Help Center
Everything GigDash does, how each piece works, and what to check when something looks wrong.
How GigDash works
Expectations come first. Paid work comes second.
There are three layers, and they stack:
- Daily Tasks are the non-negotiables you expect every day for free: make your bed, brush your teeth.
- Weekly expectations are the same idea on a longer cycle: take out the recycling, strip the sheets.
- Gig Tasks are optional paid chores with a dollar value attached.
A child's gig tasks stay locked on the display until all of their daily tasks and all of their weekly expectations are complete. Once that gate opens, they can claim paid work and the money lands in their piggy bank.
That is the whole system. Everything else in the app supports it.
The gate is calculated per child, not for the household. One child finishing their list does not unlock gigs for a sibling.
Keep the daily list short, three to five items. It is the gate to everything else, so a long list means the paid side rarely opens and kids stop looking at the display.
Three ways to interact with it
| Screen | Who uses it | What it is for |
|---|---|---|
| Parent panel | You | Setting everything up and marking work complete. |
| The display | Everyone | A read-only dashboard on a TV or spare screen. |
| Kids panel | Your kids | Checking off the tasks you have trusted them with. |
The parent panel
The same app in the iPhone app, a phone browser, and on your desktop.
Signing in on one does not sign you out of another. Along the top are six tabs: Daily Tasks, Weekly, Tracking, Gig Tasks, Earnings, and Settings.
- The tab row stays pinned to the top as you scroll, and scrolls sideways on narrow phones. If you only see three or four tabs, swipe the row left. The faded edge and the small chevron mark which direction has more.
- Banners (upgrade prompts, two-factor reminders, the Bluetooth notice) sit between the header and the tabs and scroll away as you move down. That is deliberate: they get out of your way, the tabs never do.
- Inside a task tab, every task is one row. The small square buttons on the right are your children's initials. Tap one to mark that task complete for that child, tap again to undo.
GigDash gives each child the shortest unique label it can, so Kyle is K and Kevin becomes Ke when both are in the family.
Symbol reference
The same handful of symbols appears across every task tab.
| Symbol | Name | What it does |
|---|---|---|
| K, Ke | Child toggle | Marks the task complete for that child. Tap again to undo. Highlighted in the child's color when done. |
| 🤝 | Joint | One completion by anyone marks the task done for every assigned child. Good for shared jobs like tidying the living room. |
| 🔁 | Rotating | Weekly expectations only. One child owes the task each cycle, then it hands off to the next. Anyone in the rotation may do it without costing the other child their turn. |
| ✋ | Trusted | Puts the task on the kids panel so a child can check it off themselves, without you. |
| 👨 | Parent handled | Gig tasks only. You did it yourself, so no child can claim the money this cycle. Tap again to release it. |
| 🔒 | Locked | Gig tasks only. Another child already claimed this one, or it is marked parent handled. Not an error. |
| P | Parent | Tracking tasks only. Records that a parent, not a child, did that step. |
| × | Remove | Deletes the task (archives it, for gig tasks). You get a confirmation first. |
The Daily Tasks tab also has a small ⓘ symbols link in the card header with the short version of this table.
Back to top ↑Daily Tasks
Unpaid everyday expectations. Half of the gate.
How they work
- Type a name in the New daily task box and tap + Add Task.
- With more than one child, chips appear so you can assign the task to specific children. Leave every chip off (or all on) and it goes to everyone. A task assigned to a subset shows Only for Monroe under its name.
- Tap a child's initial on the row to mark it done for them.
- Completions reset overnight, at midnight in your account's timezone.
Joint tasks 🤝
Tap the handshake on a row, or tick the joint box when adding one, and the task becomes shared: whoever does it, everyone assigned gets credit. Use it for jobs that only need doing once, like clearing the table, so siblings are not competing to be the one who logged it.
Trusted tasks ✋
Tap the raised hand and the task appears on the kids panel, where a child can mark it done themselves. Tasks without the raised hand never appear there, so you keep hands-on control of the ones that need checking. Revoke trust any time by tapping it again.
