What Is Digital Signage? A Plain-English Guide

Digital signage is any screen used to show information to people in a place: a menu behind a counter, a notice board in a school corridor, a welcome screen in an office lobby. The screen is usually an ordinary TV. What makes it "signage" is that someone controls what it shows, and when, without standing in front of it.

This guide explains the parts, the costs and the decisions, so you can judge whether it is worth doing and how to start small.

How digital signage works

Every setup has the same three parts.

1. A screen. A TV, a monitor, a tablet or a purpose-built commercial display.
2. A player. The thing that puts content on the screen. It can be an app on a smart TV, a small stick or box plugged into the HDMI port, a tablet, or a computer running a browser.
3. Software. A dashboard where you upload content, arrange it into playlists and decide which screens show what and when.

With cloud software such as onday, the dashboard runs in your web browser. You change something at your desk, the player checks in over the internet a few seconds later, and the screen updates. Nobody carries a USB stick anywhere.

What you can show

Most platforms handle the same broad types of content.

• Images. Posters, menus, notices and promotions, usually JPG or PNG.
• Video. Brand films, product clips and short animations.
• Web pages. A live dashboard, a timetable page, a news site.
• Slides. Google Slides or exported PowerPoint slides, which is how many people make their first content.
• Urgent messages. A full-screen notice that overrides everything else for a while.

You group these into a playlist, which loops, and attach a schedule so different playlists run at different times. A café might show breakfast until 11:00, lunch until 15:00 and an evening menu after that. This is often called dayparting.

Who uses it

• Restaurants and cafés for menu boards that change with the time of day.
• Schools for notices, events and emergency messages.
• Shops and stores for promotions and window displays.
• Offices for dashboards and company news.
• Gyms for class timetables.
• Hotels and venues for event listings and welcome screens.

What you need to get started

Less than most people expect.

A screen. If you already have a TV on the wall, use it. A consumer TV is fine for a screen that runs during opening hours. Commercial displays cost more and are built for longer running hours and brighter rooms, which matters for a window or a 24-hour site.

A player. Many smart TVs can open a web player in their built-in browser. If yours cannot, or it is unreliable, a low-cost Android TV or Fire TV stick does the job. See our guide to turning a TV into a digital sign.

An internet connection. Wi-Fi is enough for most content. A wired connection is steadier for a screen that matters.

Software. This is where products differ most, mainly in price. More on that below.

What it costs

There are two costs: hardware you buy once and software you pay for monthly.

Hardware can be close to zero if you reuse a TV. A stick or small box is a modest one-off purchase.

Software is usually priced per screen, per month. That is easy to understand with one screen and painful with twenty. A smaller number of products, onday among them, charge one flat price per account. On onday one screen is free, up to 10 screens are $19 a month and up to 50 are $49 a month. Our article on digital signage costs works through the numbers.

Common mistakes

Too much text. People glance at a screen for a few seconds. One message per slide, in large type, beats a crowded notice.

Content that never changes. A screen showing last month's offer is worse than no screen. Pick a tool that makes updating take a minute, and give more than one person access.

Forgetting the TV's own settings. Consumer TVs have energy-saving timers that switch the set off after a few hours without a button press. Turn those off.

Buying hardware first. Try the software on a screen you already own before you spend anything.

How to try it today

You can have a working screen in a few minutes.

1. Create a free onday account. No credit card is needed.
2. Open onday.uk/player in a browser on any screen, even a laptop.
3. Enter the pairing code shown on that screen into your dashboard.
4. Upload an image, add it to a playlist and schedule it.

The setup guide covers each step with the native apps for Android TV, Apple TV, iPad and Mac.

The short version

Digital signage is a screen, a player and a dashboard. Start with the TV you have, one free screen and a single clear message. If it earns its place on the wall, add more.