[{"data":1,"prerenderedAt":167},["ShallowReactive",2],{"marketing-blog-blog\u002Fkiosks-that-fall-back-gracefully-when-the-wifi-drops":3,"marketing-blog-related-blog\u002Fkiosks-that-fall-back-gracefully-when-the-wifi-drops":147},{"id":4,"title":5,"author":6,"body":7,"category":126,"date":127,"description":128,"draft":129,"extension":130,"image":131,"imageAlt":132,"imageCredit":133,"imageCreditUrl":134,"meta":135,"navigation":136,"path":137,"readTime":138,"seo":139,"stem":140,"tags":141,"__hash__":146},"blog\u002Fblog\u002Fkiosks-that-fall-back-gracefully-when-the-wifi-drops.md","Kiosks that fall back gracefully when the wifi drops","The CheckInHub team",{"type":8,"value":9,"toc":115},"minimark",[10,14,17,22,25,28,31,37,41,44,73,82,86,89,92,97,105,109,112],[11,12,13],"p",{},"The venue wifi will drop. Not might — will, eventually, at an event large\nenough to matter. It happens when three hundred guests arrive in twenty\nminutes and every one of their phones latches onto the same access point,\nor when the building's network has a quiet wobble that nobody notices\nuntil your kiosk freezes mid-check-in with a queue watching. The question\nis not how to prevent it. The question is what the kiosk does in the\nthirty seconds after it happens.",[11,15,16],{},"A kiosk that simply stops is worse than no kiosk at all, because a guest\nhas already committed to using it. They have walked up, started, and now\nthey are stuck in public with people behind them. The whole promise of\nself-service evaporates in that moment unless the device was built to\nexpect the outage.",[18,19,21],"h2",{"id":20},"the-two-ways-a-kiosk-fails","The two ways a kiosk fails",[11,23,24],{},"When connectivity goes, a poorly designed kiosk fails in one of two\nvisible ways, and both are avoidable.",[11,26,27],{},"The first is the spinner. The guest scans or taps, the screen shows a\nloading state, and nothing comes back because the request never reached\nthe server. The guest waits, taps again, waits again, and eventually a\nsteward has to intervene. Multiply that by a queue and the kiosk has\nbecome the bottleneck it was meant to remove.",[11,29,30],{},"The second is the false negative. The kiosk cannot reach the list, so it\ncannot confirm the guest, so it tells them it does not recognise their\ncode. The guest is now standing in front of a machine that just told them,\nincorrectly, that they are not invited. That is a worse experience than a\nslow human, because the machine sounds certain.",[32,33,34],"blockquote",{},[11,35,36],{},"The job of a kiosk during an outage is not to pretend nothing is wrong.\nIt is to keep working on what it already knows, and to fail in a way\nthat does not embarrass the guest.",[18,38,40],{"id":39},"what-graceful-degradation-looks-like","What graceful degradation looks like",[11,42,43],{},"A kiosk that handles the drop well does a few specific things, none of\nthem flashy.",[45,46,47,55,61,67],"ul",{},[48,49,50,54],"li",{},[51,52,53],"strong",{},"It holds the list locally."," The guest list it needs to validate\nagainst is already on the device, so a passing network wobble does not\nstop it recognising a valid pass.",[48,56,57,60],{},[51,58,59],{},"It queues the writes."," When it checks someone in, it records that\nlocally and syncs it the moment the connection returns, rather than\nblocking the guest until the server acknowledges.",[48,62,63,66],{},[51,64,65],{},"It keeps the count."," Even offline, the device knows who it has let\nthrough, so the running total stays useful and reconciles cleanly once\nit is back online.",[48,68,69,72],{},[51,70,71],{},"It tells the truth quietly."," If something genuinely cannot be\nresolved offline, it routes the guest to a steward without announcing a\nfault to the whole queue.",[11,74,75,76,81],{},"This is the difference between a kiosk that depends on the network for\nevery interaction and one that treats the network as a sync channel\nrather than a lifeline. We have written about this from the scanner's\nside in\n",[77,78,80],"a",{"href":79},"\u002Fblog\u002Fscanning-attendees-when-the-venue-wifi-drops","scanning attendees when the venue wifi drops",",\nand the principle carries straight across to unattended kiosks: do the\nvalidation on the device, sync the result when you can.",[18,83,85],{"id":84},"how-checkinhub-handles-the-gap","How CheckInHub handles the gap",[11,87,88],{},"CheckInHub kiosks are built to keep checking people in through a network\ngap. The list is on the device, check-ins are recorded locally and\nsynced as soon as the connection comes back, and the eight-second