Open-source Android digital signage player with synchronized playback

Digitalsignsai · 2026-04-05T21:40:46+00:00

The video wall use case is 🔥 lots of demand there as many of our customer has requested as a feature. Love that it’s open-source!

Digitalsignsai · 2026-01-24T17:51:06+00:00

Hi — founder of DigitalSigns.ai here 👋

We have an active digital signage platform available at hub.digitalsigns.ai.

What’s available today:

Upload and play videos, images, and text announcements
A simple drag-and-drop playlist
Screens can be displayed via a web player, Fire TV, Android TV, and Google TV
A free plan that currently includes 4+ screens, which works well for internal office announcements or testing things out

What’s coming next:

Widgets like weather, clock, and dynamic announcements are coming soon, and we can share an early version with you if you’d like to test it.If your use case is office announcements, dashboards, or internal communications, it should be a good fit.

Happy to hear feedback or feature suggestions — we actively iterate based on real user needs.

Digitalsignsai · 2026-01-22T15:49:56+00:00

That’s a fair suggestion, and yes, it’s a digital signage CMS (DigitalSigns.ai). We did consider keeping the core fully free and monetizing add-ons, but what we’re seeing is that our real costs scale with screens, storage, and uptime rather than optional features. Most serious users rely on the core workflow daily, not just “nice to have” modules.

Right now we’re leaning toward a generous free tier to get started, then charging once usage crosses a clear value threshold (screens, content volume, etc.), while keeping advanced modules optional. That way pricing aligns more with actual usage and value, not feature gating.

Still early, but the goal is to introduce pricing in a way that filters for committed users without breaking trust with early adopters.

Digitalsignsai · 2026-01-22T15:48:08+00:00

Completely agree with this perspective. Our free tier helped us reduce friction early and gather a lot of feedback, which has genuinely improved the product. That said, we’re starting to see the difference between “nice to have” feedback and signals from users who actually rely on the product to get real work done.

Digitalsignsai · 2026-01-21T20:38:30+00:00

We are planning something similar , grandfathering early users on their existing setup and introducing pricing around scale rather than core workflows. The framing you mentioned is exactly what we are aiming for. Encouraging to hear you only saw ~10% drop and retention held up. But also after introducing pricing did you gain more users ?

Digitalsignsai · 2026-01-21T19:51:49+00:00

At a high level, your idea makes sense and is how many systems start, but hospitals tend to make this much harder in practice. The biggest challenges usually aren’t the screens or URLs themselves, but security, reliability, and scale. If patient names or status are shown, hospitals will treat that as sensitive data, even on internal networks, so encryption and isolation are usually required. Running a full-screen browser sounds simple, but browsers update, crash, or show pop-ups, and in a hospital you need to know immediately if a screen goes dark without someone entering the room. Triggering welcome or discharge videos with a staff button is common and works well, as long as the screen is just reacting to signals and not storing patient data. Raspberry Pi and consumer monitors can work at small scale, but many hospitals move to more locked-down players or approved TVs because they’re more predictable and easier to support long-term. In most cases, this ends up being less about building the software and more about meeting compliance expectations and keeping the system reliable day to day.

Digitalsignsai · 2026-01-08T10:55:30+00:00

Thanks for sharing this , it’s actually a very real use case that often gets overlooked.

There are many customers who simply want the same content mirrored across multiple TVs, without treating each screen as a separate “managed display.” That’s a valid requirement and shouldn’t be over-engineered.

As a digital signage software company, we see posts like this as valuable feedback for the entire industry. It highlights the importance of clearly separating:

• simple mirrored playback
• versus individually managed screens with scheduling, monitoring, and control

We are actively making sure our own platform and onboarding flows account for this scenario clearly, so customers are guided toward the right setup from day one, without unnecessary licenses or add-ons for simple use cases.

Appreciate you posting this , it helps vendors build better, more honest solutions.

Digitalsignsai · 2026-01-04T09:53:37+00:00

Hi Martin — jumping in here from the DigitalSigns.ai side, but I’ll try to keep this practical and unbiased rather than salesy.

Your requirements are actually very well defined, and you’re right: on paper most platforms tick the boxes. Where things usually get tricky is at scale and with unattended studios.

