San Jose | As a global media player market leader, Brightsign is a significant hardware provider in the display-dominated digital signage market. Jeff Hastings and Bryan Kennedy explain to invidis how AI, the looming new supply chain crisis, cyber security and sustainability are changing the industry.
In December, with late-summer temperatures, founding CEO Jeff Hastings and Bryan Kennedy, Vice President Business Development, welcomed invidis to Brightsign’s new offices in downtown San Jose. A third of the 140 employees worldwide are based in the Valley and can now experience a modern office ambience. The management invested on getting staff back to the office – a nice office in downtown San Jose should help.
In Silicon Valley, there is currently hardly any other topic than AI and its disruption to various industries. So this topic cannot be missed in the background discussion with the world’s leading digital signage media player provider. Only one other topic is even more important than AI in the short term – the impending punitive tariffs.
The signs are on the wall: Soon, the change in US administration will take place, accompanied by discussions of significant tariff measures. The digital signage industry will most likely quickly also feel the impact of the change of these trade policy changes. Hardware is primarily manufactured in China and Southeast Asia and often assembled in Mexico. Even if Brightsign players are assembled in Vietnam, the components are mostly made in China like nearly every other computing platform today.
At Brightsign, they feel as well prepared as possible. “We have a better supply chain than many IT manufacturers, the US warehouse is full and management follows developments on a daily basis,” says Bryan Kennedy. But uncertainty prevails, facts are still lacking. But invidis could feel a sense of unrest in all our meetings with the digital signage industry in the USA. Even if their own products, software or services would not be directly affected by trade barriers, professional displays and LEDs are most likely be affected by punitive tariffs and this will very likely dampen demand for digital signage.
Limitless AI
AI is everywhere in Silicon Valley – no billboards in San Francisco, no invidis background discussion without AI. The real game changer for digital signage, however, will be on-device AI. Brightsign builds on a separate NPU chip (Neural Processing Unit) that complements the CPU. A big advantage from founder Jeff Hastings’ point of view is the high efficiency of separate CPU and NPU.
Particularly high-performance applications beyond digital signage rely on dedicated GPUs, especially those in cloud computing and other large-scale environments. NPUs are ideal for digital signage, which, when integrated as with Brightsign, only consume a few extra watts. The role of AI on the Edge compared to AI in the cloud will increase significantly for many reasons. For data protection reasons, energy efficiency and speed/user experience – AI on device and AI on Edge are the new megatrends. The fast adoption is also made possible by software solutions on modern, portable tech stacks such as progressive apps that can be easily optimized for local AI.
Cyber Security through Frequent and Long Update Support
How did Brightsign become the world market leader with more than 2 million digital signage players? It won’t have been the purple color of the robust appliances. Here, Jeff Hastings is in his element: cyber security. From his point of view, Brightsign impresses with its own hardened operating system and, compared to SoC systems from other signage providers, with its current browsers.
Hastings addresses an extremely sensitive issue in the digital signage industry with the lack of up-to-dateness of SoC browsers. SoC manufacturers generally do not offer updated Chromium browsers. This means that current SoC screens are sometimes delivered with browser frameworks that are several years old. Stability and long-term compatibility are more important in the B2B world, but most of the new Chromium functions are not required for digital signage but are important to software developers to help them keep the technology stack current.
But browsers have become the most important browser framework and with it cyber security. Digital signage CMS playout engines rely on the browser. Chromium-based browsers are used almost exclusively – whether Samsung Tizen, LG WebOS or the countless Android variants.
Brightsign sees itself as particularly well positioned here, with current updates and invests in regular security audits that have become particularly important to enterprise customers.
Sustainability – Low Power Consumption and Long Life Cycle
Brightsign uses durable aluminum housings with no moving parts for its players, which are delivered with extremely robust power supplies. “Our power supplies are designed for 32,000 operating hours, whereas standard power supplies are designed for less than 10,000 operating hours are common in the industry,” says Hastings
At 10W, Brightsign’s power consumption is very low compared to PCs and other PC type devices. The purple players from San Jose also support Wake on WAN with only 0.5 watts of power consumption. PC players support the same power saving mode in the usually only support Wake-on-LAN. The difference between wake on WAN vs wake on LAN: the wake on WAN allows you to wake up the device from the cloud versus needing to be on the local network.
Wide CMS Compatibility
More than 130 digital signage CMS are compatible with BrightsignOS and the players. Brightsign is growing particularly quickly in the Middle East, India and Southeast Asia. While primarily AV and digital signage integrators have relied on Brightsign so far, IT integrators and specialists from the Cisco ecosystem are increasingly joining as customers. Another sign that digital signage is arriving in the IT mainstream.
