Snagged 2x Samsung A8 Tablets for $50 to make dedicated dashboards, HA App? Or Fully Kiosk?

[steady snow]

I've got Fully Kiosk running right now, but I think the performance is lacking a bit when it comes to button activation, bubble card pop ups, etc. I know its an older device, but in terms of performance and power draw, which is more ideal?

I know FK is at least worthwhile in that it has the motion activation built in, so I'd have to go back and build that into HA manually instead, but I'm just wondering if there's any objective better or worse solution (or any tips on how to get some more performance out of the tabs in either case).

Thanks!

[calm star]

I use Amazon Fire Tablet 10 HDs and they are absolutely horrible for day-to-day use, but perfect for a home automation dashboard. Personally, I use Fully Kiosk Browser along with the FKB integration.

I know FK is at least worthwhile in that it has the motion activation built in
I would not recommend having this feature as the selling point to get the software. It works well during the day, but not at all at night (in a dark room) because the camera cannot see anything. I recommend a separate motion detector and an automation that wakes the screen. (browser_mod might be able to add this feature, but because of security reasons it may not always work right.) Remote Administration is probably the only Pro feature that I use and that is primarily just to update FKB every year or two.
FKB does a better job of keeping the dashboard focused and prevents someone from exiting and messing with the tablet. I'm pretty sure the HA app now has a fullscreen mode but I haven't played with it to compare.
In terms of performance, the only thing I can suggest is to uninstall/disable everything that is not needed. Also, ensuring Android WebView is updated seems to fix a lot of issues. (Getting this updated will be specific to your tablet and may require jumping through some hoops or downloading an .apk file.)

[pastel phoenix]

Best to use Companion App over Browser in FKB as companion app has better optimisations for sensor updates. If you follow the guide at Browser Mod Wiki - Android Devices 'Always On' (https://github.com/thomasloven/hass-browser_mod/wiki/Android-Devices-'Always-On') then you should have a good setup. The one caveat is that you need to keep the device on, but darken the screen to black with Browser Mod screen light entity. I have used this well in test setups. Make sure to use Browser Mod latest version (2.4.4) which will then provide hassle free refresh with cache clear on future Browser Mod updates (or also if you update anything else and want to make sure caches are clear - note: this does not correct poorly coded custom elemets which don't cache bust with version in URLs as webView browser cache is still in front of the Frontend application cache).

[calm star]

Strictly for the sake of discussion, I'm going to disagree with choosing the HA app over FKB because of sensor optimization. While the HA app certainly has more sensors available, the majority of them IMO are not needed for a static display. Battery level and charging status are the two important ones which both options offer. Both offer memory usage/total entities which might be useful to the OP, but only FKB offers options to restart FKB or the device itself. Even if FKB updates less frequently or uses a bit more memory, it might be negligible.
FKB offers a switch entity for the screen and an input_select that handles screen brightness. Converting the switch entity to a light entity (via Show As) allows the screen to be turned on/off with the light service calls, useful for turning on several lights (including the screen) in a room. The bad thing about the Show As method, it does not support brightness. The browser_mod method for the browser does have a light entity with brightness. (This is weird because both entities have supported_features: 0.) The only downside I have found with the browser_mod method, which is not relevant to the OP's use, is brightness only affects the viewport of the browser and not actually the entire screen. (Taskbar and web browser menu bar still show at 100% brightness on PC.) All this is moot, however, since an automation can perform the task of turning on/off the screen and adjusting its brightness with either method.
Ultimately, I think it will just come down to whichever option offers the better dashboard experience for the OP.

[calm star]

Side-note: The Samsung Tab A8 and Fire HD 10 should offer about the same dashboard experience. Both have a 2GHz Octo-core processor. The A8 comes in 3GB RAM/32GB storage & 4GB RAM/64GB storage versions while the Fire HD 10 only has 3GB of RAM and 32GB or 64GB of storage.
The Fire HD 10 works great for me (and I have a lot of custom stuff added to the frontend and MP4 video playing as the background.)
However, neither can hold up to the specs of my Samsung Tab S10+ or even the S7 FE. But those are way more expensive tablets and overkill for just a static dashboard (although they are way thinner).

[pastel phoenix]

My point on sensors was the optimization of general sensors for dashboard display, not what each provides as sensor from the device. Good point on FKB and what it provides. If you have FKB with Browser Mod then the screen light direct controls FKB brightness and not the browser overlay.

[steady snow]

Oh! I thought that discord would have done something like give me a notification when someone answered this question - I'm sorry! Thank you both for coming to lend your opinions!

Regarding performance: I have come to find that these guys only have 2GB RAM, so memory is really at a premium. I took your advice and removed everything unnecessary though. Went the Shizuku+Canta route and scrubbed out everything that was unnecessary (turns out these are A8's, but are a model that really doesn't lend itself well to rooting, so I had to get a little creative). Unfortunately, I don't have the spare funds at the moment to get separate motion sensor devices, as much as I'd like to, so the FK's built in sensors are really all I have to work with.

[calm star]

@steady snow You probably did not get notified because you weren't replied to directly or tagged.

the FK's built in sensors are really all I have to work with.
A nice thing about FKB is that you can turn on Pro features without having a license. It will put a watermark on the screen, but this will let you test these features to see if they warrant purchasing a license. Since you already know about the tablet not seeing well in the dark, that's just a limitation that you'd have to accept. But, knowing you have any option to incorporate a motion detector later down the road is a consideration.

I bought a super-cheap Chinese no-name tablet to play with. It has super low specs and the dashboard experience is not great. It takes forever for the dashboard to load and can be sluggish responding to taps. But, I bought it because it comes with its own charging dock that has a built in speaker which may lead to some new automation ideas.