average\ndoes not balloon just because the building's wifi took a breath. The\nguest scans, the kiosk recognises them, the door keeps moving. When the\nnetwork returns, everything reconciles into one clean record with no\ndouble entries and no guests mysteriously missing.",[11,90,91],{},"The part guests never see is the reconciliation, and that is the part\nthat matters most. An outage that leaves you with two devices that\ndisagree about who came is an outage that cost you your count. A kiosk\nthat merges its offline work back into a single source of truth means the\nnumber you read out to the venue at the end is still the right one.",[93,94,96],"h3",{"id":95},"plan-the-kiosk-for-the-worst-ten-minutes","Plan the kiosk for the worst ten minutes",[11,98,99,100,104],{},"The temptation when sizing self-service is to plan for the average. Do\nnot. Plan for the worst ten minutes — the surge when a train empties out\nand everyone arrives at once, on the same overloaded wifi. That is exactly\nwhen the network is most likely to buckle and exactly when you most need\nthe kiosks to keep going on their own. If they can hold the line through\nthat window, the rest of the night is easy. Our note on\n",[77,101,103],{"href":102},"\u002Fblog\u002Fwhere-to-place-kiosks-so-the-queue-keeps-moving","where to place kiosks so the queue keeps moving","\ncovers the physical side of surviving that surge.",[18,106,108],{"id":107},"what-to-test-before-the-day","What to test before the day",[11,110,111],{},"You cannot trust a fallback you have never seen fire. Before an event,\ntake a kiosk somewhere with no signal and run a real check-in. Watch what\nhappens. Does it recognise a valid pass. Does it record the check-in.\nDoes it tell you, honestly, when it has reconnected and synced. A kiosk\nthat passes that test on a kitchen table will pass it in front of a queue.",[11,113,114],{},"The events that run calmly through a network failure are not the ones\nwith better wifi. They are the ones that assumed the wifi would fail and\nchose tools that kept working anyway. The drop still happens. The queue\njust never finds out.",{"title":116,"searchDepth":117,"depth":117,"links":118},"",2,[119,120,121,125],{"id":20,"depth":117,"text":21},{"id":39,"depth":117,"text":40},{"id":84,"depth":117,"text":85,"children":122},[123],{"id":95,"depth":124,"text":96},3,{"id":107,"depth":117,"text":108},"Self check-in & kiosks","2024-02-16","Venue wifi will fail at the worst moment. Here is how a self check-in kiosk should behave when it does, so the queue never knows.",false,"md","https:\u002F\u002Fimages.unsplash.com\u002Fphoto-1759922378222-47ad736a174d?ixlib=rb-4.1.0&w=1600&q=80&auto=format&fit=crop","Crew in hard hats and vests in a huddle","SMKN 1 Gantar","https:\u002F\u002Funsplash.com\u002F@smkn1gantar?utm_source=checkinhub&utm_medium=referral",{},true,"\u002Fblog\u002Fkiosks-that-fall-back-gracefully-when-the-wifi-drops",5,{"title":5,"description":128},"blog\u002Fkiosks-that-fall-back-gracefully-when-the-wifi-drops",[142,143,144,145],"kiosks","self check-in","self-service","reliability","FkxaL07NP23MXR3fTs1LRmGgUqrs2O5MPhnGMKHHzD8",[148,155,161],{"to":149,"title":150,"description":151,"date":152,"category":126,"image":153,"readTime":154},"\u002Fblog\u002Freducing-door-staff-with-unattended-check-in","Reducing door staff with unattended check-in","Unattended check-in lets a small team cover a busy door. Here is where it works, where it does not, and how to set it up well.","2026-04-17","https:\u002F\u002Fimages.unsplash.com\u002Fphoto-1702411739534-2961ba90fefd?ixlib=rb-4.1.0&w=1600&q=80&auto=format&fit=crop",6,{"to":156,"title":157,"description":158,"date":159,"category":126,"image":160,"readTime":138},"\u002Fblog\u002Flocking-down-a-kiosk-without-locking-out-guests","Locking down a kiosk without locking out guests","A self check-in kiosk has to be tamper-resistant and genuinely easy at the same time. The craft is in securing it without making it hostile.","2026-01-30","https:\u002F\u002Fimages.unsplash.com\u002Fphoto-1613652038578-a9a988b54a60?ixlib=rb-4.1.0&w=1600&q=80&auto=format&fit=crop",{"to":162,"title":163,"description":164,"date":165,"category":126,"image":166,"readTime":154},"\u002Fblog\u002Fdesigning-a-kiosk-flow-people-finish","Designing a kiosk flow people finish","A self-check-in kiosk only helps if guests get to the end of it. Here is how to design a flow people complete without asking for help.","2026-01-09","https:\u002F\u002Fimages.unsplash.com\u002Fphoto-1778229757765-7ae794a67b39?ixlib=rb-4.1.0&w=1600&q=80&auto=format&fit=crop",1782495586320]