Bored RoomBuilt for the office with three rooms, not three thousand.
Room-booking platforms are priced and designed for enterprises. Most offices just want a sign on the door that's right. This is that.
No backend
The iPad talks to Google Calendar directly. There's no Bored Room server in between, so there's nothing to go down, nothing to subscribe to, and nothing that sees your calendar but you and Google.
No extra licenses
The iPad reads the room through a Google service account, which is free. You don't buy a Workspace seat for a mailbox nobody reads, and nobody's personal account lives on the wall.
No data collected
We don't run analytics, we don't log meetings, we don't phone home. The App Store privacy label says "Data Not Collected" because it's true.
How it works
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Buy it
99¢ on the App Store, or through Apple Business Manager if you deploy iPads in bulk. One copy per iPad.
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Share the room, load the key
Your admin shares each room's calendar with a free Google service account and hands you its key file. Load it on the iPad, pick the room, set a PIN. Or just sign in with Google if you only have a room or two.
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Hang it up
Lock the iPad to the app with Guided Access or Single App Mode. The screen stays on, the calendar refreshes every minute, and walk-ins can book the room from the door.
Privacy is the product.
A room sign sees every meeting in that room. The only responsible design is one where that information never leaves the building.
- We never see your calendar. The iPad reads it from Google and shows it. That's the entire data path.
- Private meetings show as "Private meeting". Turn off titles entirely and every meeting shows as "Meeting".
- Your Google sign-in is stored on the iPad's own keychain, nowhere else. Sign out and it's gone.
- No analytics, no crash reporting, no tracking, no third-party code. The app makes network requests to Google's calendar API and to nothing else.
- Apple may share anonymous device and OS statistics with us, only if you've opted in on the device. That's the only "metric" we'll ever have.
Why we can say this. There is no Bored Room backend. We couldn't collect your data if we wanted to, and we've designed it so we never want to. Read the full privacy policy. It's short.
Everything's included.
- Free/busy, current meeting, the rest of the day
- Book the room from the door, 15 minutes to 2 hours
- Five backgrounds, six fonts, or your own photo
- English, French, and Spanish
- Full MDM support: push every setting, zero-touch, no "enterprise tier"
- Google Workspace today; Microsoft 365 is on the list
Buying for a lot of rooms? Apple Business Manager lets you buy 40 copies at once and push them to iPads with no Apple ID on the device. Still 99¢ each.
MDM is included, not an upsell.
The room-display platforms charge extra for "enterprise deployment." Bored Room reads Apple's Managed App Configuration out of the box, so Jamf, Mosyle, Kandji, Intune, or any other MDM can configure every iPad before it's even unboxed.
What an admin can set from the MDM
- Service account key: the iPad reads the room with no sign-in at all.
- Room calendar: which Google room this iPad shows.
- Room name: what's printed at the top of the board.
- Settings PIN: the 4 digits that protect the settings.
- Booking from the door: on or off.
- Meeting titles: show them, or show "Meeting."
- Background and font: pick from the built-in sets.
What that means in practice
Anything set from the MDM is locked on the device, so nobody at the door can change it. With the key, calendar, name, and PIN pushed, an iPad boots straight to the board; add a Single App Mode payload and it stays there.
The MDM guide has the key table, where each value comes from, and ready-to-paste examples for Jamf, Intune and the rest. Buy the app through Apple Business Manager and the iPads need no Apple ID.
No MDM? Apple Configurator handles the kiosk lock, and the setup takes a minute per iPad. Same app, same price.
Free setup, if you want it.
If you'd rather not read a guide, book a remote session and we'll set up your first room together over a video call: the service account, the sharing, the iPad, the mount, all of it. It's free. It's remote. We don't send people to your office.
Book a free setup sessionOr do it yourself in ten minutes.
Three guides, one for each way of managing iPads: by hand for an office admin, Apple Configurator for the one-person IT shop, and your MDM for zero-touch fleets. Each one prints.
Questions
Which iPads does it run on?
Any iPad on iPadOS 17 or later. An older iPad you already own is fine; the app is light. It works in landscape and portrait.
Does it work with Microsoft 365 or Outlook?
Not yet. Version 1 is Google Workspace only. Microsoft 365 is next; if that's you, tell us so we know how many of you there are.
Do I need to buy a Google Workspace account for the room?
No. The iPad reads the room through a service account, which Google provides free and which has no mailbox. Your admin shares the room with it like sharing with a person. Nobody's personal account is involved.
What does the app need from Google?
Read access to the room's calendar you shared, and, if you turn on booking from the door, permission to add events to it. It reads one calendar: the room you picked.
Why does Google say the app is "unverified" when I sign in?
Only the "sign in with Google" path shows that screen; service accounts don't. Google reviews apps that ask for calendar access, and the review takes weeks. Until it's done, tap through the warning, or have your Workspace admin mark Bored Room as trusted.
How do I keep people from changing the settings?
Settings sit behind a PIN you set during setup. For a wall-mounted iPad, lock it to the app with Guided Access (built into iPadOS) or Single App Mode via Apple Configurator or your MDM. The guide shows both.
Is there a subscription, ever?
No. 99¢ buys the app. Updates are free. There's no server to pay for, so there's nothing to charge you for.