The locked room · Android device owner
A TV that cannot be broken. Not by a guest, not by accident.
Kiosk is the professional way to put a television in a room you rent. The TV belongs to the room, not to whoever is holding the remote: it always comes back to your welcome screen, it cannot be reset, re-pointed or filled with other apps, and it stays that way after every reboot and every update. Our free tool does the whole hand-over by itself, in about ten minutes, once per box.
Set up once · Nobody has to come back · Your PIN opens it, and closes it again
What is kiosk mode on a hotel TV?
Kiosk mode means the television in the room runs as a managed device, so it can only show what the property put on it. With Hotel TV the app becomes the device owner of the Android TV box: the home screen is pinned at system level, the settings menu, the app store and the factory launcher are out of a guest’s reach, a factory reset is not possible, and every rule is applied again each time the box starts. The property opens the TV with its own PIN for fifteen minutes when staff need it, and can unlock the box for good at any time.
The short answers
- What it is
- An Android TV or Google TV box running as a managed device, with Hotel TV as its device owner.
- What it stops
- Sixteen things by name — factory reset, installing and uninstalling apps, adding accounts or users, Wi-Fi and VPN settings, language, clock, location, brightness, airplane mode, safe boot and the developer connection among them.
- What it costs
- Nothing extra. The lock is part of Hotel TV, and the tool that applies it is free and open source.
- How long it takes
- About ten minutes per box, once. There is no second visit.
- What it needs
- A box with no Google account on it yet, running Android 9 or newer. Fire TV cannot be locked.
- Who can undo it
- Only the property, with its PIN — for fifteen minutes of maintenance, or permanently.
Written by the team that builds Hotel TV · Updated 3 October 2026
Why it matters
What an unlocked TV costs you.
The call at 11 at night
A guest presses the wrong thing and the menus are in another language, the sound is off, or the TV is on the wrong input. The call comes to you, and you are not in the room.
The previous guest is still signed in
Their Netflix, their YouTube, their name on your TV. It is awkward at best, and it is personal data you did not mean to keep.
Your screen disappears
The box updates or loses power, and it opens its own home screen again — with its own ads, its own store, and no sign of your welcome.
The technician visit
Somebody resets the box or installs something odd. A room out of service, a trip, an invoice — for a television.
What you get
Everything a locked TV stops.
This is the whole point of kiosk. Not one feature — a list of things that simply stop happening in your rooms.
- The TV always returns to your welcome screen — after a reboot, after a power cut, after a system update. The home button cannot lead anywhere else.
- No factory reset. The one accident that used to mean a visit is not available on the remote at all.
- Nothing new gets installed: no store, no sideloading from a USB stick, no “free IPTV” someone found.
- Nothing gets uninstalled either. The apps you chose stay exactly where you put them.
- The language, the clock and the time zone stay yours. The classic “the TV is in German now” stops happening.
- Wi-Fi settings, VPN and certificates are out of reach — nobody can point your TV somewhere else.
- Brightness and screen timeout stay as you set them, so the room looks the same every evening.
- No new profiles and no accounts added or removed on the box.
- Safe mode and the developer connection are closed — the two back doors around everything above.
- The previous guest’s logins are wiped at check-out, so every arrival starts clean.
- Every rule is applied again the moment the box starts, so the lock survives what you are not there to see.
- And when your staff need in: your PIN opens the TV for fifteen minutes, then it closes by itself.
Not a cage
What the guest can still do.
Locked does not mean limited. The guest never sees a warning, a password box or anything that looks like a restriction — they see a welcome screen and a TV that works.
- Watch everything you put on the screen — your apps, your channels, your welcome.
- Sign in to their own Netflix, Disney+ or YouTube, and keep their profile for the stay.
- Connect Bluetooth headphones or a soundbar.
- Scan the Wi-Fi QR code with their phone — no password typed on a remote.
- Leave without thinking about it: the check-out wipe takes their accounts off for them.
Side by side
The same evening, on two televisions.
| A normal TV in the room | Hotel TV in kiosk mode | |
|---|---|---|
| After a reboot or a power cut | Opens the box’s own home screen, with its ads and its store | Opens your welcome screen, every time |
| Factory reset | Any guest, three clicks into the settings | Not available at all |
| New apps | The store is open, and so is a USB stick | Nothing installs, nothing is removed |
| Language, clock, brightness | Anyone can change them, and the next guest finds them changed | Fixed as you set them |
| The previous guest’s logins | Stay until somebody notices | Wiped at check-out |
| When something goes wrong | Someone drives to the room | Your PIN, fifteen minutes, from where you are |
The professional answer
This is the strongest lock that exists on an Android TV today.
