Kiosks: a public-facing agent

Everything so far has pointed your workforce inward — now we turn one worker around to face your visitors and customers.

What you’ll learn

• What kiosk mode is and where you’d mount it.
• How to pick and brand the worker who greets people.
• The lockdown and voice options for public use.

1. What a kiosk is

Kiosk mode turns askTheodor into a fullscreen receptionist on a touch screen. Mount a tablet in a lobby, entrance hall, or shop, launch the kiosk, and a worker you choose greets every visitor — answering questions, giving directions, taking messages, and helping with bookings or check-in. It’s the same workforce you already run, just pointed outward.

2. Pick and brand the greeter

In Settings → 🖥️ Kiosk, choose any worker to be the face of the kiosk and dress it in your own branding — logo, title, accent color, a welcome message, and quick-tap suggested questions. The receptionist is multilingual: it detects the visitor’s language from what they type or say and replies in kind, so one kiosk serves an international lobby.

3. Lock it down for public use

Because anyone can walk up to it, kiosk mode adds guardrails: an optional PIN to leave kiosk mode, an idle timer that resets the screen between visitors, and a keep-awake option. You can also enable optional live voice (full-duplex, via Gemini Live — needs a Gemini key and bills per minute) and an optional 3D presenter that lip-syncs the replies.

Pick a warm worker

A kiosk shines when its personality leans warm, concise, and spoken-friendly. The kiosk gently coaches it to behave like an excellent human receptionist, but starting from the right character helps.

A paid add-on

The live kiosk is licensed at €50/month per live kiosk. The in-app kiosk still works for trying it out even without the add-on, and a remote thin-client option lets a low-powered lobby screen do the talking while your main install does the thinking. Usage shows up under Reports → Receptionists & Kiosks, with no token cost to view.

Where a kiosk earns its keep

The kiosk pays off where the same questions get asked all day by people standing in front of you. Three realistic placements:

A small hotel lobby at 2am. Wi-Fi password, breakfast times, how to reach the station, where to leave luggage. Multilingual matters here more than anywhere: the guest types in Greek or German and gets an answer in the same language, without anyone being on the desk. Anything it can’t answer becomes a message for the morning.

A clinic or salon waiting area. Opening hours, what to bring to an appointment, how long a treatment takes, parking. It absorbs the interruptions that otherwise pull your receptionist off the phone — and unlike a printed FAQ, it answers the version of the question the visitor actually asked.

A trade stand or showroom. Product specs, comparisons, “does it work with X” — the questions that eat a demo day. Load the Library with your spec sheets and the kiosk answers from your material rather than improvising.

It’s a public surface — brief it accordingly

Anyone can walk up and type anything. Set the PIN so nobody can leave kiosk mode, keep the greeter’s tools narrow, and give it an SOP for what it must never discuss — pricing exceptions, other customers, anything it should hand to a human. Test it by trying to make it say something you’d regret.

Recap

A kiosk is one of your workers stepping up to the front desk — branded, multilingual, optionally voiced, and locked down for the public. Next, we make sure everything you’ve built is safe to carry and keep.

📖 Reference in the docs: Kiosk · Receptionists & Kiosks

➡️ Next: Backup, export & privacy