Choosing a tablet
Everything here goes out of date. Prices move, models get discontinued, browsers move the goalposts. So this page is dated, and we would rather you saw the date than assumed it was current.
Last checked . Prices are rough second-hand ranges, not offers.
The one hard requirement
FocalNest runs in the browser, so the browser is the only thing that has to be new enough. The device can be as old as it likes as long as it can run one of these:
| Browser | At least | Which shipped |
|---|---|---|
| Chrome or Edge | 111 | March 2023 |
| Safari, on iPadOS or iOS | 16.4 | March 2023 |
| Firefox | 128 | July 2024 |
Checking a tablet you already own takes about twenty seconds: open its browser, go to app.focalnest.com, and see whether the page renders properly. That is the whole test.
Checking one you are about to buy means finding the browser version. On Android, that is Chrome's menu, then Settings, then About Chrome. On an iPad, it is the Settings app, then General, then About, and what you want is the iPadOS version.
An Android tablet on Android 8 or newer can install a Chrome new enough. We suggest Android 10 or newer anyway, so it carries on getting updates for a while.
Reasonable buys
These are model families rather than listings, because a family stays a useful answer for years and a listing is gone by the weekend. Search the name and see what is around today.
iPad, 6th to 9th generation
$80–150 usediPadOS 16.4 reaches back to the 2017 iPad, so almost any of these clears the bar. They were sold in enormous numbers, which is what keeps the used price sane.
Watch for: Activation Lock. Make sure the seller has erased it and signed out of their Apple account before you pay, or it is a paperweight.
Samsung Galaxy Tab A7 or A8
$60–110 usedThe Play Store and a current Chrome, at the price most people expect to pay for a tablet that turns out to have neither.
Watch for: The A-series spans several years. Check it is on Android 10 or newer before you buy.
Lenovo Tab M8 or M10
$50–90 usedUsually the cheapest honest route to a Play Store tablet that can run a current browser.
Watch for: The lowest-end variants have dim screens. Fine in a hallway, hard to read on a sunny kitchen counter.
What to skip
This part ages better than the rest of the page. Models come and go; the reasons a cheap tablet turns out to be the wrong buy stay put.
Anywhere without an outlet
This is the real constraint, ahead of price. An always-on screen needs permanent power, and a display that dies at three in the afternoon is worse than no display, because everyone learns to stop trusting it.
A USB-C cable in a steamy bathroom
Samsung tablets stop charging when they sense moisture in the USB-C port, and steam from a shower is enough to set it off. Even a waterproof tablet goes dark that way. For a wet room, pick a rugged model with pogo-pin charging contacts, such as a Galaxy Tab Active3 or newer, and keep it on a charging dock that charges through those contacts and leaves the port out of it. Pogo docks are not interchangeable across models, so buy one whose listing names your exact tablet, and check whether it expects the tablet bare or in its rugged case.
Amazon Fire tablets
The one category where cheap often means unusable. Without sideloading you get Silk and nothing else, and on older Fire OS builds Silk sits below the versions above. If you already own one, load the app and see. If you are buying, buy something else.
Anything much older than 2018
It will not reach the browser versions above, and it stopped getting security updates a while ago. This is where the price stops being a bargain.
Tablets with a custom launcher and no Play Store
Some budget tablets, and most seat-back or point-of-sale surplus, ship locked to a vendor's own software. If you cannot install a current browser, nothing else about the device matters.
Standing them up
An adjustable desk stand runs about eight to fifteen dollars and is enough for almost every room. Mounting a tablet is a bigger job than it looks and rarely pays for itself. Treat a wall mount as the answer for the one spot with no surface to spare, not as the default.
If there is a 3D printer in the house, plenty of good free tablet stands are already designed, and a search on Printables is a reasonable place to start.
Whatever you use, sort the cable at the same time. The stand is not the part that decides whether the screen is still there in a month.
In a bathroom
A rugged tablet on a pogo dock, above, is the sure route. A cheap tablet treated as replaceable is a reasonable bet too, because steam damage is slow and mostly a matter of where the tablet sits.
Out of the spray, on an inside wall
Where it sits matters more than anything you add to it. Keep it clear of the shower and the sink, ideally near the door or the fan. Outside walls run colder, and steam condenses on cold surfaces.
