Products / Selling
Hoq KDS
Every order on the right kitchen screen once, even through a dropped connection.
What it does
Hoq KDS puts orders on kitchen screens. It connects to your Hoq Commerce company, so orders from every channel with kitchen work arrive, and rules send each item to the right station by name, size, category, modifier, order type or channel.
Any tablet or TV becomes a screen: open kds.hoq.app/pair, read the six-digit code, type it in the console. A screen shows one station, every station for the expediter, or a pickup board for customers.
When the connection drops, the screen keeps the last board and queues taps until it is back. Every tap has its own id, so a tap sent twice counts once.
Each minute the kitchen checks that every order Commerce took in the last two hours has a ticket. A missing one is put on its board and flagged as late.
In numbers
1 minutebetween checks that no order is missing a ticket
15 secondsmost work lost if a server is lost
5 and 10board styles and palettes, one colour-blind safe
50 to 250%screen zoom, remembered per screen
30×fastest day replay speed, tap by tap
Specifications
| Order source | Hoq Commerce, connected through Hoq ID with no key to copy; every channel's kitchen work arrives. |
|---|---|
| Offline | Keeps the last board on screen and queues taps until the connection is back. |
| Missed orders | A ring from Commerce plus a check every minute; any order on no board turns every screen's header red. |
| Pairing | A six-digit code on any tablet or TV, or a screen link shown once. A screen reaches only its own shop. |
| Hardware | Any browser; installs to a tablet home screen. Bump bars and keyboards select, bump, recall. |
| Where the data lives | One file per company in the owner's Hoq Storage; changes sent there every 15 seconds. |
| Accessibility | Screen reader announcements, a colour-blind safe palette, 44 px touch targets, hold-to-bump for wet hands. |
| Export | Every order as CSV for today, the last 7 days or the last 30. |
Features
84 features, all in beta. Listed from the product's feature ledger; each row shows the day it was last checked.
| A kitchen is a file | Keeps each company's locations, stations, screens and tickets in one file in the owner's Hoq Storage. | Checked 2026-10-07 |
| Always on | Keeps a kitchen open once it has been opened, so a ticket never waits for it to start. | Checked 2026-10-07 |
| Locations | Gives each shop its own stations and screens inside one company. | Checked 2026-10-07 |
| Stations | Lets you name stations, pick what kind each one is, and set when a ticket turns amber and red. | Checked 2026-10-07 |
| Settings | Holds the kitchen's name, timezone, daily order goal, on-time goal and shift hours. | Checked 2026-10-07 |
| Shops of their own | Lets each shop set its own opening and closing hours, orders goal and on-time goal, which its screens' shift bar, morning clear-out and health checks follow; empty boxes follow the kitchen. | Checked 2026-10-23 |
| Archive a shop | Keeps a closed shop's history while it takes no orders or screens; refused while it still has screens or tills or is the last open shop, and it can be brought back. | Checked 2026-10-23 |
| Setup asks what it skipped | Setup asks for the time zone and opening hours, sends items to stations when a shop has more than one, and ends with a test order to bump; kitchens already taking orders count those steps done. | Checked 2026-10-23 |
| Orders from Hoq Commerce | Connects to your Hoq Commerce company through Hoq ID, with no key to copy, and takes every order with kitchen work from every channel. | Checked 2026-10-07 |
| Straight to the screen | Commerce rings the kitchen the moment an order lands or changes, and the kitchen reads it at once. | Checked 2026-10-07 |
| Never miss one | Checks Commerce every minute as well, so an order whose ring was lost still arrives. | Checked 2026-10-07 |
| Edits and cancels | Shows a change made at the till on the same ticket and takes a cancelled order off the board. | Checked 2026-10-07 |
| Starts from now | Shows orders placed after you connect, not every order Commerce ever took. | Checked 2026-10-07 |
| Which shop is which | Places each Commerce location, or a single till, at one of your kitchen's locations; a kitchen with one shop places every till on it as it arrives. | Checked 2026-10-08 |
| Unplaced tills | Holds back an order from a till nobody has placed, counts it and says where to place it, rather than guessing a shop; the warning goes once the till is placed, or after a day with nothing from it. | Checked 2026-10-09 |