A child with no daily tasks never unlocks gig tasks. The gate requires their daily list to be complete, and an empty list does not count as complete. Assign every daily task to one sibling only and the other stays locked out of the paid work all day. Give every child at least one daily task.
Removing a daily task deletes it for good. For something seasonal, like a school-year-only chore, delete it and re-add it later, or move it to a weekly cadence instead.
Weekly expectations
Same idea as daily tasks, longer cycle. The other half of the gate.
When you add one you pick a cadence, which sets how long a completion counts for:
| Cadence | A completion counts for |
|---|---|
| Weekly | 7 days |
| Bi-weekly | 14 days |
| Monthly | 28 days |
These are rolling windows, not calendar weeks. Nothing resets on a Sunday night. A weekly task done on Wednesday counts until the following Wednesday, then quietly falls off and needs doing again. If a task reappears mid-week, that is why.
Weekly expectations support the same 🤝 joint and ✋ trusted toggles and the same per-child assignment as daily tasks, plus 🔁 rotating, which hands a task between children instead of asking all of them for it. They gate gig tasks identically: one outstanding weekly expectation keeps the paid work locked, even with every daily task done.
Because they gate the paid side for a full week, be sparing. One or two per child is usually plenty. If something is more of a nice-to-have, make it a gig task and pay for it instead.
Rotating tasks 🔁
For the jobs nobody volunteers for. One child owes it, then it hands off.
This is a setting on a weekly expectation, not a fifth kind of task. Normally every assigned child owes the task each cycle. Tick 🔁 Rotating task when you add it, or tap the 🔁 on an existing row, and only one child owes it at a time. When the cycle resets it moves to the next child, round robin, and keeps going in a loop.
Dog waste and crushing cans are the jobs this was built for. Instead of arguing about whose turn it is, the board says whose turn it is.
Whose turn it is
The order is the order your children are listed in, shown under the task so it is never a mystery. On the display the task appears on one child's card only, tagged 🔁 YOUR TURN in gold. Everyone else simply does not see it that cycle. Once it is done it moves to the card of whoever actually did it, ticked off.
When someone does it out of turn
Any child in the rotation can do the task, not just the one who owes it. That is deliberate, and it does not cost the other child their turn.
Say the rotation is Jack, then Jill, then Sue, and it is Jill's week. If Sue does it, the board credits Sue, because she is the one who did the work. But Jill still owes it, so she is up next cycle. The rotation only advances when the child whose turn it is does it themselves.
The same holds if Jack does it two weeks running. He gets the credit both times, Jill is still next, and after her it carries on to Sue, then Jack, then Jill again.
With two children a rotation just alternates back and forth, which is usually exactly what you want. The round-robin behavior only becomes visible with three or more.
Correcting a mistake
If the wrong child got credited, tap the right child's initial on the task row. The board updates to show who really did it and puts the turn order back where it should be. Untick a completion entirely and the task returns to whoever owed it, as though it had never been marked.
Switching a task in or out of rotating clears its completions for the current cycle. Rotating and normal tasks keep track of completions differently, so the old ones cannot be carried across without showing the wrong thing on the display. You get a confirmation first. Switch modes at the start of a cycle rather than the end.
A rotating task needs at least two children assigned to it, and it cannot also be 🤝 joint. The two are opposite answers to the same question: joint means everyone at once, rotating means one at a time. Turning on either one turns the other off.
Rotating tasks gate gig tasks like any other weekly expectation, but only for the child whose turn it is. A sibling is never locked out of the paid work waiting on someone else's turn.
Back to top ↑Gig Tasks
The paid side. First child to finish it earns it.
Enter a name, a dollar value, and a type, then tap + Add Gig Task. As with the other tabs, the chips restrict a gig to specific children.
Types
| Type | Behavior |
|---|---|
| Weekly | Available again 7 days after it was claimed. |
| Bi-weekly | Available again after 14 days. |
| Monthly | Available again after 28 days. |
| Permanent | One time only. Once claimed, it never comes back. |
Use Permanent for one-off jobs like cleaning out the garage. Use the recurring types for chores you are happy to pay for on a cycle.
