What is digital signage and where might you use it?

Digital signage is just a term for putting helpful information on TV screens that you might have otherwise put on printed posters. While posters can be a great tool, they're static, and any time you want to change the information on it, it needs to be re-printed. On the other hand, a TV can be configured to display not just a single image, but an entire slideshow of images, or even different images at different times or on different days. 

The Simplest Option - A Thumb Drive

Most TVs have a USB port for displaying photos or videos and this can be a quick, easy, and inexpensive way to turn any TV into a digital sign. Simply create a graphic with the correct aspect ratio, put it on the thumb drive, plug it into the TV, and dive through the TV menus to display it.

For very simple situations, this method can be perfectly fine, but you can imagine how quickly it would become cumbersome once you're managing more than a handful of TVs, and if you want the flexibility to schedule certain images to display at certain times.

Imagine grabbing a dozen thumb drives from various TVs throughout your facility, taking them to a computer, making sure to put the right images on the right drives, then plugging all those thumb drives back in. Then imagine a few hours later, wanting to display something different, and having to go to each TV to select a different file on each thumb drive. You'll certainly get your steps in (especially if you find you've mixed up any of the thumb drives), but it's probably not the best use of your time.

Digital Signage Solutions - Why Are They Better?

At it's core, a digital signage solution combines a remote content database with a host of display devices, and a way to link the two. Let's think of it like your favorite music streaming service.

Imagine firing up your favorite streaming service and building a playlist of songs from their database that you'll listen to on your morning commute. Then you create another playlist for the run you're planning later that afternoon. When you hop in the car that morning, you pull up your commuting playlist on your car stereo, then in the afternoon, you play your running playlist on your ear buds. 

This is just how digital signage works. You build playlists from your available content, then you select which devices will show each playlist and when.

Therefore, instead of having to transfer specific files to a handful of physical thumb drives, you can simply add and remove content from a single database then assign that content to each specific device, all from the same web interface.

Many digital signage solutions offer even more advanced customization and flexibility by being able to schedule specific content within your playlists, customize transitions, seamlessly play back playlists containing both static images and videos, displaying websites, or even creating fully custom layouts with information pulled from various databases - things that are far beyond the capability of the humble thumb drive.

Specific Recommendations

If you're thinking this sounds complicated, you're right, it certainly can be. Many of the digital signage solutions I've explored over the past several years were incredibly powerful, but also headscratchingly complicated to set up and use. Some are also quite expensive if you have more than a couple displays.

As I've searched, I've come across and made use of several solutions, but one has risen to the surface as the clear winner. After taking a look at the software options, we'll then dive into the hardware required to display the content on the TVs.

Software

The best for most situations: AbleSign

AbleSign is a free* digital signage service that provides a great combination of simplicity and flexibility. While it can't compete with the likes of BrightSign and RiseVision on features, it still provides a solid feature set that covers many use cases. 

*In the Fall of 2024, AbleSign sent a survey to its users indicating the possibility of beginning to charge a small fee per display after the first five displays. However, the fee they suggested was still miniscule compared to the annual costs of utilizing one of the other big digital signage services. As of now (April 2025), AbleSign is still completely free aside from the option to increase cloud storage capacity.

Here's a quick rundown of what AbleSign can do:

• display images, videos, and websites, or any combinations of these in a single playlist
• robust scheduling of displays and the content on those displays
• grouping displays to show the same content on each
• playback apps for Android streaming devices, Amazon Firesticks, and BrightSign players
• offline playback
• content expiration dates and the ability to delete all expired content with a single click
• landscape and portrait orientation for displays
• create user accounts with variable permissions
• 1GB of cloud storage for your media (can be upgraded to 100GB for $10/mo)

But here are some things it cannot do:

• video walls (one image over multiple displays)
• customized layouts or zones, where different content is shown on different parts of the screen
• templates with widgets for weather, time, tickers, social media feeds, etc.

I've been using AbleSign for the better part of a year now to manage seven displays with a variety of content that changes week to week (and some that changes at specific times throughout the day). It's handled this without a problem, and it's managed this on super cheap Android players, which I'll get to below.

When user interaction is required: KODI

KODI is a software front-end often used by home media enthusiasts to manage and view their music, movie, and TV libraries. It excels at being completely customizable, but can be a bit of a resource hog and is far more complicated to set up and maintain, not to mention duplicate to multiple devices.

The big advantage of KODI over AbleSign is that a user can select specific content to be displayed at any time, just like one could with any TV streaming device. However, that's also its disadvantage, because content can't be easily scheduled. 

