Kiosk

Kiosk mode runs askTheodor fullscreen as a public, touch-screen receptionist or concierge — the kind of screen a visitor walks up to in a lobby. You pick a worker to do the greeting, brand the welcome screen, optionally give it a real spoken voice, and press Launch. Visitors interact with it; you exit with a PIN.

This tab is grouped on its own under Reception in the Settings rail, because it’s a distinct “front-of-house” surface rather than a personal setting.

Who greets visitors

What it does: chooses which of your workers staffs the desk.
Default: the app picks a sensible default (Theodor or your first real worker) so the kiosk never launches empty.
When to change it: select the worker whose persona and knowledge best fit front-desk duty.

Greeting (first message) (text)

What it does: the opening line the kiosk shows every new visitor.
Default: a friendly “Hello! How can I help you today?”
When to change it: tailor the welcome to your venue (“Welcome to the clinic — how can I help?”).

Receptionist behaviour (textarea)

What it does: quiet instructions that steer the worker for each kiosk session (tone, what to do and avoid), without the visitor seeing them.
Default: empty.
When to change it: describe the desk’s job — e.g. “Act as a warm, multilingual front-desk receptionist; answer questions about opening hours and direct visitors to the right department.”

Branding

Make the welcome screen look like yours.

Logo (emoji) — a single emoji used as the kiosk’s logo. Default: a generic mark. Set it to something on-brand.
Accent colour — the highlight colour across the kiosk. Default: the app accent. Match your brand colour.
Welcome title — the big heading on the idle screen. Set it to your venue or company name.
Welcome subtitle — the smaller line beneath it. Use it for a tagline or instruction.
Quick suggestions (comma-separated) — tappable starter prompts shown on the welcome screen (e.g. “Opening hours, Find a room, Book a viewing”). Default: none. Add a few to give visitors an obvious first tap.

Voice

The single most important choice in this section — it picks how (or whether) the kiosk speaks.

System voice (type + read-aloud) — the visitor types, and the kiosk reads its replies aloud using the computer’s built-in voice. No per-minute cost.
Gemini Live — speak & listen (full-duplex) — a true spoken conversation: the visitor talks, the kiosk listens and replies out loud, in the visitor’s own language, with interrupt support. Billed per minute (see below).

Default: System voice. When to change it: pick Gemini Live for a hands-free talking receptionist; keep System voice for a quieter, type-to-chat kiosk with no usage cost.

With System voice selected

Read replies aloud (text-to-speech) (toggle) — speak the kiosk’s answers. Default: on.
Allow microphone input (dictation) (toggle) — let visitors dictate instead of type. Default: off.

With Gemini Live selected

Live model (dropdown) — which Gemini Live model powers the voice:
- 2.0 Flash Live (stable, ~€0.007/min)
- 2.5 native-audio (preview, ~€0.011/min)
Default: 2.0 Flash Live. Pick 2.5 only if you want its newer native-audio quality and accept the slightly higher rate.
Voice (dropdown) — the speaking voice: Aoede, Charon, Fenrir, Kore, Puck. Default: Aoede. Choose the personality that fits your desk.
Gemini key check — a banner confirms a Gemini key is present (the 🎙 Talk button only appears on the kiosk once it is) or links you to add one under Providers.
💶 Estimated token cost — a live estimate (e.g. an 8-hour day vs. a 24-hour lobby, assuming the desk is busy ~50% of the time) so you can see the daily spend before launching. Idle time is free.
Presenter (dropdown) — the face of the kiosk during a voice chat:
- Emoji orb (lightweight) — a simple animated orb. Default.
- 3D head — Ready Player Me (lip-synced) — a 3D avatar whose mouth syncs to the spoken reply. Choosing it reveals an Avatar .glb URL field; make a free avatar at readyplayer.me and paste its .glb link (keeping the morph-targets part of the URL so the mouth shapes work). It falls back to the orb if it can’t load.

Default language (BCP-47) (text)

What it does: the starting voice/locale for the kiosk (e.g. en-US).
Default: en-US.
When to change it: set your venue’s primary language. The receptionist always detects each visitor’s language and replies in it regardless — this is just the starting point.

Remote kiosk (API + tunnel)

For running the receptionist on a separate device (a tablet in the lobby) while this app is the “brain” behind it. This needs the live-kiosk add-on.

Kiosk API key (read-only, with Copy / Rotate)

What it does: the secret that lets a remote kiosk device authenticate to this app.
When to use it: Copy it into the remote device’s setup. Rotate it to invalidate the old one (connected kiosks stop working until updated — it asks first).

What it does: chooses how a public web address is created that points back to this app — Cloudflare (cloudflared) or ngrok.
Default: Cloudflare.
When to change it: pick whichever tunnelling tool you have installed and on your PATH.

