What are the top 10 Digital Signage apps to use on your platform? [+VIDEO]
The top apps being used on Signagelive today
Creating content for your digital signage can be overwhelming. Unless you have an arts degree and an expensive software solution, you could find that you’re running old content pretty quickly.
If you haven’t already, take a look at What is good content for digital signage
Luckily there are hundreds of apps that can alleviate some of that pain and take the heavy lifting out of creating your content. Apps like YouTube, News and Infotainment apps already have the design work done and just leaves you with the simple task of picking which one works best for you.
We’ve taken a dig into our App store to look at what apps are being used the most by our users.
Here’s our top 10!
Number 10 – Room Booking
When are we meeting and where?
With the built-in Room Booking app, each location can display current and upcoming meetings. With the right hardware, these can also be interacted with on location. This gives users the ability to book meetings immediately or for a future date. The Room Booking app gives you the ability to connect to either Google Calendar or Office 365.
Perfect for: Commercial locations, Schools or Event locations who are looking to manage their meeting spaces.
Number 9 – Weather
It’s everyone’s favourite discussion topic!
Displaying weather is a no-brainer. The Weather app gives your viewer at-a-glance weather updates, allowing them to plan their day. From a content management perspective, it’s simple to set up and MOST importantly, it’s a great tool to engage your viewers with the rest of your content on the screen. With a range of designs and options to choose from, you can find a version that works well with your existing layout and branding.
Perfect for: Commercial locations, Schools and anywhere that has outdoor events. Stadiums are a perfect example of where the weather app can shine.
Number 8 – Clocks
Who doesn’t want to know what the time is?
Like weather, Clocks are a simple set-up, no brainer addition to your digital signage. EVERYONE needs to know what time it is. Clocks don’t need to take up much space on your screen to become visible, even just a small clock in the corner will keep your viewers turning their attention to the screen and glancing at the latest content. A word of warning though. We always suggest keeping a clock on the screen at all times if you do decide to do this. Nobody will wait for your playlist to loop around again to find out what the time is.
Perfect for: Almost anything!
Number 7 – Power BI
Key information to your business
Power BI is the first App on our list that’s a little more niche when it comes to usage. If you’re dealing with a restaurant or education centre, you probably aren’t going to be needing this one. HOWEVER, if you’re running a commercial business where displaying your latest statistics to your employees is of benefit to you, the Power BI App is a must-have. The Power BI App provides real-time updates on your forecasting to your employees. Not only will it update from its source automatically, it will keep your staff up to date with their targets and achievements. (Notable alternatives also support: Grow and Geckoboard).
Perfect for: Corporate environments or Sales teams looking to keep up to date with their targets.
Number 6 – Google Sheets
The swiss army knife of information
Google’s free alternative to Office 365’s Excel, Google Sheets can be used to display almost any kind of data you’re looking to display. It may not be quite as fancy as something like Power BI but what you lose in design, you gain in versatility. We utilise Google Sheets to power a range of different applications too, such as the Google Sheet driven Menu Boards. Google sheets can easily be added to a playlist of other content such as images and videos to provide information to the viewer.
Perfect for: Anyone looking to deliver data e.g. stock information, current timetable schedules, Warehouse production information. It’s also perfect for those looking to house data to be delivered to a more visually friendly application (development required).
Number 5 – Media RSS
Don’t double up your workload
It may be surprising to see Media RSS feed ranking so high on our list when we’ve been talking about content that’s somewhat self-sustaining. For those who don’t know, MRSS feeds allow you to manage, update and distribute content from a single location on your intranet or the cloud, automatically!. “Why would I need that?” you may ask. Well, if you’re already hosting the content in a folder somewhere for another reason i.e. so staff can go and grab an image when they need it, why double your efforts and have it managed in the platform too. Media RSS gives you the best of both worlds and can also save time on training if your staff are already familiar and using the simple folder structure.
Perfect for: Enterprise or corporate networks with a pre-existing “media bucket” on their intranet or cloud storage.
Number 4 – Google Slides
Keep it simple
Another Google product makes its mark for digital signage. Google slides (the Google alternative to PowerPoint) does what you would expect it to do, create slides of content you wish to display. Now you may wonder why you might need this tool if your CMS platform can already do this. The answer is simple. For smaller businesses with limited staff or time to train their employees, incorporating Google slides into their content may make the experience simpler for them. We often see this tool being used best in conjunction with some other other apps we’ve mentioned so far, to make sure you’re getting the most from your signage.
Perfect for: Small businesses looking to keep their training simple for content managers while being used in tandem with other assets.
THE TOP 3!
Number 3 – Web-Pages
All the options in the world
When we talk about web-pages, we could be talking about a myriad of different solutions. You could simply deliver your www. page and call it a day, however, with the ability to use embed code or, for something really cutting edge, a custom-developed HTML5 Application. The ability to deliver content this way allows you to integrate motion and data and optionally, allows you to store this information locally.
Perfect for: Large companies looking to create a purpose built application that can be delivered to multiple devices.
Number 2 – News
Read all about it
It’s no surprise that News takes our number two spot. With professionally crafted verbiage and images to add to your signage, News gives you the ability to keep your screen up to date with minute-by-minute updates on World News, Entertainment, Financial and many more options. News can perfectly compliment your direct communication but attracting your viewers to the screen and delivering the information you want them to see.
Perfect for: Waiting room, Corporate reception areas and anywhere with a wait time!
Number 1 – YouTube
All the content in the world at your fingertips
Don’t get us wrong, Uploading your own video will always be the most preferred way to manage your content. With your own content, you have full control and it can be stored locally on the device, however, for those who need to add extra content, YouTube can’t be beaten. You can select a single video, Search for a playlist or just a search term (if you’re feeling adventurous).
YouTube videos can seamlessly integrate with your own content to create a varied range of videos on one playlist.
Perfect for: Anyone! (as long as you have fast and stable internet).
Final thoughts:
We’ve looked at the top ten apps but there are still lots of apps we haven’t covered. We’re continuously looking to update and expand the library of apps available free-of-charge and we’re always looking for the most requested apps we don’t have.
If you would like to speak to us about any apps you would like to see on the list, contact us below
