Windows 10 Kiosk app?

Hello, I used to use the brilliant Fully Kiosk Browser for my kitchen wall tablet.

The tablet died but I have a spare Surface Pro running Windows 10.

Does anyone know anything similar for windows like the Android Fully Kiosk please?

Cheers
Mark

I guess it depends what did you use on fully… i have a windows touchscreen laptop on my wall and i use chrome on fullscreen (F11) for display and Hass.Agent for sensors.

1 Like

Thanks!

I basically use it with a dashboard and it detects motion and turns on the screen, no motion, screen turns off. Fairly basic stuff. When the tablet restarted fully opened up.

you can always use an android emulator and run fully, but not sure it can control screen on/off in that situation.

If you have Windows Pro I am pretty sure there is a Kiosk mode somewhere in Windows (or maybe it is just in Edge)

Sorry not to be more helpful but you should be able to DuckDuckGo (:wink:) it.

For my office computer I have HAAS Agent installed. When my Office Presence sensor detects me walk in, it sends a monitorwake command to the PC and wakes up the monitors. You could do something similar with a motion sensor if needed. Im pretty sure the surface has a sensor that wakes the monitor on motion anyway. I have a Surface Book and it does this.
With Microsoft Edge, you can make your dashboard into an app and set that app to load when your user logs in. This is handy if your PC does an update and re-boots or if there is a power outage. Just set the user to log in automatically. Once the user logs in the dashboard will load automatically.

1 Like

Whats a monitorwake command? What service does it belong to?

You have to install HAAS Agent on the PC. Once you have that up and running, its one of the commands you can set up. Along with Monitorsleep and sleep itself.
GitHub - LAB02-Research/HASS.Agent: Windows-based client for Home Assistant. Provides notifications, quick actions, commands, sensors and more.

1 Like

In case anyone else comes here, I just did this with a Surface Pro 3.

The HASS.agent’s ,monitor sleep and wake will not work as expected due to the S0 sleep mode that is enforced on these devices, yo can send the screen to sleep, but it actually sleeps and cant be woken by software again, you must wake it manually by pressing the windows button, power button or if you have a keyboard attached, by pressing a key.

I had to edit the registry to disable S0 sleep mode, then I could slepp and wake the screen reliably through Home Assistant.

Few things to note:

  • I also found that you will need to send 2 x Wake commands with .5sec pause between them or you will be stuck on the sign in screen

  • I disabled all screen timeout features

  • I also changed the auto sign in feature in regedit as Microsoft took that away from us a few years ago

Below is the two things I needed to change in regedit:

Run Regedit
Navigate to → HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System\CurrentControlSet\Control\Power
Add the following 32bit Dword if its not there already → PlatformAoAcOverride
Set its value to → 0
Close Regedit
Then reboot
Open a command prompt and run: powercfg /a
It should show that S0 is now not available

Next Step:

Run Regedit
Navigate to → HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\PasswordLess\Device
Change: DevicePasswordLessBuildVersion from 2 to 0
Then run (WIN-Key+R) netplwiz
There is a checkbox, untick it enter your password and job done

Now you can sleep and wake the screen using the HASS.Agent on Windows Tablets reliably using Automations in Home Assistant.

I have done other tweaks, for battery conservation, power consumption etc.

If anyone would like some help setting this up or working through other bugs, drop me a PM, I might do a full instruction/guide page on Github, for my own records and for others to follow as well.

I have several iPads/Iphones along with Androids Tablets and Phones, and I find these devices, as soon as they get a few years on them, for some strange reason, they turn to dog crap on performance, Im assuming its all the modern web browser stuff and battery fatigue, I just find them very under whelming on performance unless they are very modern/new, this extremely old Windows Tablet still performs like a champion, even when disabling intel turbo, and limiting to a max clock speed of 1.4ghz, full screen web apps are lightning fast, and CPU temp under a full stress test, hits 55 C max and no fan, avarage power usage over time is under 10watt, so pretty dam good.

7 Likes

Thanks a lot this is perfect!
ill try this on my Surface GO 1
i tried running Android BlissOS on it and that didn’t work all that good

also did you know there is a option in the bios to use the service as a Kiosk device it will keep the battery around 50% at all time

It works perfectly the only problem I have is that it askes me to login after the screen is off for some time,
I disabled the password

I know this is an old post now… but I am literally wanting to setup the exact same thing, a Surface pro 3 as a wall mounted kiosk device. I’d be keen on knowing what other tweaks you did for things like power consumption or any other good ideas you had!

Hi all,

Short story: Have you tried a Wraparound?
I’m using this one: Home Assistant Desktop (macOS, Windows and Linux) - quick and easy access to HA - Share your Projects! - Home Assistant Community.

Long story:
I was using a 10" Android Tablet on the wall in my kitchen, mostly to show information from a HA dashboard (cctv, weather and most importantly: energy generation and consumption), but it was too small.
The family would have to walk to it to get info from it and quickly I ended up being the only one using it (looking at it).
The fam being supportive, I decided to replace it with a 21.5" display run by a small Windows desktop computer in the roof cavity above.
I just received the PC (refurbished Dell OptiPlex) and I’m trying different options. I like that Wraparound from Marvin (mrvnklm).