First come, first served
When one child claims a gig, the other children's buttons on that row turn into 🔒 for the rest of the cycle. Tapping a locked button does nothing, which is intentional: it stops two kids getting paid for the same job.
Parent handled 👨
Tap 👨 when you ended up doing the job yourself. It locks the gig for the cycle so nobody can claim the payout, without deleting the task. Tap again to release it back to the kids.
Editing and archiving
The pencil icon renames a gig or changes its payout inline. It only appears while the gig is unclaimed and not parent handled, because changing the price of work someone already did is not fair. The × archives the gig: it leaves the list, but the earnings it already produced stay in the piggy bank.
Gig tasks only appear on the display for a child once their gate is open. If a child insists they cannot see the gigs you just added, check their daily and weekly lists first. From the parent panel you always see every gig, so this is a difference between the two screens, not a bug.
Price gigs in real money you would actually hand over. The system only works if the piggy bank total means something. A mix of small everyday gigs and one or two larger permanent ones holds interest best.
Tracking
Answers "did anyone actually do this today?" Does not gate anything.
For jobs that need doing twice a day and that a parent might handle. Feeding a pet is the classic case.
- Each tracking task has two steps with labels you choose (Morning and Evening by default).
- Each step records who did it: tap P for a parent, or a child's initial.
- Steps reset daily, alongside daily tasks.
Tracking tasks are not part of the gate and are not paid. They exist so nobody has to ask whether the dog got fed. If you want a job to gate gigs, make it a daily task instead.
Earnings and the piggy bank
Every completed gig adds its value to that child's balance.
The Earnings tab shows a card per child with their running total, how many tasks they have completed, and three buttons.
Add and deduct
+ Add and − Deduct open a small form for an amount and an optional note. Use them for anything the task system does not cover: birthday money in, a specialty coffee or an impulse buy out. Every adjustment appears under Recent Adjustments with the child, the amount, your note, and the time in your account's timezone.
Write a note on every manual adjustment. Six weeks later, "−$4.50" with no note is an argument waiting to happen, and the note is the only record of what it was for.
Cashing out
For the moment you actually hand over the money.
Cash Out 💸 sets that child's balance to $0.00 and clears their earnings history. It cannot be undone.
Cashing out clears that child's completion records too, so any recurring gig they had already claimed inside the current cycle becomes available again. Cash out on a Saturday and this week's claimed gigs open back up, ready to be paid for twice.
Cash out at the end of a cycle, or right after payday, to avoid it. If a gig does reopen, marking it 👨 parent handled closes it off for the rest of the cycle.
The display
The always-on dashboard: one column per child, readable from across the room.
It shows each child's daily and weekly lists, their available gigs, and their piggy bank total. Completed items float to the top so what is left is obvious at a glance. It is read-only, so there is nothing for a passer-by to break.
Display URL
On the Family plan, Settings → Display URL gives you a private link. Point any browser, smart TV, or spare tablet at it and your live dashboard appears, no sign-in required.
Reset issues a brand new URL and disconnects whatever is showing the old one. Use it if the link was shared somewhere it should not have been. After a reset the display shows a QR code so you can reconnect it.
Sleep schedule
Settings → Display Sleep Schedule turns the screen off and on at set times, so the Board is not lighting up an empty room overnight.
The clock on the display follows the display device's own local clock. The timezone in Settings controls when tasks reset, which is a separate thing. If the two disagree, fix the one that is actually wrong.
Take the Screen
The feature nothing else in your living room can do.
A streaming stick cannot reclaim a TV input from inside an app. The GigDash Board is wired into the TV over HDMI and owns that connection, so it can assert itself as the active source on demand. If the screen is asleep, it wakes it first.
How to use it
- Open Settings → Take the Screen in the parent panel.
- Tap Take the Screen and confirm.
- The TV switches over within about five seconds.
What it is good for
- Chore time. "Everyone look at the board" lands differently when the board is already on the screen they were watching.
- Settling a question. Somebody swears they did it. Put the list up and stop debating.
