smart digital signage

The modern consumer’s attention is pulled in multiple directions at once. Retailers and enterprises must change how they engage their customers if they want to stay competitive. Smart signage solutions enable companies to leverage real-time geographic data and deliver dynamic marketing.

Modern businesses are increasingly replacing static signs with engaging digital displays. If you are looking into digital signage solutions, you have likely seen many brands offering ‘smart signage’ platforms. However, it is often unclear what smart digital signage is, especially for firms adopting the technology for the first time.

The global digital signage market is worth$16.3 billion in 2021. Accordingly, it has attracted many players from across the world. The guide below will help you identify smart signage platforms to broadcast innovative content:

Automation is redefining the digital era, thanks to machine learning, IoT, and artificial intelligence. For example, homeowners can now use a host of smart home devices, including smart locks, smart thermostats, and smart speakers from companies like Samsung and LG. When applied to digital signage, smart platforms let users publish content to the cloud and update screens remotely, creating smart signage.

You require an external media player like a PC or USB to edit digital content on most digital signage displays. Furthermore, some platforms require users to visit every digital sign to edit or upload content. As a result, employees waste valuable time that they could use on more productive tasks.

With smart digital signage, signs have remote content management software. Thus, you only need the internet to change digital content from your PC. Other features of a digital signage platform include:

Static signs offer limited flexibility since you need to print new ones to reflect changes. On the other hand, it is simple to make instant amends on digital screens. If you want a more dynamic solution, smart digital signage provides better convenience.

Smart signage can change automatically based on inputs from other business applications and data sources. For instance, in-store smart signs can display real-time social media campaigns if you add your brand’s accounts. Smart sign APIs linked to your firm’s database trigger automatic updates that serve shoppers better. For example, restaurant managers can connect menu boards with Point of sale (POC) to acquire pricing and availability information.

Smart signage screens can feature an embedded SoC (System on a Chip) to simplify digital signage deployments. The chip allows for integration with operating systems like Linux or windows, HTML5 browser, and a content management system (CMS).

Another common method is by using a digital signage player. This hardware connects to your screens to help manage your chosen CMS and display the content on the screen. Depending on the content for your solution, there are players out there that are powerful enough and built specifically for that use such as video wall players.

While basic digital signage solutions let you loop content, you have to log into the system to change messages. In contrast, smart scheduling allows you to pre-determine content for different times of the day.

For example, a restaurant’s digital display can show deals for specific holidays or times of the day. This way, you’ll be able to plan out content for when it will help maximize your ROI.

Digital screens are incredibly effective at grabbing attention. If you have invested in digital signage solutions, you may be looking to upgrade to more sophisticated options. The benefits of smart digital signage include:

Many digital signage platforms rely on user intervention to adjust content. In contrast, smart signage allows for auto-updates, thereby simplifying the deployment process. Additionally, employees can make updates from anywhere with a mobile device, PC, or tablet.

In addition to the user-friendly interface, you can auto-refresh digital messages or content in real-time. This could be news stories, social media, or even office spreadsheets.

In the digital era, nothing engages customers more than premier UHD picture quality. Fortunately, digital signage allows businesses to deliver high-impact visuals that tell a story. For instance, retail stores can use interactive displays that offer product comparisons and information.

The major advantage of smart signage is that it allows for real-time customer engagement. In fact, intelligent digital signage triggers content defined to a target demographic when a customer walks up to a screen. As a result, shoppers find the precise information they are looking for, thereby encouraging them to make purchases. You can even set a customized greeting to welcome each customer.

Additionally, intelligent digital signage is effective because it reaches a customer when deciding if they will make a purchase. By parading the right information at the right time via high-definition screen images, you can expect improved sales.

Smart digital signage solutions feature visual sensors that detect a customer’s demographics, walking path, attention span, among other characteristics. Subsequently, the screen updates the content to display customized messages. By understanding how customers shop, you can promote products more effectively.

Additionally, smart digital signage saves time and money. Further, smart signage is easy to maintain while offering scalability to accommodate a company’s growth. Lastly, employees save the time they use to update content or direct shoppers and visitors.

