → pre-fills the creation form
• Long-press a saved chore → instantly schedules it for today and marks it done (great for logging completed work)

Managing Lists

• Create: Tap "+" to add a new list. Give it a name (e.g., "Costco") and pick an emoji.
• Edit: Tap the list header to rename, change emoji, or delete.
• Collapse: Tap the chevron on any list to collapse/expand it.
• Reorder: Lists are arranged in a two-column layout. Drag to reorder.

Adding Items

Multiple ways to add items:

• Type: Use the inline input at the top of each list
• Voice: Tap the mic icon to speak items
• Suggestions: Tap category chips (Dairy, Produce, Meat, etc.) for pre-built item suggestions
• Drag: Drag items between lists to reorganize

Shopping Mode

When you're physically at the store, activate Shopping Mode for a focused, full-screen checklist experience:

1. Long-press (hold ~600ms) on a list header
2. The app switches to a focused, large-text view of just that list
3. Check items off as you put them in your cart

Item Urgency

Each item has a "Need By" urgency level:

AI Categorization

When you add items, homerun's AI automatically sorts them into grocery store sections (Produce, Dairy, Meat, Pantry, etc.) so your list follows the store layout. This happens in the background — no extra steps needed.

Buckets & Goals

Reset cycles:

• Weekly — Resets every Monday
• Monthly — Resets on the 1st
• Goal-reset — Resets when goal is reached (repeats)
• Goal-redeem — Closes when goal reached (one-time)

Earning Points

Each chore has a base point value (set when creating it). Bonus points are awarded for timing:

• Early — Completed before the due date → bonus
• On-time — Completed on the due date → full points
• Late — Completed after the due date → reduced points

Points automatically flow into the member's active bucket (shown in the header badge).

Leaderboard

The monthly leaderboard shows who's earning the most points. Rankings update in real-time as chores are completed. Each member sees their bar relative to the leader.

Redeeming Rewards

When a bucket reaches its goal amount, a "Redeem Reward" button appears. Tap it to mark the reward as claimed. For goal-reset buckets, the counter resets and earning resumes. For goal-redeem buckets, the bucket closes permanently.

Voice Commands

Tap the 🎤 mic button and speak naturally. homerun transcribes your speech and extracts structured data:

Chat Assistant

Tap the chat bubble icon to ask questions about your household in natural language:

• "When was the kitchen last cleaned?"
• "Who's done the most chores this week?"
• "What's due today for Alex?"
• "How often do we usually vacuum?"

The AI has access to your chore history and can give specific, data-backed answers.

Smart Suggestions

homerun learns your household patterns and proactively suggests chores when they might be due. Suggestions appear as dashed cards with a ✨ icon.

• Accept: Tap ✓ to add the suggestion as a scheduled chore
• Dismiss: Tap ✕ to hide it (won't be suggested for that date again)

The AI also analyzes chore names to suggest optimal recurrence intervals (e.g., "Clean oven" → suggests monthly).

Setup & Connection

1. In Home Assistant, go to Profile → Long-Lived Access Tokens
2. Create a new token and copy it
3. In homerun, go to the Smart Home tab → Settings
4. Enter your HA URL (e.g., http://192.168.1.100:8123) and the token
5. Tap "Test Connection" — you should see a ✓ success

Controlling Devices

homerun supports a wide range of device types:

Devices are grouped by room (auto-detected from HA) and you can hide/show devices you don't need.

Scenes

Scenes let you activate multiple devices at once — like setting all living room lights to a warm dim for movie night.

• Tap a scene button → activates the scene
• Long-press a scene button → deactivates or opens configuration
• Scenes appear as floating buttons at the bottom of the smart home view

Each device gets one person's recap at a time. Kids' profiles without their own login don't get a separate recap, but their chores show up in the household recap.

Recaps by Text

Prefer texts? Add your phone number in the notifications screen. homerun sends a code to confirm it's yours. Enter the code, make sure Text messages is on, and save.

Text recaps are plain and short, for example:

Homerun recap
Today: 5 of 6 done. Left: Water plants

Tomorrow (Thu) - 3 chores:
- Trash out (Alex)
- Unload dishwasher (you)
- Feed Biscuit (Leo)
Events:
- 10:00 AM Dentist (Maya) - you drive

You can remove your number at any time from the same screen. See the privacy policy for how phone numbers are handled.

Text Commands Coming soon

We're working on letting you reply to homerun by text to keep things moving without opening the app:

• Add to a list: "add oat milk to Costco"
• Check off a chore: "watered the plants"

This isn't live yet. We'll announce it here when it is.

Profile Switching

Tap your avatar in the top-right to switch between family members. This changes whose chores you see in the kanban view and whose points are displayed. Useful for shared devices like a kitchen tablet.

Themes

homerun offers two visual themes:

• Natural — Earthy greens, sage, cream tones. Warm and organic feel.
• Ocean — Modern indigo/pastel gradients. Cool and contemporary.

Toggle between themes in the profile dropdown (sun/moon icon).

Weather

The homescreen shows current weather and a 5-day forecast. Weather data comes from Open-Meteo (free, no API key needed).

• Auto-location: homerun detects your location via IP (no permission prompt)
• Manual: Enter a zip code for more accurate results
• Units: Toggle °C / °F in the weather widget

Permissions

Each member has a "Can manage chores" permission:

• Enabled: Can create, edit, delete, and assign chores
• Disabled: Can only view and complete chores (great for kids)

Toggle this in the member management panel (long-press a member's avatar in the profile dropdown).