| Missing-order alarm | Checks every minute that each kitchen order Hoq Commerce took in the last two hours has a ticket here, reading Commerce's sales rather than the feed this kitchen pulls from. | Checked 2026-10-07 |
| Puts a missing order on the board | Adds a missing order to its board on its own and tells that shop's screens it arrived late, by number, name and how late. | Checked 2026-10-07 |
| Red when an order is on no board | Turns every working screen's header red, names the order and sounds an alarm when an order cannot be placed; it stays until it arrives or the owner dismisses it. | Checked 2026-10-07 |
| A bad order never holds up the rest | An order from Hoq Commerce that this kitchen cannot read or will not take is skipped so the orders behind it still arrive, and every working screen names it in red until it goes in, is dismissed, or is a day old. | Checked 2026-10-23 |
| Says when Commerce goes quiet | Warns on every screen when this kitchen has not heard from Commerce for three minutes, and turns red when Commerce has rung with orders it could not read. | Checked 2026-10-07 |
| Alarm time | Lets the owner choose how long an order may take to arrive before it counts as missing (30 seconds to 15 minutes, 90 by default). | Checked 2026-10-07 |
| Disconnect | Stops Commerce ringing, gives the key back to Hoq ID and stops orders arriving. | Checked 2026-10-07 |
| Rules | Sends items to stations by name, size, category, modifier, order type or channel, with "every test" or "any test"; a name pattern can be up to 1,000 characters. | Checked 2026-10-09 |
| Try an item | Says where an item would go and which rule sent it there, without putting anything on a board. | Checked 2026-10-07 |
| Change, switch off or delete a rule | Edits any rule, turns it off for a while, or removes it. | Checked 2026-10-07 |
| Where each item goes | Lists every item the shop sold in the last 60 days, and each category from Hoq Commerce, with where it goes now and why, and a station to pick for each; an item picked on its own beats its category. | Checked 2026-10-23 |
| Everything else | Lets the owner pick the station that takes anything no rule claims; with none picked it goes to the first station. | Checked 2026-10-23 |
| Pattern rules under Advanced | Keeps hand-written pattern rules in a collapsed Advanced section below the item list. | Checked 2026-10-23 |
| Pair with a code | Shows a six-digit code on any tablet or TV at kds.hoq.app/pair; type it in the console and the screen opens its board. | Checked 2026-10-07 |
| Pair in one tap from a station | A pairing page shown as a tab of a Hoq station gives the station a Pair link that opens the kitchen's Screens page with the code filled in, after sign-in if needed and after picking a kitchen when you run several. | Checked 2026-10-13 |
| Screen links | Makes a link for a screen instead of a code, shown once. | Checked 2026-10-07 |
| Station, expo and pickup screens | Lets each screen show one station, every station for the expediter, or a customer pickup board. | Checked 2026-10-07 |
| A screen only reaches its own shop | Lets a screen work tickets at its own location only, and a pickup board only look. | Checked 2026-10-07 |
| Open a screen from the console | Opens any screen's board in the browser under your own sign-in, with bumps recorded as you; no tablet or link needed. | Checked 2026-10-07 |
| Remove a screen | Turns a screen off at once; its link stops working. | Checked 2026-10-07 |
| Last seen | Shows when each screen last checked in, including a screen opened from the console. | Checked 2026-10-09 |
| Install as an app | Installs each screen to a tablet's home screen as its own full-screen app. | Checked 2026-10-07 |
| Screen look from the console | Sets each screen's board style and palette from the console, while a tablet where someone chose its own look keeps it. | Checked 2026-10-07 |
| Move a screen | Changes what a screen shows (a station, Expo or the pickup board) from its Set up, and the tablet reloads into its new job by itself. | Checked 2026-10-23 |
| Identify | Shows a screen's name across its whole board for 8 seconds so you can tell which tablet is which. | Checked 2026-10-23 |
| Pickup time for orders placed ahead | A ticket placed ahead shows its pickup time and starts its clock five minutes before it is wanted. | Checked 2026-10-24 |
| Pick what expo sees | Chooses which stations an expo screen shows. | Checked 2026-10-07 |
| Tickets counted once | Puts each order on the board once, however many times the till sends it, and only the change when it is edited. | Checked 2026-10-07 |
