Household · for couples who share a home
TurnFair is a household balance app for couples who share the chores and the thinking behind them. Every task is a card, from washing dishes to noticing that supplies are running low, and recording one takes two taps. A small scale on the Today screen shows which way the week leans without showing a single number, and the weekly report adds a percentage view, a count of chores against mental load, and the thank-yous you sent each other. You can use it alone without signing in, then invite a partner with a six-digit code when you want to see the week together.
Open the Report tab and the week is written as ours: how many things we took care of together, a scale that stays level anywhere between 40 and 60 percent, and a plain percentage view underneath. Two cards count how many records were household chores and how many were mental load, and the week's thank-yous are listed at the bottom.
Tap a card, then tap Record it. A small copy of the card drops onto your pan, the beam dips, overshoots, and settles on the new balance, and the phone gives one short haptic tap. A note is optional, and a mistaken entry can be undone the same day.
Four cards in the starting deck are mental load: notice low supplies, handle a schedule or booking, remember a gift or occasion, and handle bills or paperwork. They carry an effort weight and move the scale like any chore. Today's list underneath keeps an Undo on your own records and a Thank you on your partner's.
Most couples split housework from memory, a whiteboard on the fridge, or a shared note that stops being updated by the second week. Those tools track the visible jobs: dishes, laundry, vacuuming. What they miss is the noticing. Someone sees that the dish soap is nearly gone, remembers the dentist appointment, keeps a birthday in mind for next month, and opens the electricity bill. None of that looks like a chore on a chart, so it rarely makes anyone's list.
TurnFair's starting deck has nine cards. Five are household chores: wash dishes, do laundry, clean a space, cook a meal, get groceries. Four are mental load: notice low supplies, handle a schedule or booking, remember a gift or occasion, handle bills or paperwork. You can add your own with a name, a category, and an effort from 1 to 3, and archive the ones you stop using so earlier records stay intact.
Every record counts for the effort of its card, and the week's balance adds those weights up for each of you. The Today screen never shows a number. It shows a beam on a fulcrum that stays level while the split sits anywhere from 40 to 60 percent, because a 52 to 48 week is not worth a conversation, and leans to one side only past that. The line underneath reads In the balance zone, or says the scale leans toward your care or toward your partner's.
Each card also notes who did it last: Last time: me, Last time: partner, or Ready whenever it gets done. That is the whole turn system. It is information, not an assignment. Nothing tells anyone it is their turn, and nothing happens if a card sits untouched all week.
The week starts on Monday in your own time zone. During the day you tap what you did: the laundry, the call to book the plumber, the birthday gift you remembered to order. Below the deck, Today's care lists everything recorded today, with an Undo on your entries and a Thank you on your partner's.
If you switch it on, an evening reminder at 8 p.m. invites you to add anything you did, and it skips itself on days you have already recorded something. It only ever reaches you. A separate opt-in reminder on Monday at 9 a.m. says the weekly report is ready. On iPhone, a home-screen widget shows a few of your cards and how many things you took care of this week, and nothing about your partner.
TurnFair opens straight to the card deck. There is no sign-up screen to get through; solo records stay on your phone, and the weekly summary works for one person as My weekly summary.
Pairing is where an account comes in. In Settings you sign in, create an invite, and send the six-digit code through the share sheet. The code is good for 72 hours, and while you wait the screen says plainly that no reminder will be sent. When your partner signs in and enters the code, the cards and records on your phone are merged into one shared household on TurnFair's server, and both phones refresh from it about every ten seconds while the app is open. From then on the report reads Our weekly balance.
No points, no streaks, no levels, no winner of the week. No reminders go to a partner about chores they have not done, and the server has no route for sending one. The only message one partner can send the other is a thank-you, one per record, which arrives as a notification reading Your care was noticed. The widget shows only your own cards and count, so the home screen never turns into a list of what someone else skipped.
TurnFair is not a counselor either. The percentages are arithmetic on what the two of you tapped, weighted by the effort you chose for each card. They do not decide who is right, and a week outside the balance zone is a week, not a verdict.
Leaving is clean. Disconnect the household in Settings and shared access ends at once; if the same two people pair again within 30 days the household comes back, and after that the shared cards and records are deleted. Block and disconnect also stops that person from pairing with you again, and deleting your account removes your records and cards.
Not to start. Solo mode needs no sign-in and keeps your records on your phone. To pair, each of you signs in once, because a shared household has to live somewhere both phones can reach.
Through TurnFair's own server. When you pair, the cards and records already on your phone are uploaded and merged into the shared household. While the app is open, each phone refreshes the shared week about every ten seconds.
Each record counts for the effort of its card, from 1 to 3. TurnFair adds up the weights for each of you over the current Monday-to-Sunday week. Anything from 40 to 60 percent shows as one balance zone, and percentages appear only inside the weekly report, never on the Today screen.
No. Reminders are only for yourself, and there is no way to send a nudge, a deadline, or a list of undone chores to your partner. The one thing you can send is a thank-you.
It sits on the same scale. Mental-load cards have an effort weight like any other card, so noticing low supplies or handling paperwork moves the balance. The weekly report also counts how many records were household chores and how many were mental load.
Shared access ends immediately. If you pair again with the same person within 30 days, the household is restored; after 30 days the shared cards and records are deleted. Deleting your account removes your own records and cards.
Pick the channel you use.
