Reusing a TV for digital signage

An eight-year-old television can be a poor television and an excellent information panel. That is reuse of the good kind: zero hardware cost and a job that asks nothing of the software.

Where it works#

• Menu or prices in a bar.
• Queue numbers or notices at a reception desk.
• Timetables in a classroom or a gym.
• A dashboard in an office.
• Family calendar and weather at home.

What the television needs#

Very little, which is why it works:

• To start on its own after a power cut.
• To show a single application full screen.
• Not to return to the home screen or show notices over the content.

The preparation#

1. Remove everything dispensable. Here the clean-up has a clear goal: that nothing appears over the content. Recommendation services and manufacturer notifications are the enemy.

2. Disable the screensaver.

adb shell settings put secure screensaver_enabled 0
adb shell settings put system screen_off_timeout 2147483647

3. Disable automatic app updates, so nothing changes unannounced in the middle of trading hours.

4. Set up automatic startup. Settings usually has a power-on-after-outage option.

The content#

The most robust approach is a browser in kiosk mode pointing at a page you control. Change the page and the panel updates itself, with nobody touching the television.

For a single panel, any kiosk app from the Play Store will do. For several, a central management system earns its keep.

If it is many televisions#

This is the hotel, care home, school and clinic scenario: twenty, fifty or three hundred televisions that work and are unusable as televisions.

There the job stops being a weekend and becomes a project, with a model inventory, a repeatable configuration and a maintenance plan. If that is you, get in touch: it is exactly the kind of installation the catalogue we are building is for.

Power#

A television left on for twelve hours a day uses considerably more than a professional signage monitor. Worth scheduling an overnight shutdown, both for the bill and for the life of the panel.