BrightSign® digital media players create captivating experiences that educate, entertain, inform, and inspire. Powerful enough for professionals yet easy to use, BrightSign players and BrightSignOS™ deliver brilliant performance, unrivaled security, and legendary reliability out-of-the-box. Whether you are powering one screen or thousands, there’s a BrightSign player for you.
We’ve been selling BrightSign products for over twenty years. They have always been affordable, reliable, and a simple solution for lobby displays, digital signage systems, and so forth. With the plethora of information and media that organizations want to share with their customers and employees, we are seeing a large uptick in the number of systems. We wanted to give you a brief overview to the BrightSign Ecosystem so you can help choose the right hardware and software for your specific need.
Complete information and resources are available on BrightSign’s website: https://www.brightsign.biz/
Here’s a quick explanation of recent BrightSign changes to their software and cloud offerings:
BrightAuthor:connected is their current player setup and provisioning software, as well as content creation software. It is available for both Mac and PC. It is a replacement for the original BrightAuthor.
BrightSignOS is the software/firmware that runs on the player itself. It can be updated using BrightAuthor:connected.
BrightAuthor is the legacy software supporting some older models of BrightSign players. It functions similarly to the connected variant, but is not cloud aware.
Here is a download link for these three: https://www.brightsign.biz/resources/software-downloads/
Controlcloud is a free network-based setup, health monitoring, and provisioning software available for all current BrightSign players. It works in conjunction with BrightAuthor:connected to streamline the remote setup, (re)provisioning, and management of players. However, it does not push content to the players. It is setup and monitoring only. It is really a subset of the BSN.cloud subscription cloud service.
BSN.cloud is BrightSign’s cloud player and content management platform. Currently, it is $99 / player / year. What a bargain! It provides varying levels of real-time player controls and remote management, allowing you to maintain secure, scalable services for your digital signage network – anytime, anywhere.
Here is a link to download these items and even get a 30 day free trial of BSN.cloud: https://www.brightsign.biz/brightsign-players/software/
If your needs and requirements are beyond what BSN.cloud has to offer, don’t worry. BrightSign partners with over 100 content management partners for content management, cloud, kiosk & fixtures, and the many other applications for BrightSign products. Here is a complete list of partners: https://www.brightsign.biz/partners/
Pro Tip – How to Setup Your BrightSign Player for the first time.
We learned this handy tip from our awesome BrightSign rep. Follow these steps to make any future management/re-provisioning of your BrightSign player a breeze:
- After unboxing and connection to your monitor, DO NOT plug in the player. Instead, download BrightAuthor:connected to your Mac or PC.
- Start up BrightAuthor:connected. If you don’t have a login and network name, then create them.
- Log in to the app (and your BrightSign network).
- Go into the Admin panel and create a setup for your player(s). This defines how the player will get its content.
- Pick your player setup, i.e. how will it receive its content?
- Pick your CMS (Content Management System) from the Partner App selection. This will point your player(s) at the appropriate URL.
- Now is a good time to update the player firmware, i.e. the BrightSignOS – On the right-hand side of the device set-up page, select BrightSignOS update and choose latest released under your specific player.
- Save this setup to an microSD card, and/or into your setup library.
- In the Provision tab, tie the player’s serial number to the network. This allows you to re-provision the player at a later date without having to physically access it.
- Take the microSD card out of your computer, insert it into the new player, then power up the player.
- Your BrightSign will take a few minutes to provision and you will see it under the Dashboard tab of BrightAuthor:connected.