| Tap to bump | Crosses out a whole line with one tap; a second tap brings it back. | Checked 2026-10-07 |
| Taps land once | Gives every tap its own id, so a tap sent twice by a flaky connection counts once. | Checked 2026-10-07 |
| Works through a dropped connection | Keeps the last board on screen and queues taps until the connection is back. | Checked 2026-10-07 |
| Notes on the card | Shows the order's note on the ticket and each drink's note under the drink. | Checked 2026-10-07 |
| Allergy flag | Marks a ticket whose items, modifiers or notes mention an allergy. | Checked 2026-10-07 |
| Late warnings | Colours each ticket by age, pulses the late ones and counts them in the header. | Checked 2026-10-07 |
| Board styles | Offers five board styles, ten palettes including a colour-blind safe one, and three text sizes. | Checked 2026-10-07 |
| Screen size | Makes everything on a screen bigger or smaller, from 50% to 250%, with A− and A+ in the header and in settings; each screen remembers its own size. | Checked 2026-10-23 |
| Alarm on and off | A bell in the header turns the late-order and missing-order alarm sound on or off, separately from the new-order chime, and shows "Alarm off" in red while it is off. | Checked 2026-10-23 |
| Alarm snooze, loudness and escalation | The bell offers quiet for 5 or 15 minutes or off for today (back on the next day by itself); loudness is Soft, Normal or Loud; a critical ticket's alarm repeats sooner and louder until nothing is critical, the missing-order alarm repeats every minute, and an optional slow red screen edge shows alarms to staff who cannot hear them. | Checked 2026-10-23 |
| Not updating band | A screen that has not refreshed for 20 seconds says so across its full width, a tablet that starts offline says it shows the last saved board, and bumps queued offline show as done on it. | Checked 2026-10-23 |
| Bump bar numbers | While a bump bar is in use each of the first ten tickets shows the key that picks it; Enter with nothing picked picks the first ticket rather than bumping it; Esc or R during the dismiss countdown keeps the ticket; Page Up/Down scroll. | Checked 2026-10-23 |
| Pickup board sizing | Ready cards grow to fill the TV when few orders are waiting and shrink as more arrive, and the board says when it has stopped updating. | Checked 2026-10-23 |
19 more in The board
| Hold to bump | A wet-hands setting where a tap does nothing and holding half a second bumps (the row fills while held), so a splash or a brushed sleeve never bumps an order; touch targets are at least 44 px everywhere on the screen. | Checked 2026-10-23 |
| Screen reader support | New orders are announced, items say whether they are done, and the alarm bell says its state in words. | Checked 2026-10-23 |
| Kitchen's own clock | Screens show the clock and ticket times in the kitchen's time zone, whatever the tablet is set to. | Checked 2026-10-23 |
| Calm bumping | A bumped ticket leaves an outline of its own size and nothing else moves; the board closes the gaps with a short slide once nobody has touched it for a moment (or straight away, as a setting). | Checked 2026-10-23 |
| Screen defaults from the console | The owner sets each screen's size, ticket text, chime, alarm (on, off or always on) and gap closing in the console; a choice made on the tablet itself wins until someone taps "Use the console's choices". | Checked 2026-10-23 |
| Each screen says how it is set | The Screens list shows what every tablet reports: alarm off and since when, quieted until when, sound blocked until someone taps it, its size, and which choices were changed on the tablet. | Checked 2026-10-23 |
| Changes saved within seconds | Every change to a kitchen is recorded beside it and sent to Hoq Storage as a small piece every 15 seconds, with a full copy now and then, so a lost server costs seconds of work rather than hours; an encrypted copy can also go somewhere off the server. | Checked 2026-10-23 |
| Health alerts | Every minute each kitchen checks Hoq Commerce is being read, no order is on no board, screens check in during the shift, no tablet has its alarm off or its sound blocked, and changes reach Hoq Storage; a problem lasting five minutes is emailed from kds@hoq.app, and again when it clears, with the history in Settings. | Checked 2026-10-23 |
| Readable tickets | Busy periods never shrink the chosen text size; modifiers, notes and small labels keep readable contrast on every palette; allergy tags and notes grow with the text size. | Checked 2026-10-23 |
| Bump bars and keyboards | Selects tickets with number keys and bumps, recalls and prints from a bump bar or keyboard. | Checked 2026-10-07 |