In early digital signage, large PCs provided the hardware and software to process and show digital content. However, advancements in artificial intelligence, as well as machine learning, have enabled the use of smaller components. Today, digital signage manufacturers offer modules that integrate into the display panel or media boxes.

These technologies, and especially smart digital signage software, leverage deep learning to determine which information is relevant to a particular shopper. AI engines analyze large sets of data and create patterns. Then, the platforms draw conclusions and react to real-time situations. This means that the technology refers to your shopping history when you visit your favorite store. Subsequently, you get personalized ads of products that you are likely to buy. As a result, your customer experience improves every time you shop at the store.

Digital signage has many benefits, including boosting sales and increasing customer awareness. However, many companies are hesitant to invest because of high upfront costs. In addition to the cost of screens, you need an external media player and a proprietary CMS. Afterward, someone needs to manage content and troubleshoot any issues.

What’s more, smart signage offers more flexibility in content management. Also, some players have prebuilt templates for small-scale applications. Larger organizations can use third-party web-enabled CMS solutions.

When deploying smart signage, check the security measures that your third-party providers have taken. Hackers are increasingly hacking digital signage players for profit, fun, or propaganda. Thus, it is essential to work with providers committed to data integrity. For example, a provider can encrypt all communication, undergo frequent security audits, and obtain SSL certificates.

Smart display solutions are the next frontier in digital signage as they offer increased customer engagement and improved ROI. In fact, a smart digital signage screen features an embedded media player that automatically updates content. As a result, you deliver more personalized ads and enjoy better results from your promotions.

The value of the digital signage display market is growing at a rate of around 7% a year as more businesses make the change from static to digital signage. It’s currently valued at $5.3 billion. Why are so many organizations making the switch to smart digital signage? Static signage is no longer able to engage with customers the way digital signage can. Digital signage offers a more engaging experience to customers who are now used to–and expecting–a digital experience.

Digital signage is more than a video screen, though. It’s a sophisticated system that allows businesses to update content on a digital display. This can help businesses more immediately meet the needs of customers in a way that boosts their ROI. From retail to health care, organizations in every industry are taking advantage of the power of digital signage to spread information, increase brand awareness, and deliver content in a more powerful way.

Digital smartsignage takes it a step further. Smart signage creates even more innovative solutions that allow businesses to respond to changes automatically, delivering an even better experience for the customer. But is it the right solution for your organization? Learn more about smart digital signage, what makes it smart, and what the benefits could be for your business.

Smart digital signage is digital signage that’s partnered with smart software platforms that update and manage content. Traditional digital signage requires manual updates to the sign’s content catalog. With a smart digital sign, users can update the content remotely via an internet connection. Some smart signage platforms even update content for you automatically, based on various data points and triggers. Smart digital signage can be anything from a video wall to a small screen outside a conference room.

Remote management. Digital displays force you to update on-site, either directly at the sign itself or via a PC kept on the premises. Smart digital displays will have a content management platform that allows you to update them remotely. You can update content from anywhere that you have an internet connection. That means you can update them from your desktop just as easily as you can update them from your phone on the beach.

Content scheduling. Instead of manually updating content when you need to change the signage, a smart display allows you to schedule content updates as and when you need them. You can get as granular as you want, too. Schedule content for the holiday season in July, or advertise specials at a restaurant during happy hour every Wednesday. The software will make it easy to schedule content in advance, freeing up your time for other tasks.

Business applications and data integration. Data integration is where smart signage really shines. You can use data sets to trigger updates to the signage. For example, you can update meeting room usage on the fly as team members book spaces on the company calendar. Or you can advertise how many special offers remain based on data from the cashpoint system. The software makes it easy to integrate data sets and create triggers for new content updates.

Security. Traditional digital signage was easy to hack, making it a target for digital vandalism and disturbances. Smart signage makes security a top priority, though. Software and digital display hardware provide multiple layers of protection to keep out unwanted hackers while giving those with access an easy way to update.

As artificial intelligence and smart signage platforms continue to advance, smart digital signage will get even smarter. That means the capability of these signs will only get better for business owners who start embracing the advancements now.

