One more step to reduce Digital Signage black screens?
Raphael Languebien
Versatile Customer Success & Channel Strategy Professional | 15+ Years' SI, SW/HW, SaaS
If you've been working in the Digital Signage industry for a while, you may have like me always noticed issues on Digital signage screens.
If not, you may be annoyed when the screen that is supposed to give you the information you need (Transportation schedule, Restaurant menu...) or the kiosk that you are supposed to interact with to order your meal isn't working, or simply wonder why some people stop walking to take pictures of black screens ??.
In some other locations, you will still go on with your life, but you may miss some information that is supposed to come your way, it may affect the branding perception of where you are at, and in case of Ad-driven networks, well... it's more a loss for the one who will have to pay for downtime and the one whose digital campaign isn't delivered than for you.
There's a lot of reasons why issues occur on a digital signage screen, it could be a configuration, integration, network, human, content scheduling, content itself, cable, power, hardware, software, security, vandalism issue... As the saying goes; "A chain is only as strong as its weakest link".
Common issues are a black screen, a pop-up that should not be there, a blue screen, a Windows update screen, a device stuck at the boot, an Android/Windows desktop, or in the?worst-case?scenario a content that really shouldn't be there...
Upon arriving on site, there's one thing that every IT technician will do though: check the media player power status and reboot it. And in many cases - between 70% and 90% from the feedback I've gathered - the content gets back on.
I am not saying that the core issue would magically disappear but at least it frees the RAM and when the system gets back online, some actions could be done remotely by level 2 support such as to start looking into various log files ("the trust is in the logs" isn't it?) to try to understand what happened and try to prevent it from happening again by deploying some fixes remotely and/or do some remote desktop to dig even further.
There's many remote device management (RDM) / remote monitoring & management (RMM) solution in the market with features like reboot, pushing software/Windows update (OTA), do Storage/memory/temperature monitoring, take screenshot, remote desktop and every Digital Signage CMS has at least the basic features already implemented.
There's one problem though: All these features are software-based where it requires that the media player is powered on with its OS (and its RDM/RMM software agent) up and running too.
What if we could have hardware-based capabilities in order to power on & off the device, reload an SSD image, change BIOS settings, use remote terminal, even get notified of tampering (via vibration sensor)? This capability exists under the term Out-Of-Band (OOB) Management.
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If you want to increase your after-sales support efficiency, reduce maintenance cost, be more involved with ESG strategy to lower carbon emissions, add value to your proposal with green signage feature, offer better SLA's, differentiate yourself by customizing your own OOB functions, feel free to contact me at www.allxon.com to know more and discuss your needs.
Allxon is a unique remote Edge AI / Device Management SaaS platform with OOB technology, partnering with AAEON , 研华 , AOPEN , 安勤科技股份有限公司 , Axiomtek , DFI , IBASE Technology Inc. , NEXCOM International , NVIDIA Robotics and more.