For example, I've implemented KODI in kid's ministry classrooms where we want to allow a classroom volunteer to select from a variety of pre-uploaded content as well as to have the option to switch to our livestream or pull up YouTube content, all from a single, customized user-interface. But be aware that creating that custom interface can be a very technical and time intensive endeavor. You also need to be careful with updates to KODI and its plugins, as they may break things, so it's best to simply turn off automatic updates. 

Admittedly, using KODI this way is more like presentation software than digital signage, but it's still worth mentioning as a useful tool.

Hardware recommendations

onn. Google TV 4K Streaming Box

Walmart's onn. Google TV 4K Streaming Box is just about the best bang for your buck that you're likely to find. At only $20, you can deploy lots of these for the cost of a single "professional" signage player. It comes with a power supply and an HDMI cable, so you don't need to worry about any additional accessories to get it connected to your signage TV (unless you obsess over cable management like me, in which case some super short HDMI and USB cables, along with some velcro, are helpful). While not the most powerful Android streaming device on the market, it has more than enough juice for digital signage applications.

If your TV has a USB port that provides enough power, you can forego the wall plug and simply power your onn. TV Streaming Box directly from the TV. Just be aware that the device will take about 30-45 seconds to boot each time it's powered on, and it will take extra time to download any digital signage content that has changed since the last time it was used. If your network isn't terribly robust, having a bunch of TVs downloading data on Sunday mornings just prior to services may not be a good idea if it takes away bandwidth from other critical network applications.

onn. Google TV 4K Pro Streaming Device

The Pro version ($50) adds a few nice features that make it a better choice for KODI, (or as a streaming box at home!). Along with more RAM, more storage, and a faster processor, it also has ethernet and USB-A connections. Being able to connect a USB keyboard during setup (especially if you're deploying lots of these) really helps speed up the initial setup. But at more than twice the cost of the non-Pro version, there's no reason to choose this one for AbleSign unless you absolutely need a wired connection.

There are some downsides to using a GoogleTV streaming device for digital signage. First, deploying a new device takes a fair amount of set up time if you want to debloat it, install a custom launcher, remove Google's launcher, etc. I like to do this in order to have a nice clean interface to fall back on when AbleSign isn't running, or if it fails to automatically launch (more on this in a minute). Otherwise, you'll see Google's ad-ridden interface on your lovely digital signage TV.

Second, as mentioned above, Google TV devices do not seem to take kindly to automatically launching apps on startup. There are numerous tools that make this possible (including standalone apps and custom launchers with "start-on-boot" options) but they don't work 100% of the time. On a good day, our volunteers simply need to press the power button on one of our digital signage TVs, and about a minute later, they'll see the scheduled signage content. But on other days, they'll be greeted with a launcher interface and need to grab the onn. TV remote and launch AbleSign manually.

Finally, I have had a couple of the non-Pro versions fail over the past couple years. I've deployed a total of sixteen and have had to replace two of them so far. But as cheap as they are, it hasn't deterred me from continuing to use them.

Amazon Signage Stick

I haven't personally used Amazon's Signage Stick ($100), but it has one clear advantage over Google TV devices: it's sole purpose is to run digital signage apps. This means that it doesn't suffer from the auto-start problems that plagues Google TV devices, and it makes deployment much faster and simpler.

The downside is that they cost five times as much. However, if you want minimal fuss, it may be worth the extra cost.

Note: The Amazon Signage Stick works only with select digital signage services (including AbleSign), but it is not an option for a KODI deployment.

TVs

I've only used consumer TVs for digital signage, but they don't run 24/7 so I've not run into any problems. However, one other advantage of many commercial displays is the ability to schedule powering the TV on/off. For consumer TVs, this could be still be accomplished with a smart plug or some other automation that can utilize the TVs IR sensor or CEC commands, but if scheduling power to the TV is a priority or if you plan to run it for extended periods of time, you may want to consider a commercial display.

Some other things I'd like to eventually explore

1. Can any GoogleTV devices be managed by an MDM like Microsoft InTune to make deployment and updates easier?
2. Can I publish a Canva design to a website and use that as easily updateable signage for AbleSign? This would mean not having to download JPGs from Canva (where I currently design most signage) then upload those JPGs to AbleSign.
3. Are there alternatives to KODI (even paid) that would provide a similar functionality for easily selecting pre-loaded content from a customized interface, but with an easier to manage deployment? Playlister is one that I've looked at, but it's not cheap.

If you have any insights to the questions above, or would like to discuss anything in this article in more detail, send me an email at [email protected].