Smart digital signage software is the platform used to update your digital screens. Platforms should offer cloud-based CMS so you can update the signage from almost any internet-enabled device such as a PC, laptop, tablet, or smartphone. Using cloud-based digital signage also means you won’t require any of the bulky and expensive hardware associated with traditional digital signage. The content management platform should be user-friendly, making it simple for any trained member of staff to upload new content. Platforms like EnGage CMS will also offer reporting features to help you optimize future signage campaigns.

There is a reason the smart digital signage industry is booming. Organizations are seeing first-hand the benefits of installing dynamic signage in their facilities. This is about more than just looking good; it’s about maximizing internal and external customer engagement to boost ROI. Here’s how:

Static signage is easy to overlook, no matter how well-designed it is. Printed signs are no match for the lure of someone’s tablet or smartphone. But a digital display is. With bright, easy-to-read, and top picture quality, organizations can capture attention even in crowded, busy environments. Digital signage case studies show that smart signage can help do things like boost average sales amounts.

Smart displays allow you to instantaneously update your signage. The smart signage software can even do it for you. Integrate custom content updates with tweets, Instagram posts, or even something as simple as the weather. Platforms make it easy to manage your customer content with a few clicks so signage updates are easier, faster, and better than ever.

Digital displays are only useful when they are working. A broken or blank sign can actually hurt an organization’s reputation, so uptime matters. Smart displays offer real-time troubleshooting solutions, giving users notifications that something is wrong and taking action to correct it. This can help maximize the uptime of the display, thus maximizing the impact of the signage and making it more cost-effective.

Industries are embracing smart digital displays for a reason. They work to attract customer attention, provide better information, increase engagement, and give businesses more powerful marketing options. If you’d like to learn more about putting smart signage in your facility, get in touch with the ComQi team today to learn more about our powerful digital signage solutions.

Ever wondered why modern cellphones are called smartphones? What changed between the earlier keypad mobile phones and the sleek calling devices we use today? A moment of retrospection will reveal that modern cellphones are more than just calling devices; they can now literally read our heartbeats and count our footsteps!

Everything is turning “smart.” Digital signage, those flat-screens & billboards showing prearranged content, have also smartened up over the years. Gone are the days when you had to load your favorite media files from your computer to a USB device, plug it into a screen and play the same content for as long as you could until someone pointed out that Christmas is over and the content needs to be updated. Then you go back to the same tedious cycle of publishing the content. Well, not anymore!

In this blog, we will delve into the definition of smart signage and explore some attributes of it. We will also learn how smart displays can be utilized and see a few mind boggling real-life examples.

Smart digital signage systems are signage displays that operate on smart digital signage software. These smart features can manifest in many ways; they may bring a certain degree of automation to content management and screen management and allow remote accessibility.

There can also be more personalized content distribution. A simple example of smart digital signage is the interactive touchscreen kiosks we often see in airports, ATMs, or retail check-out areas.

Many smart digital signage solutions enable integrating the display systems with third-party applications, such as an organization’s internal dashboards or internal communication tools. These advanced functionalities are impossible in conventional digital signs like USB-driven signage.

Definition of Smart Signage: A smart digital signage is a display solution that optimizes results and reduces human supervision by different mechanisms, such as operational automation, interactivity, personalization of media, or remote screen & content management.

We often use the words ‘smart’ and ‘intelligent’ interchangeably. However, when it comes to gadgets, smart may not always mean intelligent. Smart digital signage can be considered intelligent when it starts acting autonomously by dynamically predicting or analyzing the environment or human needs.

For example, an intelligent solution can be an AI-driven digital signage in a retail store that reads customers’ demographics and moods to show personalized product suggestions. It is also a smart digital signage.

On the other hand, if we consider an interactive digital menu board that allows restaurant-goers to self-order food, then that display is only a smart signage, not an intelligent one.

Automation is one of the most important benefits of smart digital signage systems. A smart signage software will allow you to schedule your media on a screen or group of screens. Your assigned content will be automatically published at the specified date and time. Not just one, or two, or three; users can create as many schedules as they want.

