Strategies for Using Tablets in Digital Signage

The Advantages of Tablets for Digital Signs

But don’t let these negatives or potential negatives casually dissuade you from considering tablets in your digital signage deployment. Tablets can offer many advantages as digital signs:

• A tablet can be significantly less expensive to buy and install than the same-size commercial display: more in the $500, for a device that combines touch screen display, operating system, player, and Wi-Fi, versus something in the $3,000 range.
• Convenience. A tablet is much easier to carry around than even a small display. Even a large tablet with built-in Android hardware and software will be an easier “done in one” to tote than a display plus player (even a player in a Open-Pluggable slot). Similarly, a small tablet can fit in plane/train/taxi seat backs, on shelves and other small spaces.
• Consumer/business tablets are easy to provision repurpose.
• Easy connection. A tablet’s built-in Wi-Fi may avoid the need to provide network cabling. Jim Colquhoun, chief technologist for Avidex, an audio-video reseller and integrator, notes, “In an existing building, the iPad has a self-healing Wi-Fi, and a lot of the tablet computers typically used here aren’t quite as fast and reliable about reconnecting. Apple‘s made that pretty seamless.”
• Digital signage apps available for mobile OS (iOS, Android, Windows).
• A range of sizes. Apple’s iPads currently come in two sizes the regular, with a 9.7-inch (diagonal) display, and the newer iPad mini, with a 7.9-inch display. Android-based tablets, including displays like Viewsonic’s, range from 7 inches to 28 inches.

And, says consultant Alan Brawn, “The big issue with tablets is familiarity. Most everyone is comfortable with the tablet configuration and it also provides a sense of privacy that a large touch screen does not.  One of the coolest designs I have seen to date is one with a large flat panel in the center of a mount and then a pair (one on each side) of tablets that a person can access to enter data. This is a superb melding of large and small, and then add NFC (Near Field Communications) to the equation and QR (Quick Response) codes and you have it all.”

Putting Tablets to Work in Digital Signage

In addition to “brick-and-mortar” locations including medical offices, and locations like hair salons, tablet-based digital signage is very popular at trade shows and events, according to Andrew Chupalio, a partner at OnSpot Social, which develops iPad applications for businesses, including digital-signage apps. “A tablet provides a convenient all-in-one package, in a size good for a small area. It’s easy to change the message quickly, and if you have multiple tablets all with Internet access, you can remotely push digital signage content to them.”

One particularly popular use for tablet-based digital signage, according to Avidex’s Jim Colquhoun, is for room signage, such as in hotels and educational institutions. “Small digital signs are useful for right outside the room, to provide information about what’s happening in the room. And tablets are the right size, much less expensive than a standalone display. [These features along with] iPad’s ‘self-healing’ Wi-Fi are very useful when you want to put these in an existing facility; a lot of other tablets used in these circumstances aren’t as fast or reliable about reconnecting.”

In general, comments Alan Brawn, “According to research, we spend eight hours of each day in front of a screen, and 68 percent of us see digital signage every day. Mobility is the driver of all this, and by thinking outside of the box the tablet can become a great asset in the design of a digital signage system.”