Android’s own mechanism, not a trick
It uses device owner — the hand-over Android gives companies for managed devices, the same one behind the tablets in a shop or the screens in an airport. No modified system, no root, no overlay app that a guest can swipe away.
It holds without you
The rules are re-applied every time the box starts, and the home screen is pinned at system level, so a reboot or an update does not quietly give the room back to the box. Set it up once; nobody has to come back.
Reversible, and only by you
Your PIN opens the TV for fifteen minutes of maintenance, or unlocks the box for good and gives it its factory home screen back. Nothing is burned, nothing is one-way — but nothing happens without the PIN either.
How it is done
The tool does it. You watch.
TV Box Tools is our free, open-source tool. It talks to the box over the box’s own debugging connection and runs the whole hand-over — install, lock, link to the room, verify — about ten minutes, once per box.
A fresh box
A box with no Google account on it yet — Android only allows the hand-over when there are none. New, or one you reset first; the tool checks and says so, and never resets anything itself.
Connect
From a Windows or Linux laptop, an Android phone on the same Wi-Fi, or Chrome with a USB cable. Press Allow on the TV once.
Say it is a property
Enter the room’s 8-digit code from your dashboard and the PIN you want. The tool installs Hotel TV, hands the box over, pins the home screen, hides the box’s own launcher, grants what the app needs, and links the TV to that room.
It proves it, then steps back
The tool reboots the box and checks that the lock held, shows you every command it ran, and can switch the debugging connection off as its last step. From then on the room is managed from your phone.
Fire TV cannot be handed over — Amazon leaves no route for an app to own the box — so there you can only make Hotel TV the home screen, without the lock. On Android TV and Google TV boxes from Android 9 up, the full lock applies.
The technical part, if you want it
- The hand-over is
dpm set-device-owner: Hotel TV becomes the device owner through Android’s DevicePolicyManager. No root, no custom ROM, no accessibility trick. - What is blocked, by name: factory reset, adding or removing users, modifying accounts, installing apps, installing from unknown sources, uninstalling apps, app controls, Wi-Fi configuration, VPN and credentials, locale, date and time, location, brightness and screen timeout, airplane mode, safe boot, and developer/debugging features.
- What is deliberately left open: Bluetooth, USB media, network reset and tethering, and the system’s own error dialogs — the things a guest may legitimately need, or that would make the TV look broken.
- The home screen is pinned with
addPersistentPreferredActivity, which is the only way that survives a reboot and an update; the box’s own launcher is hidden rather than uninstalled, so unlocking puts it back. - Maintenance and unlock arrive as PIN-guarded commands from the tool; a wrong PIN, or no PIN, is ignored and logged. The PIN the installer sets becomes the property’s Admin PIN — there is no second PIN to lose.
- How each box was set up is recorded against the room, so you can see later which TVs were handed over with the tool and which were not.
FAQ
The questions owners actually ask.
Is this legal and safe for the box?
Yes. It is a standard Android feature for managed devices — the same one used for company phones and public screens. The system stays the manufacturer’s, nothing is replaced, and the box can be given back to its factory state at any time with your PIN.
Does the guest know the TV is locked?
No. There is no padlock, no password prompt, nothing that says “restricted”. They see a welcome screen with their name and the apps you chose. The limits only appear if someone goes looking for the settings menu, and then it simply is not there.
What if I need to change something later?
Most things — rooms, guests, Wi-Fi, apps, messages, check-out — change from your phone, with no tool and no visit. For the box itself, your PIN opens it for fifteen minutes and it closes again on its own.
What happens after a power cut?
The box starts, the rules are applied again, and your welcome screen is what comes up. That is the difference between a locked TV and a TV where someone just changed the home screen.
Can I unlock a box completely?
Yes, with your PIN, from the same tool. It releases the device owner, puts the factory home screen back and leaves the box as you found it. Nothing about this is one-way.
I have a TV without a box. Can I still do it?
A smart TV that is not Android TV cannot be handed over — nor can Fire TV. There, Hotel TV can still be the home screen, which covers the welcome, the Wi-Fi QR and the check-out. The full lock needs an Android TV or Google TV box, and a cheap one is enough.
Lock the first room this evening.
Create your property and its rooms, get the codes, and hand the box over with the tool. Ten minutes, once, and then the room looks after itself.
Start free