Android kiosk mode

Kiosk mode on Android is called app pinning: the tablet is pinned to one app, and leaving it takes a PIN. Every Android tablet since Android 5 has it built in, free of charge. This guide sets it up for the Vizito app; the menu names are those of Android 13 and later on a Google tablet and of One UI 6 and later on a Samsung tablet, which is what most of our customers use. Older versions have the same settings under slightly different names.

This guide assumes the Vizito app is already installed on the tablet. If it is not, get it from Google Play first:

Get the Vizito app on Google Play

Keep the screen on

A pinned app is no use on a tablet that goes to sleep, so do this first.

  1. Open Settings > Display and set “Screen timeout” to the longest value the tablet offers. On a Samsung tablet the row is under Settings > Display > “Screen timeout” as well, and the longest choice is 10 minutes.
  2. Keep the tablet on power, and switch on “Keep tablet awake” in the Vizito backoffice under “Account settings” > “General” > “Advanced settings”. While that switch is on, the app itself keeps the screen from sleeping, whatever the timeout says. See Advanced settings.
  3. Stop the tablet from closing the app to save power: open Settings > Apps > Vizito > Battery and choose “Unrestricted”. On a Samsung tablet also open Settings > Battery > “Background usage limits” and make sure Vizito is not under “Sleeping apps” or “Deep sleeping apps”.

If you would rather set the timeout to “Never” than to 10 minutes, the developer options offer it: tap “Build number” seven times under Settings > About tablet > Software information (Samsung) or Settings > About tablet (Google) until the tablet reports that developer options are on, then switch on “Stay awake” under Settings > Developer options. The screen then never sleeps while the tablet is charging.

Pin the Vizito app

Switch app pinning on

  • Google and most other tablets: open Settings > Security & privacy > “More security & privacy” > “App pinning” and switch it on. Switch on “Ask for PIN before unpinning” as well, otherwise anybody can unpin the app.
  • Samsung tablets: open Settings > “Security and privacy” > “More security settings” (called “Other security settings” on older versions) and switch on “Pin app”, which some versions label “Pin windows” or “Allow apps to be pinned”. Switch on “Ask for PIN before unpinning” under it.

The PIN is the tablet’s own screen lock. If the tablet has none yet, Android asks you to set one when you switch pinning on. Set a PIN that reception staff do not know; it is the only thing that keeps a visitor inside the app.

Pin the app

  1. Open the Vizito app.
  2. Open the recent apps view: swipe up from the bottom of the screen and hold, or tap the recent apps button if the tablet uses the three-button navigation bar.
  3. Tap the Vizito icon at the top of the app’s card and choose “Pin this app” (“Pin” on some versions).
  4. Confirm. The tablet returns to the Vizito app and shows it full screen. The navigation bar and the notification shade are blocked from now on.

To check that it worked, swipe from the top or the bottom of the screen: nothing should happen apart from a message that the app is pinned.

Unpin the app

  • With gesture navigation: swipe up from the bottom of the screen and hold.
  • With the three-button navigation bar: press and hold the back button and the recent apps button at the same time.

The tablet asks for the PIN and shows “App unpinned”. Pin it again as above when you are done.

What app pinning does and does not do

App pinning keeps visitors inside the Vizito app: they cannot open another app, Settings or the notification shade. That is all it does. It does not keep the tablet on Wi-Fi, it does not stop the network from dropping, and it does not make the app work offline. A tablet that keeps losing its connection has a network or power-saving problem, and pinning changes nothing about it: see Tablet connectivity.

Two things pinning does not block either: the power button, so a visitor can still switch the screen off (the app is still pinned when it comes back), and a restart, after which the app has to be pinned again by hand. A kiosk app or a device management suite, below, covers both.

Locking down tablets for larger businesses

Mobile Device Management for Android

Sites with many tablets usually run a Mobile Device Management suite that puts every tablet in kiosk mode from one console, survives a restart and can restrict Wi-Fi and updates as well. Samsung Knox Configure, Microsoft Intune and Google’s own Android Enterprise “dedicated device” mode all do this. This Capterra page compares them.

Dedicated kiosk apps

An alternative is a kiosk app such as KioWare, which locks the tablet to Vizito, restarts it into the app and can hide the status bar completely. See the KioWare product page and our own KioWare for Android article.