Besides content scheduling, a smart digital signage solution will commonly offer its users a bunch of ready-to-use content applications to ensure dynamic media playback on screen. These apps can show an extensive range of real time content like:

Remote accessibility means the users can control smart digital signage from any geographic location. This is possible because of the internet and how modern digital signage players are built.

Both external digital signage players and SoC-operated Smart TVs can be connected to the internet and wirelessly and remotely transfer data from the CMS to the screen. This is a sharp contrast to the traditional USB players that need to be physically connected to any device for sharing media files.

Remote accessibility is further enhanced by the presence of cloud-based smart signage platforms. While the modern digital signage players allow users to access the screens remotely, cloud-based software makes the digital signage command center or the CMS remotely accessible.

A smart digital signage solution has the power to communicate with other smart devices or third-party applications. A lot of these network-network communications can be achieved through API integrations.

Integrating a smart digital signage system helps the display software pull data from private servers and present those data on the screen. A typical example can be the smart digital signage screens in offices that show different KPIs and metrics to help various departments make analytics-driven decisions.

Many of the smart digital signage systems are made interactive. Interactivity enables two-way communication between the end user and the digital screen. This feature contributes to delivering personalized experiences. Many ‘smart’ functionalities work behind interactive displays- computational powers, sensory powers (it can recognize human touch), and device automation (auto-ON/OFF).

As discussed earlier in this blog, intelligent displays are a highly-powerful subset of smart digital signage systems. There is a wide range of possibilities to play around with and mould intelligent screens for human benefit. Some examples can be IoT systems or AI-powered screens.

A smart digital signage system is not easily vulnerable to hacking, data theft, or sabotage. These smart software applications are guarded by high-standard security protocols like end-to-end encryption, https, authentication, and access controls.

Smart digital signage systems are so flexible and adaptive that they find application in almost every domain and industry. Here are some common applications of smart digital signage solutions:

Smart signage or smart digital signage systems are popularly used these days by organizations of all sizes to promote products and build brand engagement. It is also used commonly for streamlining operations in transportation ticketing or retail check-outs.

Fanta’s innovative out-of-home campaign asked passersby to click a photo of themselves with the signage in the background. Next, the campaign participants were asked to upload this photo on Instagram with the hashtag #FantaTastesLike. Once the photo is uploaded, the smart signage immediately prints the photo and it delivers it through the Fanta Printergram.

Singapore’s Changi airport has revolutionized air transportation and air travel. The video below shows how the smart interactive displays generate the passenger’s boarding pass and securely processes the baggages at the connected baggage drop belt.

The best thing about smart signage is that it doesn’t necessarily have to be costly. Remote accessibility, content scheduling, and software integrations & customizations are basic features that most of the top digital signage brands offer. The cost of digital signage ownership ultimately depends on how complex your business needs are. But as far as basic smart digital signage solutions go, you can easily afford them.

Looking to deploy a smart digital signage solution for your business? Pickcel is an award-winning brand that gets you the best of both words advanced features and reasonable pricing. Contact our sales team for a free demo.

Raise your sales with LG digital signage and discover our collection of LED backlit displays, DS media players, stretch and touch-screen displays. Our digital signage displays are available in different sizes and specifications to match the requirements of your business. We have a wide variety of business digital signage solutions, such as DS media players, LED backlit displays, stretched displays and touch displays.

DS Media Players: Display HD and ultra-high definition (UHD) content though LG’s powerful, cost-effective and reliable Digital Signage (DS) players, which support different a wide range of video and audio formats.

Stretched Displays: Whether set in a portrait or landscape mode, our stretched displays allow you to easily present important information and messages to guests. LG Ultra-Stretch Digital Signage boasts sleek designs, ultra-HD resolution, and an extended wide-format display that will instantly grab the attention of the audience.

Also, know as SSSP, Samsung’s Smart Signage Platform is powered by Samsung’s Tizen platform. All in one and external media player free, the Samsung Smart Digital Signage Software platform offers stable and rich media playback options that cache locally on the Samsung Tizen displays for offline play.

Our customers benefit from the most powerful, intuitive and flexible signage solution on the market to transform their digital screens into a real communication tool.

