Home Assistant kiosk mode, explained
"Kiosk mode" gets used for two different things in the Home Assistant world, and it helps to keep them apart.
Hiding the Home Assistant chrome
The first kind of kiosk mode happens inside Home Assistant. By default a dashboard shows the sidebar and the top header. On a wall screen you usually want neither. The community plugin kiosk-mode, installed through HACS, hides the sidebar and header so the dashboard fills the screen. It is set per dashboard or per user, and it is the right tool for cleaning up what Home Assistant itself draws.
Locking the device to the dashboard
The second kind of kiosk mode happens on the device. Hiding the header does nothing if the screen still shows a browser address bar, can be swiped away to a home screen, or goes to sleep. Device kiosk mode locks the whole device to one full-screen page and keeps it awake. On a tablet, people reach for a kiosk app to do this. On a dedicated panel it is built in.
Putting them together
A good wall dashboard uses both layers: the kiosk-mode plugin to hide Home Assistant's own chrome, and a device that is locked to the dashboard and stays on.
HAPanel handles the device layer for you. It is sealed to its one job: it powers on into your dashboard, stays there, comes back after a power cut, and never wanders off because there is no home screen to wander to. Pair it with the kiosk-mode plugin and you get a clean, full-screen Home Assistant dashboard that needs no babysitting.