- Payday. Piggy bank totals at the end of a week, on the big screen, are surprisingly motivating.
It does not switch back on its own. The TV stays on GigDash until somebody changes the input with the remote. That is deliberate: an automatic revert would turn the feature into a flicker nobody notices.
- Needs a GigDash Board connected to the TV over HDMI.
- Needs HDMI-CEC enabled on the TV. Manufacturers rename it: Anynet+ on Samsung, Bravia Sync on Sony, SimpLink on LG, Viera Link on Panasonic. If nothing happens when you tap the button, CEC is switched off in the TV's own settings nine times out of ten.
- Available on cloud accounts, since the Board talks to the cloud rather than to a machine in your house.
- Rate limited, so repeatedly tapping it does nothing extra. Give it five seconds.
Setting up a Board
Two paths: with the app over Bluetooth, or without it over a temporary WiFi network.
From the GigDash app (easiest)
- Open Settings → GigDash Board → Set up.
- The app finds the Board over Bluetooth.
- Pick your WiFi network and enter its password on your phone.
- The app sends the credentials straight to the Board.
Your WiFi password goes phone to Board over Bluetooth. It is never sent to GigDash.
Without the app
- The Board broadcasts its own temporary WiFi network. Join it from a phone or laptop.
- The setup page opens by itself. Choose your home network there.
- Scan the QR code on the TV with a signed-in phone to link the Board to your account.
Once the Board is authenticated, the parent panel shows a Board Connected confirmation and the dashboard appears on the TV within about 10 to 15 seconds.
Set the Board up soon after you plug it in, rather than leaving it on the setup screen for hours first. While it is waiting, it is broadcasting its own network instead of watching for yours, so its picture of the nearby networks goes out of date. If you do come back to it much later, unplug it and plug it back in before you start.
Factory reset
Settings → Factory reset display wipes the Board completely: its sign-in, your saved WiFi network, and all local data, returning it to first-time setup. Use it before selling or giving away a Board, or if one is lost or stolen. It takes effect the next time the Board is online, and it cannot be undone.
The kids panel
A touch screen for kids, showing only what you have trusted them with.
Meant for a shared tablet left somewhere central. It shows tasks marked trusted ✋, plus tracking steps.
Opening it
Settings → Kids Panel holds your family's private link. Copy it, open it once on the tablet, and leave that tab up. Bookmarking it or saving it to the home screen means nobody has to type it again.
- There is no login. The link itself is the key, so treat it like a house key rather than a public address.
- It is a different link from your display URL, on purpose. The display link only shows information; this one can change it. Resetting one does not affect the other.
- Before anything is marked done, the panel asks "Who did this?" and the child types their nickname. That is a light speed bump against a sibling checking off someone else's list, not a security control.
- Completions show up in the parent panel and on the display immediately, and can send you a notification.
If a link gets out
Tap Reset in the same section. The old link stops working straight away and you get a fresh one to put on the tablet. Your display keeps running untouched.
The kids panel is a Family plan feature, and nothing appears on it until at least one task is marked trusted ✋. A blank kids panel almost always means no task has the raised hand yet.
Managing kids
Add, rename, recolor, and remove children.
Settings → Kids. Each child gets a color, and that color follows them everywhere: their column on the display, their completion buttons, their earnings card.
Use a nickname, not your child's real or full name. GigDash is built to hold as little about your children as possible, and a nickname is all it needs to work.
Removing a child deletes all of their task history and earnings with them. If you are only pausing, say a child away at camp, leave them in place and unassign them from tasks instead.
Co-parents
Up to three adults per household, on the Family plan.
Settings → Parents. Pending invitations count toward the limit of three.
- Enter an email address and tap Invite. They get an email with a link to join, good for 7 days.
- An invitee who already has a GigDash account joins with it. Doing so moves them into your family, and their own separate setup does not come with them.
- Every parent can manage kids, tasks, and earnings. Only the owner, the person who created the account, can manage billing, remove other parents, or delete the account.
- A co-parent who wants out uses Settings → Leave family. That removes only them, and the owner can re-invite them later.