| Recall | Brings back the last bumped line, or a whole finished ticket from the recall board. | Checked 2026-10-07 |
| Rush and 86 | Moves a ticket to the front, or marks an item out on its ticket. | Checked 2026-10-07 |
| Expo | Shows every station's part of each order, with lanes by order type and a hand-out button. | Checked 2026-10-07 |
| Coursing | Holds later courses until someone fires them. | Checked 2026-10-07 |
| Shift goal | Shows today's orders against the goal and the pace the shift should be at. | Checked 2026-10-07 |
| A clean board each morning | Clears every ticket still on a board from before the shift opens, once a day, and keeps them in history as swept. | Checked 2026-10-09 |
| Pickup board | Shows customers what is being made and what is ready, by first name and last initial, with a chime. | Checked 2026-10-07 |
| Live updates | Refreshes every screen at a location the moment something changes there; polls every few seconds when it cannot. | Checked 2026-10-07 |
| Setup checklist | Two steps for a new kitchen: connect Commerce, then put it on a screen; placing tills appears only when there is more than one shop or a till is waiting. | Checked 2026-10-08 |
| Metrics | Shows orders, ticket and make times, first-fire time, on-time rate, busiest hours on the kitchen's clock, each station, slowest and busiest items and suggested prep times, for any window up to about three months. | Checked 2026-10-07 |
| Leaderboard | Ranks who bumped the most and the fastest, with on-time streaks and badges, beside today's goal. | Checked 2026-10-07 |
| Apply usual prep times | Applies the prep times Metrics learned, one item or all at once; a ticket whose items all have one turns amber after the longest usual time and red after the longest slow time instead of the station's clock; on time in reports, the shift bar, the leaderboard and the daily summary then scores each applied item by its slow time. Each can be removed. | Checked 2026-10-24 |
| Today against last week | Shows each shop's orders against the same day last week, on-time rate, typical ticket time, busiest hour and items out of stock, with an all-shops total. | Checked 2026-10-23 |
| Orders as a spreadsheet | Downloads every order as a CSV for today, the last 7 days or the last 30. | Checked 2026-10-23 |
| Daily summary email | Emails the alert addresses once after the last shop closes with the day's numbers and any missing orders; skips days with no orders and can be switched off in Settings. | Checked 2026-10-23 |
| Day replay | Plays a location's last day back tap by tap, at up to 30 times speed, on the kitchen's clock. | Checked 2026-10-07 |
| From a screen or the console | Opens all three from a station or expo screen's header, or per location from the console's Reports tab; a pickup board cannot open them. | Checked 2026-10-07 |
| Inside a station | A board shown as a tab of a Hoq station keeps the station on it while a bump is in its keep window or on its way, and fetches the board at once when the tab comes back into view; Leaders and Metrics open inside the tab. | Checked 2026-10-13 |
Works with
- Hoq CommerceReads Commerce's kitchen feed the moment it rings, and checks every minute for a lost ring.
- Hoq ShopTill and order-ahead drinks from a Hoq Shop store arrive through Commerce with only what changed.
Your data
| Where it is kept | One file per company in the owner's Hoq Storage drive. |
|---|---|
| Getting it out | Orders as CSV; a daily summary email after the last shop closes. |
| If you leave | Disconnect stops Commerce ringing and gives the key back to Hoq ID. Closing an account is not documented. |
APIs and standards
- Screen links and six-digit pairing at /pair
- Bump bar and keyboard keys
- Standard: Installable web app (PWA)
Compared
| Checked 2026-11-01 | Hoq KDS | Square KDS | Fresh KDS |
|---|---|---|---|
| Price per screen per month | not published | $30 on Square Plus, $20 on Square Premium1 | $20 Essentials, $27 Premium ($16 / $22 billed yearly)2 |
| Plan required | not published | Square Plus ($49) or Premium ($149) per location; not on Free1 | None stated2 |
| Order sources | Every channel in Hoq Commerce: Square, Hoq Shop, and more | Square POS1 | 30+ platforms incl. Square, Clover, TouchBistro, Olo2 |
| Devices | Any browser, tablet or TV | not published1 | iPad (iOS 13+) and Android 7+ tablets2 |
| Works when the internet drops | Keeps the board and queues taps | not published1 | not published2 |
| Free trial | not published | not published1 | 7-day Premium trial, no card2 |