How to Run Progressive Web Applications (PWA) in Kiosk Mode on Android

Ever since the world leaped into the mobile-first revolution, or rather since the invention of the first ever iPhone, web apps have been the go-to strategy for businesses to make their product available to a large audience without extensively investing in the development of iOS or Android apps. No matter how many applications a user downloads on the phone, PWAs continue to be a popular choice for seamless, investment-less experience for mobile users.

PWA in Kiosk Mode

In this article, let us discuss how to run Progressive Web Applications (PWA) in kiosk mode on Android devices. But let’s first start with the basics:

What are Progressive Web Applications?

Progressive Web Applications or PWA is a mobile-friendly application software that is delivered using a web browser. PWAs are commonly built on HTML, CSS and Javascript and can work on any standard browser. They are built with the functionality to work offline, enable push notifications and leverage device hardware and software capabilities such as a native app. The biggest advantage of PWA is that since it is essentially a web page or a website, it doesn’t need to be distributed via conventional app purchase stores like App Store or Google Play Store.

Progressive Web Applications for businesses

Generally, the biggest hurdle for native app popularity is the storage space. Users who are not sure about the application’s usage do not want to tie up their mobile storage space by installing an application. PWAs are known for mimicking the features, functionality and the speed of a native app and hence, they are immensely popular with businesses that do not necessarily want to invest in native development or do not want to turn away users simply because of storage space. From video streaming platforms to retail ecommerce and hospitality, several small and large businesses opt for Progressive Web Applications to put across their services. PWAs ensure fast installation, better performance, lower development costs, no updating issues, seamless offline use and are platform-device agnostic.

Just like native apps, PWAs can also be configured on several customer-facing Android kiosks to improve customer experience. Scalefusion MDM helps in configuring PWAs to run in single/multi-app kiosk mode on Android kiosks.

Let’s see a step-by-step guide of how PWAs are configured on Android kiosks for business.

Running Progressive Web Applications on Android Kiosks using Scalefusion

Step 1: Getting Started on the dashboard

Signup, login and enroll Android devices on Scalefusion MDM. Create an Android device profile to set access control, allow/block apps and websites and enforce a password policy for Android kiosks. Make sure you whitelist Chrome Browser in your app list.

Step 2: Navigate to the enterprise section of the dashboard.

In the Enterprise section of...