What's new in Kiosk Satellite v0.9.0-beta

New: DLNA renderer

Kiosk Satellite is now a DLNA media renderer so Home Assistant (or any other DLNA app) can push cameras, images and videos straight to the wall.

Enable it under Settings, DLNA Renderer and the kiosk appears in Home Assistant as a media player (via the built-in DLNA Digital Media Renderer integration, discovered automatically on the same subnet, or added manually with http://<device-ip>:2325/device.xml). Anything you cast shows full screen over the dashboard: media_player.play_media from automations, the HA media browser, or any DLNA app.

• Plays images, video and audio, including HA camera streams (HLS and MJPEG) and image entities, which stay live on screen as they update.
• Play, pause, seek, stop, volume and mute all work from Home Assistant, a tap on the screen dismisses the media, and a loading screen shows while streams buffer.
• The screensaver stands down while media plays and returns afterwards. Off by default.

Other new features:

• Restore a backup during setup. The first screen of the onboarding wizard (on the device and in the browser) can import a configuration exported from another Kiosk Satellite: settings, dashboard and sign-in come along, the Android permissions the imported settings need (microphone, camera, notifications and the rest) are requested automatically, and the kiosk starts signed in. Setting up tablet number two now takes a minute.
• Volume control over MQTT. The MQTT device gains a Volume slider for the media volume, tracking changes from every side including the hardware buttons. No extra permissions involved.
• Release notes before updating. Tapping an available update now shows what changed, with Cancel and Update buttons, on the device and in the remote admin. The download only starts after you confirm.
• Check for updates on demand. Tap the version number in the drawer (or in the remote admin's About tab) to check for a new release immediately instead of waiting for the twice-daily check.

Bug fixes

• Crash when dismissing the screensaver. On devices where the camera fails to open (reported on an Echo Show 8 running LineageOS), stopping motion detection crashed the app. Motion detection now survives a failed camera start, and the wake word engine no longer logs a storm of errors alongside it.
• Stuck on the splash screen. An OS-driven process restart (a permission dialog is enough on some devices) could freeze startup before the UI ever appeared, unrecoverable on a kiosk with the hardware buttons blocked. The startup no longer stalls, and a watchdog restarts the app on its own if the screen ever fails to come up.
• Duplicate MQTT devices. Restoring a backup could leave the kiosk publishing under a freshly generated MQTT identity instead of the backup's, creating a ghost device in Home Assistant on every restore. The identity now always follows the restored configuration.
• App Logs viewer readability. The Android system floods logcat with a WebView frame-rate line about a hundred times per second, which pushed everything useful out of view. The viewer now filters it out and shows a real history.
• Permission hints. The notifications permission is now named and explained accurately, and the remote admin points to the correct settings path for granting permissions on the device.