Home Assistant on an iPad wall panel: kiosk mode, apps and setup

The official app's Kiosk Mode

The official Home Assistant app has a Kiosk Mode for wall-mounted iPads, added in app 2026.4 and extended in 2026.7. Turn it on under Settings > Companion app > Kiosk mode, pick the server and the dashboard to show, and the app opens that dashboard full screen. It shows your Home Assistant dashboards as the browser does, so cards from the Marketplace work.

• Screen: Keep screen on stops the iPad from locking; with it off, the iPad's own Auto-Lock applies. Hide sidebar and top bar controls removes the sidebar and the edit and search buttons (Home Assistant 2025.2 or newer), and Hide status bar removes the row with the clock and battery, except in Split View or Slide Over.
• Screensaver: After 30 seconds to an hour without a touch, it shows a clock, dims the dashboard or turns the screen black. Wake on camera motion uses the front camera to wake it, and iOS shows the green camera dot while Kiosk Mode runs.
• Settings behind a lock: A button in a corner of your choice opens the kiosk settings, and Authentication asks for Face ID, Touch ID or the passcode first.
• From automations: Notifications with commands such as kiosk_show_camera, kiosk_set_brightness or kiosk_reload control the panel, for example to show the front door camera when the doorbell rings. Commands and motion wake work only while the app is open on screen.

Lock the iPad to one app with Guided Access

Kiosk Mode cannot stop someone from leaving the app or turning the iPad off. Guided Access, built into iPadOS, can: it keeps the iPad in one app until you end the session with the passcode, Face ID or Touch ID.

• Turn it on: Settings > Accessibility > Guided Access, then set a passcode under Passcode Settings.
• Start a session: Open the app and triple-click the top button, or the Home button on iPads that have one, then tap Start. Triple-click again to end it.
• Options: Switch off the top button, the volume buttons, motion or the keyboard in the session's Options, and circle the parts of the screen that should ignore touches.
• Display Auto-Lock: Guided Access has its own Display Auto-Lock setting, which decides when the iPad locks during a session. Set it to Never for a panel.

In Safari, with kiosk-mode

Any iPad with a current Safari can show Home Assistant in the browser, and Add to Home Screen in the share menu opens it later without Safari's address bar. To hide Home Assistant's own header and sidebar, install kiosk-mode from the Marketplace (HACS before Home Assistant 2026.11): ?kiosk at the end of a dashboard's address hides both, and ?kiosk&cache keeps it that way on that device. The browser has no screensaver or motion wake, so set Settings > Display & Brightness > Auto-Lock to Never and add Guided Access as above. Fully Kiosk Browser, the usual choice on Android tablets, has no iPad version.

Panel apps from the App Store

Several apps are made for an iPad that stays on. They differ in what they show: the dashboards you already have, a dashboard of their own, or any web page.

• HA Dash: Free and open source. It draws the dashboards you already have as native screens and has a kiosk mode that wakes on touch and can be controlled remotely. It needs iPadOS 15 or newer, and the project keeps a build you install yourself for older iPads such as the iPad 2.
• HomePad: $8.99 once. An always-on control centre for Apple Home or Home Assistant with a dashboard of its own, up to four camera feeds, a doorbell pop-up and a photo frame mode. It needs iPadOS 17.6 or newer.
• Kiosker Pro: $39.99. A kiosk browser that shows your dashboard, or any page, full screen, with its own Home Assistant integration that reports battery, charging and motion and can reload the page. It needs iPadOS 15.6 or newer.
• HA Kiosk: $3.99. Shows any web page full screen, such as a Home Assistant dashboard. It needs iPadOS 15 or newer.

The options compared

Prices are App Store prices in the US, as of November 2026.

Which iPads still work

The official app needs iPadOS 16.4 or newer. HA Dash and HA Kiosk need iPadOS 15, Kiosker Pro 15.6, HomePad 17.6 and Vulpo 26. iPadOS 26 runs on the iPad (8th generation), the iPad mini (5th generation) and later models; the iPad (7th generation) stopped at iPadOS 18. For an older iPad, HA Dash's own build and Safari are what is left, and an old version of Safari may not load the current Home Assistant dashboard.

Power and battery

Apple says an iPad can stay connected to its charger overnight, because charging stops when the battery is full, and recommends unplugging it when possible. For a panel that never comes off the wall, newer models have an 80% Limit under Settings > Battery > Battery Health: the iPad (A16), the iPad mini (A17 Pro), the iPad Air (M2) and the iPad Pro (M4) and later. It stops charging at about 80 percent, starts again at 75 and now and then charges to 100 to keep its estimates accurate. On older iPads, a smart plug that Home Assistant switches by the battery level, which the official app reports as a sensor, does a similar job.

Where Vulpo fits

Vulpo is a native Home Assistant app for iPhone, iPad, Mac and Apple Watch. On an iPad it builds its own native dashboards rather than showing your Lovelace ones. It needs iPadOS 26 or newer, so it runs on the iPad (8th generation), the iPad mini (5th generation) and later models, not on most spare iPads from before 2019; for those, the official app or HA Dash is the better choice. It has no kiosk mode yet, so the screen follows Auto-Lock and Guided Access as described above. A Keep screen on setting for dashboards is coming in Vulpo 1.5. For a locked panel with a screensaver and motion wake today, use the official app's Kiosk Mode. Vulpo is made by the publisher of this site.