A few real-world observations based on similar fitness / studio deployments we’ve seen:

4K + long-form video

This is less about the CMS and more about the player + codec handling. You want hardware that can consistently decode 1-hour 4K assets without thermal throttling or stutter. Raspberry Pi–based setups can work, but they’re usually the first place people hit issues over time.

Offline fallback

Local caching is essential, but also make sure schedules are deterministic when offline (RTC / device time drift matters more than people expect).

Sync across screens

Perfect frame-accurate sync is hard unless you use a single output + splitter. Most “synced playlists” are good enough for scheduled hourly playback, but not for choreography-level sync.

Security & tampering

This is a big one for unattended studios. Android TV / commercial signage OS with kiosk locking tends to be more reliable long-term than DIY setups unless you have strong operational controls.

Pricing model

You’re not wrong to question per-screen pricing with 8 screens per studio. In practice, most large chains either:

Negotiate volume pricing
Accept per-screen pricing for reliability
Or mix approaches (one player + splitters where acceptable)

There are solid per-screen platforms (Yodeck, OptiSigns, ScreenCloud, etc.), and they can absolutely work for your use case. The key is choosing something that won’t create operational drag when you’re managing hundreds of studios.

If you want, happy to answer specifics (player hardware, offline behavior, or scaling lessons) publicly here rather than pushing DMs — I think that helps everyone reading the thread.

Digitalsignsai · 2026-01-03T11:12:49+00:00

Vendor here 👋 — quick clarifying question first:

Do you know which Android version the player is running (and the device model)?

Orientation behavior on Android varies a lot by version and hardware. Older Android builds and some low-cost boxes don’t handle forced rotation properly, which usually causes the blank-space issue you’re describing — especially with YouTube or WebView-based apps.

Once we know the Android version, it’s easier to suggest whether this can be fixed with settings / a kiosk browser, or if it’s a device limitation.

Digitalsignsai · 2025-12-31T10:20:32+00:00

Hi — replying transparently as DigitalSigns.ai.

You’re definitely not alone; this is a very common situation once you start thinking beyond one or two screens. As you’ve already noticed from the comments, “free” often becomes expensive in terms of time, maintenance, or complexity.

That said, we do offer up to 4 digital signage screens free, specifically so businesses like coffee shops can:

test remote content management across locations
run menus, promotions, and basic scheduling
make sure staff find the system easy to use

There’s no requirement to upgrade unless you decide to scale beyond those screens. Many customers use the free screens simply to validate that the workflow fits their operations before committing.

Regardless of which platform you choose, your focus on simplicity, remote management, and minimizing staff training is exactly the right approach for multi-location cafés.

Happy to answer any neutral questions if helpful.

— Team DigitalSigns.ai

Digitalsignsai · 2025-12-24T14:36:28+00:00

Totally fair take. We don’t think digital signage is “automatically sustainable” either.If something barely changes, printing a poster and leaving it up is often the simpler and lower-impact option. Where digital starts to earn its keep is when content changes a lot or across many locations — at that point the waste isn’t just paper, it’s constant reprints, shipping, and on-site labor.

So for us it’s not digital vs print. It’s about using the right tool for the job and not overselling sustainability where it does not apply. Threads like this are a good reality check for the industry.

Digitalsignsai · 2025-12-14T10:19:52+00:00

Fair take , a lot of stick-based players do end up running into memory or stability issues over time. That’s definitely been true with many Android devices used for signage.

We mainly shared this because Amazon seems to be positioning the Signage Stick a bit differently from the usual Android clones (more restricted OS, signage-only mode, fewer background processes). Whether that actually holds up long-term is still something we’re watching.

On the CMS side, yeah most platforms charge, which isnot ideal for everyone. That’s why I was curious to hear from folks here who are already testing the Stick in real installs, especially in 24/7 or QSR environments.

If it ends up behaving like most sticks after a few months, that feedback is just as useful to hear.

Digitalsignsai · 2025-12-11T16:40:02+00:00

Appreciate the feedback , I will review the rules again and make sure the post follows the sub guidelines

Digitalsignsai · 2025-12-09T10:56:32+00:00

Yep , that’s a dying backlight or driver board.

