I'm thinking of deploying an old iPhone 6 in always-on kiosk mode on a side table, to control the various thermostats around the house. Is there any software or hardware (desktop stand) you'd recommend? I see some kiosk systems for iOS for managed devices, but I'm not sure I want to get into the whole iOS managed-device thing.
I have in the past deployed an old iPad for a wall-mounted dashboard, but between software updates (or lack thereof, depending) and battery degradation (always-on always-plugged-in) it hasn't been very successful. People have gravitated towards using Siri voice commands rather than wandering over to the wall mounted iPad which probably has turned off mysteriously. But, thermostats are a little more complex than the on-off switches that people are controlling with Siri, so I'm going to give it ago again with an old iPhone.
I have personally gone down this route as iOS/MacOS are my daily drivers. I have found for my use case android is a better fit for Kiosk use.
While i’m sure you can kiosk ios, becasue i’ve seen it, this combo is SUPER simple and worth considering if you find kiosking ios as fustrating as i remember it to be.
Amazon Fire is just walled garden Android. If you feel your time is best spent learning how to escape the garden, then they will provide plenty of learning opportunities.
If those learning opportunities are out of scope for your project, as they were for mine… Amazon sells a lot of very cheap android devices that aren’t apart of the Fire walled garden.
I've tried the cheap Android tablets for dashboard displays, the ones around $65, and they have many issues. They are so slow, showing a dashboard is about all they are capable of. Fully Kiosk will not keep the screen on more than a few days, and then it sleeps. The battery expanded on one and broke the case open within a year.
So, I gave up on those. I got a used Galaxy Tab 7 on Ebay for about the same cost as those cheap tablets. Even the Tab 7 is very quick, even though it is several years old. It runs Fully Kiosk fine and never turns the screen off, and it is fast enough that I now use it connected to my sound system to stream music, and I found a good recipe app to use it for cooking as well (since it hangs on the kitchen wall). I also bought some brackets that allow me to take the tablet off the wall easily for other uses.
Thanks @ritchierich I think I'll wait on this project for a bit then. The iPhone 6 I found is too old to be useful, apparently. But I found an old iPad that still works, and redeployed it on the wall where the broken iPad was, and rebuilt a new dashboard for it. It's not near the fireplace so isn't ideal for my thermostats display, but it's a step in the right direction while waiting to see what the next HomePod looks like.
I'm not worrying about an official kiosk mode for this iPad. I just deleted most of the apps, added the Dashboard to the Home Screen, and put it as one of two icons on the bottom row.