Sign-in and security
Passkeys are the recommended path. Everything else is a fallback.
Passkeys
A passkey signs you in with Face ID, Touch ID, Windows Hello, or a hardware key. No password to steal or reuse, and it cannot be phished. Add one from Settings → Security → Passkeys → + Add. Passkeys sync across your Apple, Google, or Windows devices automatically, so adding one usually covers your other devices too.
Authenticator app
Prefer a password plus a six-digit code? Set up an authenticator (Google Authenticator, Authy, 1Password) from the same Security section. Scan the QR code or type the secret by hand, then enter one code to activate it. This is an alternative to passkeys, not an addition: if you already have a passkey, your account is protected.
Password and recovery code
Change your password from Settings → Change Password. Separately, Settings → Recovery Code generates a one-time code that gets you back in if you are ever locked out.
A recovery code is shown once and never again. Copy it somewhere safe, a password manager rather than a note on your phone's home screen, the moment you generate it. Generating a new one replaces the old one.
Locked out with no code? On the sign-in screen tap Forgot password?, enter your email, and a reset code is emailed to you.
Timezone and resets
One setting decides when midnight happens for your family.
Settings → Timezone controls when daily tasks and tracking steps reset, and the timestamps shown on earnings adjustments. It defaults to Central, so check it once when you set up the account.
Weekly expectations and recurring gig tasks are not tied to midnight or to a calendar week. They roll off 7, 14, or 28 days after the completion that satisfied them, whatever the clock says.
Notifications
Know that work happened without watching the screen.
With the GigDash app installed and notifications allowed, you get a push notification when a child checks something off from the kids panel. Notifications go to every parent device signed in to the family.
If they stop arriving, check that notifications are still enabled for GigDash in your phone's system settings, then sign out and back in to re-register the device.
Plans and billing
What the free plan includes, and what the Family plan adds.
| Free | Family plan | |
|---|---|---|
| Children | 1 | Unlimited |
| Daily tasks | Up to 5 | Unlimited |
| Weekly expectations | Locked 🔒 | Yes |
| Tracking tasks | Locked 🔒 | Yes |
| Kids panel | No | Yes |
| Display URL | Preview only | Yes |
| Co-parents | No | Up to 3 total |
Tabs with a padlock are visible on the free plan on purpose, so you can see what is there. Tapping one explains the feature rather than hiding it.
The owner manages the subscription from Settings → Subscription → Manage, which opens the billing portal to change your payment method or cancel. Cancelling takes effect at the end of the period you have already paid for. In the iPhone app, plan changes open in your browser rather than in the app itself.
Back to top ↑Troubleshooting
Tap a symptom to expand it.
A child's gig tasks are locked on the display
The gate is still closed for that child. Work through it in order:
- Every daily task assigned to them is complete.
- Every weekly expectation assigned to them is complete and still inside its window.
- They have at least one daily task assigned. A child with an empty daily list never unlocks gigs.
Check the assignment too: a task marked Only for another child does not count toward this one's gate, in either direction.
A weekly task came back before the week was over
Working as designed. Weekly expectations run on a rolling 7-day window from when they were completed, not a calendar week. Completed last Wednesday means it reappears this Wednesday.
A child's buttons show 🔒 on a gig task
Either another child claimed it this cycle, or it is marked parent handled 👨. Hold the button to see which. To reopen it, either undo the claiming child's completion (tap their highlighted initial) or tap 👨 to release the parent-handled flag.
Tasks are resetting at the wrong time
Set Settings → Timezone to your actual timezone. That single setting decides when midnight, and therefore the daily reset, happens.
Take the Screen does nothing
Almost always HDMI-CEC being switched off on the TV. Look in the TV's settings for Anynet+ (Samsung), Bravia Sync (Sony), SimpLink (LG), or Viera Link (Panasonic), and turn it on.
Then check that the Board is powered on, connected over HDMI, and online (the dashboard should be reachable at your display URL). Give it five seconds after tapping; the Board picks the signal up on its next check rather than instantly.
