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How to Build a Digital Tap List Display for Your Home Bar

This is a hands-on DIY guide for the hardware and kiosk-mode setup behind a tap list display — the cables, brackets, browser flags, and gotchas. If you just want a tap display running today without the DIY part, skip straight to Keggio's tap display — sign up, add your kegs, open the URL on any screen.

For everyone else: read on.

Pick Your Display Hardware

Use what you already have. The "best" hardware is whatever is collecting dust in a drawer.

Old Tablet

The sweet spot. Mounts flat against a wall, sips power, has a touchscreen for tweaks. iPads from 2018+ and any modern Android tablet are perfect.

Cheap option: Amazon Fire HD 8 ($35-50 on sale). Rooted or not, it runs Chromium fine.

Old Laptop

A laptop with a busted keyboard or trackpad still has a working screen. Open the browser, hit F11, prop it next to the kegerator. Free.

Raspberry Pi + TV

The cleanest "real taproom" look. Raspberry Pi 4 or Zero 2 W running Chromium in kiosk mode, HDMI'd into a wall-mounted TV. Total cost: ~$60 if you have the TV.

Chromecast / Fire TV Stick

Quickest path to TV. Cast a browser tab from a phone or PC. Caveat: the casting device has to stay on. If your phone leaves the network, the cast drops.

Old Phone

Last resort, but works in a pinch. Screen is small but legible at bar-counter distance.

Set Up Kiosk Mode

The display should never show the address bar, never go to sleep, and never accidentally navigate away. Here's how per platform.

iPad — Guided Access

  1. Settings → Accessibility → Guided Access → toggle on
  2. Open Safari, navigate to your tap display URL
  3. Triple-click the side button → Start Guided Access
  4. Tap Options → disable touch if you want it strictly read-only
  5. Set a passcode so guests can't exit

Pair with Settings → Display & Brightness → Auto-Lock → Never so the screen doesn't sleep.

Android Tablet — Chrome Kiosk

Easiest path is the Fully Kiosk Browser app (free for personal use). It pins the URL, blocks navigation, prevents sleep, and auto-restarts on reboot.

If you'd rather stay free/open: install Chrome, open the URL, Settings → Advanced → Privacy → enable "Fullscreen", then use the Android screen pinning feature (Settings → Security → Screen pinning).

Disable sleep: Settings → Display → Sleep → Never (or 30 minutes max). Enable Stay awake while charging under Developer Options.

Raspberry Pi — Chromium Kiosk

Add this to /etc/xdg/lxsession/LXDE-pi/autostart:

@xset s off
@xset -dpms
@xset s noblank
@chromium-browser --kiosk --noerrdialogs --disable-infobars --check-for-update-interval=31536000 https://your-display-url

The xset lines kill screen blanking. The Chromium flags strip every UI element and disable the "update available" prompt.

For a fully locked-down setup, install DietPi and use its built-in kiosk profile.

Desktop Browser — F11

The forgotten classic. Open the URL, hit F11 for fullscreen, and disable sleep in your OS power settings. On Windows, also disable Windows Update auto-restart during bar hours.

Wall Mounting

For the wall-mounted look:

  1. Tablet: Get a VESA-compatible tablet bracket (~$25 on Amazon). Some have built-in cable management for the charging cable.
  2. TV: Standard tilting wall mount. Run HDMI and power inside the wall if you can; behind trim if you can't.
  3. Pi: Mount it to the back of the TV with double-sided adhesive or a 3M VHB strip. HDMI plugs straight in.
  4. Power: A long USB-C cable run along the baseboard works. For a clean look, use an in-wall USB outlet recessed behind the screen.

Set the device to charge always. A tablet that dies mid-party is the only thing more disappointing than no tap list.

Keep It Awake (The Sleep Problem)

Every consumer device fights you on this. Defaults try to save battery, sleep displays, install updates. For a kiosk, disable all of it:

  • iOS: Auto-Lock → Never. AssistiveTouch off.
  • Android: Display sleep → 30 min (or use a kiosk app that blocks sleep). Stay awake while charging → on.
  • Windows: Power & Sleep → Never (both screen and sleep). Disable Windows Update during business hours.
  • Pi/Linux: xset s off, xset -dpms, xset s noblank in autostart.
  • Chromecast: Doesn't sleep on its own — but the casting device does. Use Pi or a tablet instead for hands-off operation.

Wi-Fi Reliability Tips

The display is only as good as its connection.

  • Pin the device to 5 GHz. 2.4 GHz is too crowded once your guests' phones are connected.
  • Reserve a static DHCP lease for the display in your router. Makes it findable for diagnostics.
  • Keep the display on the same VLAN as the rest of the kegerator hardware if you're using flow sensors over the network.
  • Use Ethernet over Wi-Fi if you can. A USB-Ethernet adapter on a Pi or laptop adds zero cost.

When to Stop DIYing

If you're spending more time on the display than enjoying your beer, it's time to stop. The hardware part — the screen, the mount, the kiosk mode — is genuinely fun for a weekend project. The software part (designing the menu, syncing keg levels, swapping kegs without editing HTML) is where DIY turns into a chore.

That's where Keggio takes over. Sign up free, add your kegs, point your kiosk-mode browser at the display URL, and the rest runs itself. Use this guide for the hardware. Skip the rest.