Interrupt Signagelive for interactivity

Historically, Digital Signage has been a passive medium. You send content to a Display and the audience watch it as they go about their business. Now, with the new ‘interrupts’ feature incorporated into Signagelive you can make your displays respond to their environment turning them from passive to interactive Digital Signage.

Having provided Touchscreen Kiosk solutions since 1994 prior to conception of Digital Signage, it was only a matter of  time that we would see the ‘lines blurred’ and convergence between traditional Kiosk applications and Digital Signage. If you have visited any of the major Kiosk or Digital Signage trade shows in the last 12 months you will have seen the major Display manufacturers all adding Touchscreen options to their large format displays, right up to the 103″ Panasonic Plasma Display with U-Touch overlplay providing Microsoft Surface style multi-touch capabilities.

With the upward trend for Interactive Digital Signage, Signagelive has been enhanced to ensure our end users and partners can capitalise on the latest Touchscreen Displays all from within the standard Signagelive platform (with no extra costs).

But Interactivity does not have to start or stop with Touchscreen interaction, Signagelive enables a vast arrplay of interrupts to be created allowing for an unlimited combination of solutions to be created. Basically, if a third party device or component can send a signal, then this can be setup and recognised by Signagelive and programmed to respond how you require.

This concept may seem daunting at first given the vast possibilities available, so to assist you to think of how the interrupts feature can be used I have listed a few example applications with links where apicable.

• SKY Retail – utilise Signagelive interrupts to control the functionality of the Passive and Touchscreen Displays installed at their Westfield Shopping Centre, London, UK installation. On the Touchscreens Signagelive recognises a touch and pauses the scheduled content before seamlessly switching to a secure internet browser with virtual keyboard to capture customer information. In addition, 57″ Samsung DXN LCD Displays with integrated PC’s are installed in Portrait and at the press of a concealed button the content switches from running scheduled media content to displaying live Sky HD content streamed using IPTV.
• Estee Lauder – using the Signagelive interrupt feature, Estee Lauder have installed a RFID enabled Point of Sale displplay for their ‘Lab Series Product for Men’. Each Lab Series product has a unique RFID tag located on each same product and a RFID ate is located under the shelf on which the products are located. On picking up a product, Signagelive will pause the scheduled attract media content being displayed and play the media content programmed to respond to the individual RFID tag for the product that has been picked up.

In addition to the above applications, other uses of the Signagelive interrupt feature include:

• Sensor triggered content – in addition to RFID, Signagelive can be programmed to respond to a whole range of sensors including: Proximity sensors to trigger content when peoe walk past a Display; Contact sensors such as those used to open the door on a bus; Temperature sensors to change content based on the ambient temperature in the environment (show adverts for ice cream when warm, soup when cold).
• Audience Measurement Systems – Signagelive can work with the latest Audience Measurement Systems to change content being displayed based on the gender of the person viewing the Display or the total number of viewers.
• GPS location tracking – the Signagelive interrupt feature is in use on moving vehicles such as Buses and Taxis where content is displayed based on the physical location of the vehicle. This allows for local advertising and public information to be location specific, for example, advertise the latest BMW as the vehicle approaches the BMW Dealership or promote a Reading Club as the vehicle approaches the local library.

The above should hopefully give you a taste of what the latest Signagelive interrupt functionality has to offer. Feel free to get in touch if you require any further information or want to discuss how you can incorporate Signagelive interrupts within your next project.