Flexibility is one of the key advantages of digital signage software: content distribution is centralized, allowing you to easily update messages at all your end-point locations at once.

Foyer technology accommodates businesses of all sizes and with various aspirations, from enhancing the customer experience through digital to implementing true omnichannel, full-scale connected commerce.VIEW PRICING

Brick and mortar is ready for its comeback. Online shopping may be convenient, but the experience can never transcend a 2D world. Today’s physical retailers can enjoy the best of both worlds by adding advanced digital signage that engages all the senses and transforms the buying journey.

Imagine customers walking into an athletic wear store, for example, where they are greeted with dynamic videos of people using the gear in action. Not only can they see how the pieces enhance performance; they can pick them up and try them on for themselves. Or consider the benefits interactive digital signage can provide Quick Serve Restaurants (QSRs). Customers can be drawn in by walls of screens that advertise menu options and then make their selection based on a greater spectrum of information.

“Digital signage adds tremendous value and makes sitting-on-the-sofa online shopping boring,” says Nils Karsten, Retail Business Segment Lead for Sharp NEC Display Solutions in Europe, manufacturers of digital display solutions. “It has the ability to create real experiences for people.”

Applications go beyond retail as digital displays are becoming an essential tool for a variety of industries, including transportation. For example, an airport in Germany recently installed a NEC Digital Signage solution above the baggage area in one of its terminals that sees 25 million passengers coming through each year. In this case, a custom-made 16-by-9-foot screen leverages the system’s high brightness and contrast technology, creating an eye-catching display. Retailers, restaurants, airlines, and travelers all benefit from information that helps avoid potential bottlenecks to advertising that can generate additional revenue.

NEC Computing Device Digital Signage uses an Intel® Smart Display Module (Intel® SDM) that is integrated directly into signage displays, offering higher edge compute performance for improved flexibility. “No extra cable, connection, or power supply is required,” says Karsten. “And we support most of the world’s leading CMS (content management system) solutions, which makes it easier to get started.”

The solution comes preconfigured with software for easy deployment. “Hardware is the basis of the digital-signage experience and as CPUs get more powerful, there are many different iterations that create a good basis for new software to be developed,” says Erik Elbert, Senior Product Manager of Large Format Displays and Computing Technologies for Sharp NEC Display Solutions in Europe.

While visual content is engaging, today’s signage is more than just a pretty display. The integration of augmented realities and computer vision using AI can enhance the customer interaction and create sophisticated applications and use cases for greater flexibility and performance.

Systems integrators can leverage digital-signage solutions to grow their businesses while helping their clients stay relevant in the marketplace. SIs benefit from a preconfigured computing setup, so they don’t need to worry about loading software, which OS version to use, or system configuration. And NEC’s global sales team can assist with deployment as well as with add-on services, such as repairs and extended warranties.

According to Karsten, the digital-signage market is growing rapidly at a rate of 7% a year. And technology is making the latest and greatest possible. Innovation of digital signage will include interactive capabilities through the continued integration of sensors, cameras, and AI, for an intelligent, immersive experience.

“Integration and experience are the two main assets,” says Karsten. “We’re moving away from a simple display in a store. Better resolutions, different screen sizes and the integration of sensors, object recognition, and even mobile devices create a truly immersive and seamless environment. As people get back outside and shop, digital signage can make the experience even better than it was before COVID.”

Some of our signage software suites allow not only the screen cross-representation of a subject, but can play back correctly even videos and motifs arranged over asynchronous and with any distance screens of different sizes and angular positions. This leads to incidents that are exceptional-handy visual impressions, especially as in window zones (a view into the salesroom e.g. remains guaranteed).

Samsung Smart Signage displays handle heavy usage - up to 16 hours a day, 7 days a week - with ease, and are built to withstand all kinds of environmental conditions: they’re IP5x certified with dust-resistant design & a non-glare front panel that allows greater visibility under light.

Outdoor and window signage require screens that are stronger & more versatile than the standard TV. Samsung displays feature high brightness & toughness under the sun & rain - perfect for reaching customers beyond your storefront.