SharpTools and Echo Show 15

Another observation. Responsiveness to screen taps seems a little hit or miss. Sometimes I have to tap several times for the expected action to happen. The Show is at least getting the tap as I have clicks on and it always clicks on tap … it just doesn’t always action the tap. Does anyone see this on other Fire devices running FK?

I’d really like to use a “15”, so I hope you’ll eventually be able to document the needed tweaks to keep it from reverting to the home screen!

Just the settings I mentioned above has been enough for mine. I literally bought my Show 15 a few hours before @Nezmo said he got it working, so it was a nice surprise to wake up the next morning and see his success and then see the Show 15 arrive a few hours later.

That being said, we use Google devices throughout our house, so I’m not calling up the Alexa commands often. And I haven’t been interacting with the device much as it’s sitting on my office floor at the moment, so I haven’t tested the interaction as thoroughly as @Nezmo.

My wife seems happy with the overall look of the device, so now I just need to order the recessed outlet and find the time to wire things up!

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I was contemplating a new tablet for Sharptools, since my old one is very laggy and apart from turning on and off some switches, it’s very hit or miss if I want to do something else.

Going to look into a this one now :smiley:

It’s not available in Belgium :frowning: Germany and France Amazon don’t deliver it to Belgium and buying one from somewhere else adds more than 100 euro’s to the price :neutral_face:

Slow student needs help!

I haven’t figured a way to download the FKB APK. Message at bottom of screen says that downloads aren’t permitted.

I read above that a file manager could be used. What file manager is recommended? How will I be able to download a file manager if downloads aren’t allowed?

Thanks for helping!

You won’t be able to do it in the native Internet / Silk browser that comes with the device, so you’ll need a different way to get the Fully Kiosk APK.

Is the ‘Downloader’ app from the YouTube video or the written instructions still available?

I saw a thread on Reddit where someone mentioned that Amazon blocked the Downloader app from Show 15s, but since I already have it installed, I wasn’t able to verify that.

I was just poking about the X-plore File Manager, which was also mentioned in the written steps, and it has some options for getting files between devices. For example, I downloaded X-plore File Manager on my Android Phone, enabled the ‘Wifi Server’ on my phone, then back on the Show 15 I was able to access the ‘Wifi Server’ category from the right-hand panel to access the files in my phone where I could long-press the select button on my remote to bring up a menu to copy, then navigate over to the left hand side into my Download folder and paste the file.

X-plore is pretty clunky with a remote and I had to watch an ad to enable the copy functionality, but it could be an option. (Note that I’m generally hesitant about apps having full access to my file system, so I uninstalled it from my phone when I was done).

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Status report after a day with no success!

I installed X-plore file manager on both my Android phone and the Show 15. (X-plor remote “pretty clunky”? That’s the understatement of the year.) I have the PKB APK on my phone but was never able to get it to the Show 15. I couldn’t find the copy function.

Next, I uploaded the file from the phone to Onedrive. Surely they would let me download from online Onedrive. Nope!

The next effort was email. I tried emailing the file to myself and then downloading from gmail. Nope. Finally I emailed just the link to the file, but opening the link on the Show 15 invokes Onedrive and you’re right back to an attempt to download the file.

I hope I’ll be able to get through this maze. Amazon could make it very easy if they wished, but I won’t hold my breath. Even if there was a way to keep Silk open …

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Another few hours of trying to get the APK on the Show 15 has led me to conclude that the only way forward - for me, at least - is to somehow transfer the APK from another device. Every tip and trick I’ve found (Downloader, for example) is blocked by Amazon’s “Downloads not currently supported”. You can’t even get the file that will help you get the file!

@Josh has been able to transfer the APK using X-plore so it’s possible. It has me stumped now, but I’ll keep at it.

I’m wide open to any other suggestions!

I sent a video to Stan showing how he could do this with just the X-plore app and he came back with some good questions in our PM discussion.

I figured I would share one of the tips from our discussion here about setting your Start URL…


Here’s a trick to make it much easier to set your Start URL on a device running Fully Kiosk. In Fully Kiosk Settings → Advanced Web Settings, enable the JavaScript Interface

Once you back out of the settings, it will prompt you to accept three permissions. Then it will try to get permissions for installing apps which can’t be granted on the Fire Tablet, but you can cancel out of that. (It will keep prompting you each time you come out of the settings, but after you cancel two or three times, an ‘Ignore’ option will show up in the bottom left of the pop-up)

Once the JavaScript Interface is enabled, we have some magic in SharpTools that will detect the Fully Kiosk JavaScript Interface and makes it much easier to set the Start URL. In the list of dashboards, you can tap the ... next to your desired dashboard and there’s a new option to set it as your Start URL.

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I’m still seeing the Show revert to the Show Home screen occasionally and I haven’t figured out what triggers that yet.

I’ve gone overnight okay. I’ve had the Show respond to Alexa commands and provide notifications and it still stays on Fully Kiosk. But here and there the Show drops back to its Home screen for some reason. Notably, when I go back in to the FireTV app and then select Fully Kiosk again it goes back to the last SharpTools Dashboard it was on, not the Start URL so Fully is evidently still running in the background.

“Out with the old, in with the new”.

We love our dashboards on the Echo Show 15!

I used to think the Fire 10 had a large display:

Now look at the Show 15:

Getting the Fully KIosk browser installed on the Show 15 was a bit tricky, and I could have never done it without the superb support of @josh !

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Nicely done, can you share how you got the fully kiosk browser installed?

Hi Wayne,

It’s been a few weeks now, so my memory is little hazy. Here are the basic steps. If this isn’t enough info, I’ll try to fill in the voids. (Might have to enlist Josh’s help again; his memory is never hazy!)

  • Get the latest APK for Fully from their website and download it to an Android device of your choice.

  • Install X-plore File Manager and Wireless File Manager on the Android device and the Show 15.

  • Transfer the APK wirelessly from the Android device to the Download folder on the Show 15.

  • Install the Fully APK from the Download folder.

Maneuvering X-plore with it’s built-in remote is not a pleasant experience; best to use a mouse.

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Is using the Echo Show 15 still working?
I’m interested to know what the touch screen is like. I currently use a Fire Tablet 10" but the responsiveness of the touch screen is really not that good.

Mine is still sitting on my office floor displaying a temporary dashboard. :person_facepalming:

I don’t interact with it much as I still haven’t mounted it, so I can’t speak to the responsiveness of the touch screen.

Mine is in active use.

I actually reported before that the touchscreen responsiveness is not great. It will register a tap (noted by the click or animation of the tile) and often not actually process and I have to tap again. Not terrible but not great.

I just purchase and attempted to sideload Fully Kiosk. Amazon has now blocked all access to sideload this no longer works through the Fully App.

What part did you get stuck at? Last I checked, the “Downloader” app mentioned in some of the earlier articles is no longer on the Amazon app store, but the X-plore approach works if you have another Android device to do the transfer with.

I’m experiencing the same thing with tap; often it takes more than one tap. I appreciate the click sound nevertheless.

I’m still super-happy using the Show 15 as a dashboard. I prefer the size and clarity of the screen much more than the Fire tablets.

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i’m curious to learn if someone manages to find a way around to install SharpTools on echoShow 15 after amazon blocked sideload apps recently