Public URL + Start/Stop tunnel

What it does: Start tunnel opens the public address; once running, the Public URL shows it, and Copy client link gives you the full address (with the key) to open on the kiosk device.
When to use it: start the tunnel when you want an off-machine kiosk or phone to reach this app; stop it to take the public address down.

📱 Talk on your phone (QR)

What it does: once a tunnel is running, Generate QR produces a code (and link) that a visitor can scan to open the receptionist on their own phone — chat and voice through the phone’s own mic.
When to use it: print it or display it in the hall for a contactless, bring-your-own-device hand-off. Keep the tunnel running for it to work.

Behaviour & lockdown

Reset to welcome after N seconds idle (slider)

What it does: returns the kiosk to its fresh welcome screen after a stretch of no interaction, so the next visitor starts clean and private.
Default: a short idle window (adjustable from 20 to 300 seconds).
When to change it: shorten it for a busy, high-privacy desk; lengthen it for a slower lobby.

Exit PIN (text)

What it does: the numeric code required to leave kiosk mode, so visitors can’t get out to the full app.
Default: blank — which means anyone can exit without a PIN.
When to change it: set a PIN for any public deployment. This is the lock on the front door — don’t leave it blank on an unattended screen.

Keep screen awake (wake-lock) (toggle)

What it does: stops the display from sleeping while the kiosk runs.
Default: on.
When to change it: leave it on for an always-ready lobby screen; turn it off to let the device sleep normally.

Launching

🖥️ Launch Kiosk — saves your settings and enters fullscreen kiosk mode.
Save — stores the configuration without launching.
Reset to defaults — returns every field above to its starting value.

In practice

A safe public configuration, in the order that matters: set the Exit PIN (without it anyone can leave kiosk mode into your full workspace), turn on the idle reset so one visitor’s conversation doesn’t greet the next, keep wake-lock on for a lobby screen, and narrow the greeter’s tool allowlist to the minimum it needs.

Ground it, then try to break it. Load your real hours, prices, policies and FAQs into the Library first — an ungrounded kiosk improvises confidently, in public. Then spend ten minutes deliberately trying to make it say something you’d regret. That’s a much cheaper way to find the gaps than a customer finding them.

Write an SOP for what it must never discuss: pricing exceptions, other customers, anything contractual or medical, anything that should reach a human. Include what to do instead — take a message and say someone will follow up.

Quick-tap suggested questions do real work. Most visitors won’t know what to ask. Three or four buttons covering your actual most-common questions convert a blank prompt into a useful interaction, and they steer people toward what the kiosk answers well.

🎓 Learn it hands-on: Kiosks: a public-facing agent

Terms in this page

Kiosk mode — a locked-down, fullscreen mode that turns the app into a public touch-screen receptionist.
Receptionist worker — the worker you assign to greet and help visitors at the kiosk.
Entitlement / add-on — a paid feature on your license; here, the €50/month-per-kiosk live-kiosk upgrade.
Full-duplex — a voice mode where the visitor and the kiosk can speak and be heard at the same time, like a phone call.
Gemini Live — Google’s real-time spoken-conversation service, billed per minute, used for the talking kiosk.
Native audio — a newer Gemini Live mode that generates speech directly for a more natural sound, at a slightly higher rate.
Voice (Aoede / Charon / …) — the named speaking voices Gemini Live offers.
Presenter — the on-screen face during a voice chat: a simple animated orb, or a 3D head.
Ready Player Me — a free service for creating a 3D avatar; you paste its model link to use the 3D presenter.
.glb — the 3D-model file format the Ready Player Me avatar uses.
Morph targets / visemes — the mouth shapes that let the 3D head lip-sync to speech; kept in the avatar URL.
Lip-sync — matching the avatar’s mouth movements to the words being spoken.
BCP-47 — the standard code for a language-and-region (e.g. en-US for US English).
API key (kiosk) — the secret a remote kiosk device uses to connect securely to this app.
Tunnel — a tool (Cloudflare or ngrok) that creates a public web address pointing back to this app, so off-machine devices can reach it.
Cloudflare / ngrok — two tunnelling programs; you run one of them to expose the public URL.
PATH — the list of places your operating system looks for installed programs; the tunnel tool must be on it.
Public URL — the internet address the tunnel creates for reaching the kiosk’s brain.
QR code — a scannable square barcode; here it opens the receptionist on a visitor’s phone.
Wake-lock — a request that keeps the screen from going to sleep.
Idle reset — automatically clearing the kiosk back to its welcome screen after no activity, for the next visitor’s privacy.
Exit PIN — the numeric code needed to leave kiosk mode and return to the full app.
Cost ledger — the running tally of spend (shown on the Cost tab); kiosk voice minutes are added to it.