We all are witnesses to the revolution Digital Signage has brought into our lives, by changing the way business owners communicate with us, the clients. The days of old paper signs that keep hanging on the walls and shelves long after the message became irrelevant are gone, as more and more small and medium businesses have ‘upgraded’ to Digital Signage, using the advantage of portraying their message dynamically, adjusting it to real needs on a daily, hourly and even minute basis.
One of the major blocks regarding digital signage penetration was the hardware. While the software moved to the cloud/SaaS approach, the screens used for Digital Signage were still ‘dumb’, requiring proprietary players to allow Digital Signage solution providers to actually play a campaign on them. This fact has been changing recently, and rapidly…
The introduction of Google TV boxes has allowed ‘fast responding’ Digital Signage software companies to introduce Android-based Digital Signage kits. From that point, instead of using proprietary players, you can buy this kind of box online, divert your ‘dumb’ screen into a ‘smart screen’ accessible to the Web using Wi-Fi, and if the device has enough ‘CPU power’ (Note: not all of them have!), a full digital Signage kit has just been installed. All that is required is Digital Signage SaaS and you are good to go.
This is just the first step in the coming revolution in the screen industry. The next phase is here — USB sticks, providing Wi-Fi connectivity, Android OS and CPU. This new configuration even further simplifies the prerequisites for digital signage, bringing it closer to the needs and costs of SMBs.
The last, I would imagine — and we can clearly see signs of it — is the disappearance of ‘dumb’ screens, replaced by built-in Android-based smart devices.
Smart TVs — built-in Android digital signage is closer than it ever was before!
Sam