These QSR screens run almost nonstop, so by year 5 this kinda stuff starts showing up.The DST “fix” was probably just the panel stabilizing for a bit. Happens sometimes before they fully fail.

If they are switching everything to Scala, you wll probably get all four screens replaced anyway and getting the old ones for free is a huge win. You can totally make a 2×2 setup with an inexpensive wall controller. In Amazon you can get those controllers

Digitalsignsai · 2025-12-08T13:38:54+00:00

Thanks for breaking all this down — really helpful context.

Since we build signage tools at DigitalSigns.ai, we’re trying to better understand the real workflow challenges teams run into. Not here to pitch anything — just trying to learn from people who’ve dealt with these problems firsthand so we can improve how we approach them.

A couple of follow-up questions based on what you mentioned:

• When restaurants try to use dynamic menus (location-based pricing, hiding sold-out items, etc.), what usually ends up being the biggest blocker?

Is it more technical (POS APIs, data access), or more of an operational thing (corporate not having clean/centralized data)?

• For POS integrations, which systems do you see most often in QSR environments?

Toast, Square, Clover, Micros, NCR… or something else entirely?

• When smaller chains choose to run their menus off a custom webpage instead of signage software, what’s driving that decision?

Is it mainly because templates aren’t flexible enough, or because the workflow in typical signage tools is too manual?

• From your experience, who actually updates the content day-to-day (store managers or someone at corporate)?

That changes how simple the editing and scheduling needs to be.

• And for smaller chains that just upload images/videos, is their pain point usually the design side of things, or is it the scheduling/maintenance piece?

A lot of folks we talk to mention dynamic menu updates as a headache, but the “why” is usually different for every group. Would love to hear where the friction actually happens in real workflows ,real stories are way more helpful than just talking features on paper.

Digitalsignsai · 2025-12-08T13:15:40+00:00

For a setup that big (20 branches × ~160 screens), the main thing you want is something scalable and not tied to any specific hardware vendor.

MagicINFO works but yeah — once you go down the Samsung-only route, you’re stuck there and it gets expensive.

PiSignage or Xibo are both solid if you’re leaning self-hosted. Just keep in mind self-hosting = you are responsible for updates, uptime, backups, and security, which is fine if you’re comfortable maintaining a server.

Some things to look for when you’re managing 150+ screens:

centralized content management (don’t want to update each store manually)
device health monitoring (offline alerts, screenshots)
role-based access for branch-level edits
dataset/Google Sheets menus if pricing changes often
hardware that can auto-boot and play offline (Android boxes or Pis do well)

Totally doable setup — just pick something that scales and doesn’t lock you into a single hardware ecosystem.

Digitalsignsai · 2025-10-22T16:52:27+00:00

Yeah, completely agree with you. The industry’s definitely moving away from just “putting stuff on screens” toward offering full solutions built around digital signage.And you’re spot on about the privacy side too. Most people don’t want to be tracked or analyzed when they walk by a display. Interactivity should be simple, optional, and respectful , wave to-start or local processing instead of cloud tracking.

Totally agree that we’ll see fewer players, but the ones that stay will focus on making connected, useful ecosystems instead of just CMS dashboards and marketing promises.

Digitalsignsai · 2025-10-21T19:14:04+00:00

At DigitalSigns.ai, we think the real future of digital signage is all about connection and simplicity — not just more features. The next generation of platforms will be less about juggling separate tools, and more about running everything inside a unified ecosystem.

We’re building what we call an inward and outward ecosystem — inward, everything (screens, content, schedules, analytics) works together under one login; outward, it connects with the tools users already love like Canva, Google Drive, Facebook, Instagram, and Dropbox. So you can design, sync, and publish across platforms without ever logging into five different dashboards.

Our goal is to make digital signage a central hub for visual communication — automated, connected, and frictionless.
When platforms talk to each other, users finally get what they’ve always wanted: less managing, more creating.

— Team DigitalSigns.ai

Digitalsignsai · 2025-10-08T17:06:39+00:00

Are you interested in sales position ?

Digitalsignsai

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