Inactivity management

Reset a kiosk automatically when a visitor walks away mid-experience, so the screen is ready for the next person.

2 min read

Without it, an abandoned kiosk stays on the last visitor's screen until a member of staff notices. The work comes in two halves. A script inside the experience notices that nobody is touching the screen, and says so. Your kiosk software decides what to do, because only the kiosk can close the session and go back to its welcome screen.

How the reset happens

The kiosk application — always runningInside the kiosk’s WebView or frame123456
  1. 1The visitor stops touching the screen
  2. 2The idle script counts 10 seconds with no activity
  3. 3The script signals the kiosk that the screen looks idle
  4. 4The kiosk shows its own message and countdown
  5. 5Stay puts the visitor back in the experience; no answer clears the frame
  6. 6The kiosk returns to its welcome screen
Runs inside the experienceRuns in the kiosk application

Steps 1 to 3 run inside the experience, through the idle script. Everything the visitor sees during the reset is the kiosk application.

After 10 seconds with no touches, taps or scrolling, the script signals the kiosk. The kiosk then asks whether the visitor is still there, with a visible countdown. Touching Stay closes the message, and the visitor carries on where they left off. If nobody answers in time, the kiosk closes the experience and returns to its welcome screen.

With a 10-second countdown, an abandoned kiosk frees itself in about 20 seconds. Make the countdown long enough that someone reading the screen, or thinking about a quiz answer, isn't thrown out mid-game.

The message is yours to design; OmniLab has no control over how it looks. See it beside the welcome screen in Screen controls the kiosk provides.

Turn it on for your kiosk campaigns

There's no setting for it. Your kiosk developer adapts the script in Build the kiosk shell so it lists your kiosk campaigns. A Studio admin then adds it once.

  1. List the address of every campaign that runs on the kiosk.
  2. Send the list and Build the kiosk shell to your kiosk developer.
  3. Ask them for the idle script, the message, the countdown, Stay and Return home.
  4. Ask a Studio admin to add it with Script Context ALL and Trigger Event VISIT, then publish the campaigns again.
  5. On the kiosk, start a session and stop touching the screen.
  6. Watch the whole reset, then test Stay.

The signal does nothing on its own, so put the kiosk side in the scope you agree with your provider. The script only runs on the campaigns it names, so people playing your other campaigns on their phones never get an idle timer.

Check before launch

  • The reset returns to your welcome screen, not to a blank frame or a reloaded game.
  • A visitor who's reading rather than tapping isn't thrown out too early.
  • After Stay, the message stays away long enough for the visitor to carry on.
  • The message is readable from where people stand.
  • Adding a kiosk campaign later means updating the script's list: put that on the next campaign's launch checklist.

Next steps

On this page

How the reset happensTurn it on for your kiosk campaignsCheck before launchNext steps