HDMI Kiosk Mode
Plug a monitor and a gamepad into the ground station SBC. The agent launches Chromium in kiosk mode, rendering the Mission Control HUD route at full screen. You get video, telemetry overlays, and stick control without a laptop, phone, or internet connection.
What you need
- Micro-HDMI to HDMI cable (Pi 4B uses micro-HDMI)
- Any HDMI monitor or display (7” field monitors work well)
- USB or Bluetooth gamepad (Logitech F310, Xbox, PS4, PS5, 8BitDo)
The ground station must have Mission Control installed locally. The install script handles this.
How it works
When the ground station detects a display output at /dev/dri/card0, the kiosk path comes up:
- A local Mission Control build is served on
http://localhost:4000. The install handles serving this build; the agent does not bundle or serve a GCS build itself, so the kiosk assumes the URL is reachable.
ados-kiosk launches Chromium inside the cage Wayland compositor, pointing at http://localhost:4000/hud- Chromium renders the HUD route in fullscreen kiosk mode, with no address bar, no tabs, no browser chrome
The display chain runs locally on the SBC. No network traffic, no external server. Video from WFB-ng flows through MediaMTX (ados-mediamtx-gs) on localhost. Telemetry comes from the local MAVLink WebSocket.
The HUD layout
The /hud route is a stripped-down flight view designed for fullscreen use:
- Full-frame video background (WebRTC from the local MediaMTX)
- Top bar: link RSSI, flight mode, battery percentage, altitude, speed, GPS satellite count
- Bottom bar: crosshair, artificial horizon, heading tape
- Corner alerts: failsafe indicators, home distance, connection health
- No menus, no maps, no multi-drone fleet views
This is the pilot-in-command view. For mission planning, configuration, and fleet management, use a laptop connected over WiFi or USB.
For the Pi 4B, 720p at 30 fps is the sweet spot for kiosk mode. It leaves enough CPU headroom for the WFB-ng receiver, MediaMTX, and the agent services. Use 1080p only if you have a 4 GB Pi.
- Put the controller in pairing mode
- Use the OLED menu: navigate to Network > Bluetooth > Scan
- Select the controller from the list
- Press B3 (Select) to confirm
Or pair through the setup webapp Display page from your phone.
Once paired, the gamepad sends stick inputs at 50 Hz through the existing MANUAL_CONTROL MAVLink message path. The same code that handles gamepad input in the browser on your laptop handles it here.
Pilot-in-command (PIC)
When the kiosk starts and a gamepad is connected, the kiosk automatically claims PIC. If a laptop or phone also connects, they are observers until PIC is explicitly transferred.
PIC transfer is done through:
- The ground-station panel in Mission Control on a connected laptop (click “Take Control”)
- The OLED menu (B3 long-press to release PIC)
If the kiosk client disconnects (monitor unplugged, gamepad dies), PIC auto-transfers to the next connected client with an active gamepad. If no client has a gamepad, the agent sends failsafe intent to the flight controller (hover or RTL, depending on FC configuration).
Display settings
You can configure HDMI output from three places:
- OLED menu: Display > HDMI Resolution
- Setup webapp: Display page
- Mission Control: ground-station panel > Physical UI tab
Available settings:
- Resolution (auto-detect, 720p, 1080p)
- Refresh rate (30 Hz, 60 Hz)
- OLED brightness and auto-dim
Booting into kiosk
The kiosk service uses cage as a minimal Wayland compositor. cage is designed for single-application kiosk use. It starts only when:
- A display output is detected (
/dev/dri/card0 exists)
- The ground-station profile is active
- The local Mission Control build is available
If any of these conditions are not met, the kiosk service does not start. The OLED and WiFi AP still work normally.
Graceful degradation
What is next