Leave the screen on
An always-on screen runs slightly warm, so it collects less condensation than a tablet that sleeps and cools down. Running the fan during showers and for twenty minutes after helps the tablet and the room.
Port facing down, cable hanging in a loop
Water running down a cable then drips off the bottom of the loop instead of following it into the port. A magnetic USB-C adapter from a reputable brand can also stay in the port and block it, with the cable snapping on.
The charger plug away from water
Plug it into the outlet with the test and reset buttons, which in a US bathroom is required anyway, and keep the plug itself somewhere a splash cannot reach.
Battery protection on, and a look every month or two
A tablet charging all day in a warm room wears its battery faster than steam harms it. Turn on the setting that stops charging short of full: "Protect battery" on Samsung, "Conservation mode" on Lenovo. If the screen starts lifting at an edge or the tablet rocks on a flat table, the battery is swelling. Retire it that day.
A spare in a drawer, not a sealed pouch
A waterproof pouch traps heat and any moisture that gets in. Cheaper to treat the tablet as replaceable: your household lives in your account, not on the tablet, so when one starts acting up, swap in the spare and sign in.
Keeping it on FocalNest
FocalNest runs in a browser tab, and a browser tab can be left. We do not lock the tablet down, and we would be overstating things if we implied otherwise. Stand it whichever way up suits the spot. The household screen lays itself out for both, putting the countdown beside the day's list in landscape and above it in portrait.
Both operating systems can hold a shared screen on one app themselves, free. Start by adding FocalNest to the home screen, so it opens in its own window with no address bar. Pinning the browser itself still leaves the address bar, and a child can type anything into it.
On Android it is called app pinning, and where it lives moves between versions and makers. Search the tablet's Settings for "pin" rather than following a menu path. Turn it on, open FocalNest, then open the recent apps view and choose Pin from FocalNest's icon.
Pinning only asks for a PIN on the way out if the tablet has a screen lock and "Ask for PIN before unpinning" is on. Without both, anyone can unpin it with a swipe, so set them first.
A restart ends pinning, and children find that out quickly. With a screen lock set, though, a restarted tablet stops at the lock screen until someone enters the code, so restarting gets them nowhere. The same goes for an iPad with a passcode.
On an iPad it is called Guided Access, under Settings, then Accessibility. Turn it on and set a passcode. Then open FocalNest and triple-click the side button (or the Home button on older iPads) to start it.
Keeping other apps, minus a few
Pinning is all or nothing. If the tablet should still run other things and just not YouTube, that is a job for the tablet's own parental controls, and each platform has one built in.
Samsung tablets have Samsung Kids, a separate home screen that shows only the apps you pick and needs your PIN to leave. Other Android tablets have Google Family Link, which blocks apps per child. It works on a child's own Google account, so on a shared tablet that means giving each child a user profile.
On an iPad, Screen Time works on the device itself with its own passcode, no child account needed. Content & Privacy Restrictions can hide apps above an age rating. Or set Downtime to cover the whole day and add FocalNest to Always Allowed, which leaves only the apps you chose.
YouTube in particular can be switched off on an Android tablet without any account: Settings, then Apps, then YouTube, then Disable. It stays installed and comes back the same way. Leave Chrome alone, since FocalNest runs in it.
To block it in the browser too, filter the tablet's DNS. A free NextDNS account can block YouTube by name for that one tablet: paste its address into Private DNS in an Android tablet's Settings, or install its profile on an iPad. Many home routers can block sites for a single device in their own parental controls as well.
If it has to be airtight
Pinning and parental controls stop a young child. A determined older one may still find a way out. For a tablet that should run nothing but FocalNest, a kiosk app such as SureLock holds an Android tablet on the apps you choose, including through a restart.
Kiosk apps cost money, and the strongest setups need the tablet reset to factory settings first. On an iPad the equivalent is Single App Mode, which needs a Mac with Apple Configurator and also erases the iPad.
Nothing here pays us
No affiliate links, no referral codes, no arrangement with any manufacturer. If a recommendation here is wrong, being wrong is the only thing it costs us. That is roughly the incentive we want to be under when telling you what to spend money on.