What is Android Kiosk Mode and How to Enable it?

  • December 7, 2021

We live in an era where technology is taking over almost every front leading to all manual and tedious tasks being automated and simplified. Today, with the right technological tools, smart devices can easily be converted to purpose-built devices, also known as ‘Kiosks’. Android devices are globally preferred by several businesses that can leverage Android Kiosk mode to obtain dedicated kiosk devices.

Android Kiosk mode
Exploring the benefits of Android Kiosk mode for businesses

Such interactive kiosks promote self-service and are preferred by several industrial sectors as they bring about a reduction in manual operations, improve the efficiency of processes, save time on tedious tasks and also save business costs.

Every major industrial sector seeks ways to implement Kiosks to benefit their businesses.

Our world is dominated by Android users owing to the flexibility, ease of use, lower costs and the plethora of features that they offer. But how does Android contribute to the corporate world?

Android offers pragmatic enterprise-specific features such as the Kiosk Lockdown Mode, which enables businesses to transform their Android tablets and phone into dedicated Kiosks.

A majority of global businesses are preferring the implementation of Android devices in purpose-specific Kiosk mode.

What is Android Kiosk Mode?

Kiosks are purpose-built, unmanned digital devices that are meant to provide a digital self-service experience to their users. As per the business’s requirement, Kiosks can be either interactive or informative.

In order to turn a digital device into a purpose-specific device, it needs to be locked into a mode that allows only an android device to a single app kiosk mode or multiple selective applications to run on the device. No other general features or capabilities are enabled on such devices.

When an Android device is restricted to single or multiple selective applications to serve a specific purpose, it is known to be in Android Kiosk Mode. There are several modern software such as Android enterprise mobile device management, that helps businesses set up Kiosk mode on android device fleets effortlessly.

What are the Industry Use Cases of Kiosk Mode?

Now that we’ve discussed exactly what the Kiosk Mode for android is and how several businesses prefer turning their Android phones and tablets into purpose-built kiosks, let us see the various industrial use cases of Android Kiosks.

1. Digital Signages

Digital Signages are modern-day electronic billboards that are formed by turning electronic devices into purpose-built devices. Digital signages are used excessively in all major industrial sectors, especially in retail, to advertise products and services.

They are nothing but smart devices locked into a single-app mode that displays advertisements or information on a loop.

Other industries that use android TVs as digital signages include Airlines to display flight schedules, restaurants to display the menu, hotels to display FAQs and popular places to visit nearby, etc.

2. Interactive kiosks

Kiosks that engage customers to improve their experience and reduce wait time are known as interactive kiosks. They are mostly adopted by the hospitality and entertainment sectors. Android devices locked down in kiosk mode can be used for interactive operations such as web check-ins, booking movie tickets, ordering food, purchasing products, collecting feedback and much more.

3. Patient monitoring devices

Locking Android devices in a single-app mode enables the healthcare industry to convert Android devices into patient monitors instantly. These dedicated devices can be mounted at the patient’s bedside and made to monitor the patient’s vitals constantly.

This can ease the load on healthcare professionals and caregivers to periodically measure and analyze the patient’s vitals. The constantly generated data can also form critical reports in tracking the patient’s health and progress.

Besides patient monitoring, Android tablets and smartphones can alternatively be locked down in a multi-app mode that selectively runs only the important and trusted apps and restricts the unnecessary ones to prevent distraction in healthcare professionals and de-clutter their homepage.

4. Dedicated devices for learning

Modern-day education has gone beyond traditional blackboard teaching. Institutes provide their students with smart devices like laptops and tablets for educational purposes.

Whether these devices are used in school or university premises or at remote locations, the Android Kiosk Lockdown mode enables institutes to gain control of which applications are used by students on their learning devices.

The Android device fleets can be locked in a multi-app mode to permit only study-specific applications. Alternatively, institutes can choose to lock their device fleets in a single-app mode during examinations to prevent students from using Google or any other apps and resources.

5. Lead-capturing kiosks

Businesses can easily lock Android tablets into a single-app kiosk mode to convert them into lead-capturing kiosks. Such dedicated devices are a great way to gather contact details, customer information at public events, exhibitions, seminars, etc.

Such kiosks can be made to simply display a form to be filled out by customers to create a lead contact directory.

Besides these, several other use cases favour Android Kiosk Lockdown, such as locking down devices of delivery and transport agents to one app or restricting corporate employees’ devices to specific apps and tools to improve productivity.

How to Enable Kiosk Mode on Android Devices Using Scalefusion?

On realizing the massive business benefits that are brought about by Android Kiosk Lockdown, businesses are turning towards tools such as kiosk apps to help them simplify the process of configuring Android devices as dedicated kiosks.

Scalefusion MDM is one such popular kiosk solution that not only helps turn Android devices into purpose-built kiosks but also extends comprehensive device management and monitoring capabilities that aid in managing large fleets of diversely located kiosks from a single console.

What are the Features of Android Kiosk Software that Scalefusion offers?

Scalefusion MDM solution enables the configuration of single-app and multi-app modes from a single dashboard that lets organizations use their Android device fleets for diverse use cases.

I. Single-app Mode:

This management mode restricts the Android device’s usage to a single app. On configuring the android single app kiosk mode via the Scalefusion dashboard, just one selected app will run on the device constantly, even if the device is rebooted.

Android Kiosk mode: Single app mode

II. Multi-app Mode:

This management mode restricts the Android device’s usage to a selected list of applications. On configuring the multi-app kiosk mode via the Scalefusion dashboard, only the selected applications will run on the device constantly, even if the device is rebooted.

Android Kiosk mode: multi app mode

What are the Benefits of Android Kiosk Mode with Scalefusion MDM?

Locking down your Android device fleets to convert them into dedicated Kiosks. It has its own set of benefits, such as reduced manual work, increased operational efficiency, enhanced security, reduced data costs, etc.

However, let’s look at the benefits that businesses can leverage by implementing and managing their Android Kiosks with Scalefusion MDM.

  1. Configure the device settings for single-app and multi-app modes through a single console.
  2. Leverage remote management capabilities and avoid manual on-site IT visits.
  3. Remotely troubleshoot the kiosk devices with Remote cast & control.
  4. Restrict customers from meddling with the hardware or security settings.
  5. Enable custom branding option with personalized wallpaper and logo.
  6. Leverage application management, content management, location tracking capabilities in addition to a plethora of security features.

Final thoughts

Android devices are easy to deploy and serve diverse industry use cases as Kiosks. Implementing an efficient Android Kiosk Lockdown software is all you need to set wings to your business’s Kiosk management in a secure and simplified manner.

Thousands of businesses rely upon Scalefusion for managing their mobile device, desktops, laptops and other endpoints

Shambhavi is a Senior Content Writer at Promobi Technologies with prior experience in commercial writing, creative planning, product cataloging, and content strategizing. She is a "Biotechnologist turned writer" and believes that the inception of great ideas happens over coffee.
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