The TV went to GigDash and stayed there
That is the intended behavior. Take the Screen does not hand the input back on its own. Switch back with your TV remote whenever you are ready.
The kids panel is blank
It only shows tasks marked trusted ✋. Open Daily Tasks or Weekly, tap the raised hand on the tasks a child can be trusted to log themselves, and reload the panel. The kids panel also requires the Family plan.
The kids panel says the link is not connected
The tablet is on an old or incomplete link. Open Settings → Kids Panel, copy the current URL, and load it on the tablet.
This is also what you see after tapping Reset in that section, which is the point: the old link stops working immediately. The plain address without the rest of the link will never work on its own.
The display is blank, stale, or showing a QR code
- A QR code means the display is not linked to your account yet. Scan it with a phone that is signed in to GigDash.
- Stale data usually clears on reload. On a self-hosted setup, use Settings → Device Controls → Reload TV.
- A blank screen at an odd hour is usually the sleep schedule doing its job. Check Settings → Display Sleep Schedule.
- If you reset the display URL, the old link is dead by design. Reconnect using the QR code now on screen.
The app cannot find my Board over Bluetooth
- Turn Bluetooth on. If it is off, the app shows a small banner instead of finding anything.
- Stand within a few feet of the Board.
- Make sure the Board is powered on and still in setup mode. A Board already connected to WiFi stops advertising.
- Grant GigDash Bluetooth permission in your phone's system settings if you declined it earlier.
If it still will not appear, use the no-app path: join the temporary WiFi network the Board broadcasts and set it up from the page that opens.
Setup says my WiFi password is wrong, but it is right
A Board that has been left on its setup screen for a long stretch can report a password problem when the real trouble is that it has lost track of the networks around it. It has one radio, and while it is broadcasting its own setup network it cannot look for yours at the same time.
- Try once more. A second attempt often goes straight through.
- Restart the Board and set it up promptly. Unplug it, plug it back in, wait for the setup screen, and finish setup within the next few minutes. A Board that has just started has a current view of the networks nearby.
- Or give it ten minutes. It keeps trying your network quietly on its own, and often joins without any help. If the TV changes to a QR code, it worked. Scan that code with a signed-in phone to finish.
If it still refuses after a restart, the password really is being turned down. Type it somewhere you can read it back before entering it, and look for a capital letter or a zero standing in for the letter O.
Setup cannot find my WiFi network
- The Board joins 2.4 GHz networks only. If your router gives its 2.4 GHz and 5 GHz bands separate names, choose the 2.4 GHz one. If both share a single name, there is nothing to change.
- Hidden networks are not supported. If your network does not broadcast its name, switch broadcasting on, connect the Board, and switch it back off afterwards if you prefer.
- Signal reaches the TV, not just your phone. The Board sits behind the TV and has a smaller antenna than a phone. If that corner of the house is weak, that is what it has to work with.
- Public or guest networks that make you accept terms on a web page will not work. The Board joins the network but never gets out to the internet, and it will tell you so.
If the network is fine on every other device, restart the Board and try again within a few minutes of the setup screen appearing. Its list of nearby networks is freshest right after it starts.
I cashed out and this week's gig tasks reopened
Expected. A cash out clears that child's completion records along with their balance, so recurring gigs they claimed inside the current cycle become available again. Cash out at the end of a cycle to avoid it. Marking the reopened gigs 👨 parent handled closes them off for the rest of the cycle.
I cannot see the Weekly or Tracking tabs
They carry a padlock on the free plan. Tap one to see what it does and how to upgrade.
I am locked out of my account
On the sign-in screen tap Forgot password? and enter your email to get a reset code. If you saved a recovery code earlier, enter it there directly. Once you are back in, add a passkey so it cannot happen again.
My co-parent's invite never arrived
Have them check spam first. Invites expire after 7 days, so revoke the old one from Settings → Parents and send a fresh one. Also confirm you have not hit the 3-parent limit, which counts pending invites.
Still stuck?
A real person reads these.
Email [email protected] and tell us what you were doing, what you expected, and what happened instead. Screenshots help more than anything else.
See also the Terms of Service and the Privacy Policy.
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