By making booth maintenance part of someone's weekly routine, you’ll avoid the common pitfalls we see with permanent installs.
A little consistency goes a long way toward a reliable, guest-ready experience.
Before You Begin
If this is your first time setting up a booth for a permanent install, make sure you've already completed the one-time setup steps in these two guides:
Important tips for Guided Access, auto-lock, and other iOS settings.
Only needs to be done once.
Covers basics like charging, connectivity, and testing the booth.
This should be reviewed every so often, just not as frequently as the ongoing maintenance steps below.
Guided Access is covered in the articles above, but is important to highlight for permanent installs.
The person responsible for maintaining the booth must know the Guided Access passcode.
You can share it more widely with the team if needed, but someone must be able to exit Guided Access in order to update the app or reboot the iPad.
Ensure Guided Access is reenabled after any app or iPad maintenance.
Regular Maintenance
1. Assign a point person for regular maintenance
In permanent installs, booths often go untouched for weeks at a time, which can seem just fine, until something breaks.
Make sure someone is explicitly responsible for the booth. Ideally, this should not be a bartender or waiter who’s juggling customer service. Assign a dedicated staff member or manager to:
Ensure the proper preset is in use
Using Guided Access at all times prevents preset mixups
Check for iOS and app updates at least once a week
Install updates promptly to avoid crashes, sync issues, or slowdowns
Restart the device if needed after major updates
💡 Set a recurring calendar reminder or checklist to ensure this becomes a habit.
2. Monitor the offline queue regularly
If the booth is actively capturing photos or videos, reviewing the queue ensures everything is syncing and functioning correctly.
A good maintenance rhythm includes:
Checking the queue daily if possible (especially for high-traffic booths)
At minimum, reviewing the queue weekly — ideally at the same time as app and iOS checks
💡 Regular queue reviews help catch stalled uploads or failed syncs early, before they become a widespread problem.
Helpful Tools
These features can make it easier to manage a permanent booth, especially when you’re not onsite.
This tool is especially helpful for troubleshooting or switching content without needing to access the iPad directly.
Check the iPad’s battery level, connection status, and the current preset in use
See how many captures are pending in the queue
Remotely launch a different preset—useful for special events or if the wrong one was selected
Control whether your team can edit presets and galleries directly from the HALO app.
If your team reliably uses Guided Access and you want them to be able to make changes on the fly, enable on-device editing
If your team is less diligent or you're worried about unintentional changes, disable on-device editing