Blog
Creating the Perfect Atmosphere with Bar Digital SignageAugust 30, 2024
No SD cards, no scripts, no auto-start hacks
A Raspberry Pi can run a screen, until the SD card corrupts, an update breaks auto-start, or it overheats behind the TV. The Display NOW Edge Player is a commercial signage player that comes with our cloud software in one plan.
Based on 38 reviews
in minutes
via Google Workspace
& Azure AD
+ cloud software
in one plan
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Display NOW founder and CEO Chris Dukich understood that firsthand.
“I created Display NOW because I had a basic need for signage to communicate announcements to residents in a condo building. I didn’t want to pay the ridiculous prices that other providers charge. I tried to go the ‘free’ route, but I ended up coming home to blank screens and putting in hours each month just keeping them alive.
Business owners and managers face rising costs every year, and ‘free’ looks attractive when you’re trying to keep things lean. But our competitors use ‘free’ plans as glorified trials. Limited screens, watermarked content, missing features, all designed to push you to upgrade. Free often costs more than paying a reasonable price when you add up the downtime, the support tickets, and the hours you spend keeping it running.
We built Display NOW with the goal of being the number one best value on the market. We have a free plan for people who genuinely need a basic solution, with real features, not a trial. And for everyone else, we built the Edge Player so you never have to worry about hardware again.”
Founder & CEO, Display NOW
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Printed notices and screens that go dark cost more than they look. Here’s what reliable signage is worth.
say signage improves staff engagement
With 43% reporting a significant uplift. Source: ScreenCloud / Google Chrome OS, State of Digital Signage 2023–2024 (n=2,400)
message recall rate
Nearly half of employees and visitors who passed a digital sign were able to recall the specific message it displayed. Source: Arbitron Digital Video Display Study
of workers
say information on digital screens enhances their productivity at work. Source: ScreenCloud / Google Chrome OS, State of Digital Signage 2023–2024
The board is cheap. The case, power supply, SD card, cooling and hours of setup and upkeep are where the cost really lives.
Constant writes wear out SD cards, and a corrupted card means a blank screen and a re-image. The Edge Player runs on 32GB of built-in eMMC storage instead.
Kiosk scripts and browser flags work until an OS update changes something. The Edge Player boots straight into Display NOW, with no scripts to maintain.
VPNs, SSH and port forwarding just to see what a screen is doing. Display NOW shows every screen’s status in one dashboard, and on Business Edge we can remote into the player to fix it.
Different images, different versions, different fixes. Business Edge puts the same commercial player behind every screen, covered by a 3-year warranty with replacement.
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Display NOW gives you the cloud dashboard, scheduling and remote management you were scripting yourself, plus a player that’s built for it.
4K HDR playback at 60fps. 4GB of RAM and 32GB of storage, built for signage content, not a hobby board.
Watchdog auto-recovery. If the player hangs, it recovers itself in under 60 seconds.
Offline cold-start playback. Screens keep playing cached content even if the network is down when the player boots.
Manage every screen from one dashboard. Schedule playlists, group screens and see what’s playing from anywhere.
Some features, including remote device access and BI dashboard integrations, are available on specific plans. See pricing for what’s included at each tier.
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Your Daily Loop: done-for-you content, refreshed every day
Common-area screens are the hardest to keep fresh. Nobody owns them, so nothing gets updated, and the screen ends up showing the same slide from six months ago.
Your Daily Loop fills that gap. Professionally curated programming updates automatically every day. Your team sets it once and doesn't touch it again.
Available as an add-on. See pricing for details.
Hundreds of professionally designed templates. Swap in your logo, update colors and copy, and publish to every screen. No designer needed.
Announcements
Events and Calendars
Seasonal Campaigns
Welcome Screens
Wayfinding and Navigation
Already designing in Canva? You can easily save media right to Display NOW with our integration.
Save from Canva to Manager
Plug the Edge Player into any TV or display with an HDMI port, connect it to Wi‑Fi, and enter the pairing code.
Sign in with Google or Microsoft. Start from a template, save from Canva, or upload your own. Most teams have their first screen live in under ten minutes.
Publish once and every selected screen updates in seconds. Change it from your laptop or phone, wherever you are.
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Try Display NOW free for 14 days, then plug in an Edge Player and retire the Pi. Business Edge includes the player, free shipping and a 3-year warranty with replacement.
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For screens that need to run all day, yes. The Edge Player is a commercial signage player with 4K HDR playback, built-in eMMC storage instead of an SD card, watchdog auto-recovery, and offline playback. It boots straight into Display NOW, so there are no scripts to maintain.
No. Display NOW doesn’t run on Raspberry Pi. Replace the Pi with an Edge Player, which is included with Business Edge, or use the free Display NOW app on a supported device you already own.
Any TV or monitor with an HDMI port. The Edge Player, included with Business Edge, is a commercial signage player built to run 24/7. Already have a supported device? Display NOW’s other plans run on it with the free Display NOW app.
The Edge Player is included with the Business Edge plan, with free shipping and a 3-year warranty with replacement. See our pricing page for current plan pricing.
Yes. Get 14 days of full access to the entire digital signage platform, no credit card required. Test it with real screens and real content so you know exactly what you're getting before committing. Need more time? We almost always extend the trial on request. Just reach out.
Yes. Display NOW lets you manage unlimited digital signage screens from a single dashboard, regardless of their location. Group your displays by site, department, or content type, and push different content to different screens simultaneously, all from one cloud-based digital signage CMS without switching between accounts or tools.
Yes. Schedule content by time of day, day of week, or a custom date range, so the right message shows at the right time without anyone touching a screen.
Display NOW supports images, videos, slideshows, live weather, news feeds, social media walls, Google Slides, Canva designs, YouTube, Vimeo, web pages, and more. If you can view it on a screen, there's a good chance our digital signage software can display it.
No. Display NOW includes an AI-powered design tool and a library of ready-made digital signage templates built for specific industries. If you already use Canva, we have a full Canva integration that makes saving designs to Display NOW as easy as a few clicks. Your team can have professional-looking content ready in minutes — no design experience, no agency, no extra budget required.
Your screens keep playing. DisplayNow caches images, videos, and PDFs locally on the device, so if your internet connection drops, that content types continue running without interruption. Live web content, social feeds, and other internet-dependent sources will pause until connectivity is restored, as they require an active connection by nature. Once you're back online, your digital signage displays sync automatically with any new content or schedule changes with no manual action needed.
