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 1. OptiSigns
 2. How-To
 3. Advanced Topics


OPTISIGNS IOT SENSOR ADD-ON - QUICK START
FOLLOW

Paul Lai
November 30, 2023

OptiSigns IoT Sensor Add-on allow you to use any IoT sensors that work with
serial communication to interact with your digital signage screens. With IoT
Sensor Addon, you can:

 1. Detect, Monitor sensor data about the surroundings, such as people presence,
    temperature/humidity, object liftup/placedown. 
 2. Responsively display different content based on the sensor event that was
    received by the player connected to the screen.
 3. Send command to other IoT devices to control its behavior, e.g. turn on the
    atmosphere light, turn on/off the screen monitor.

OptiSigns IoT sensor Add-on require Enterprise plan, and it supports Windows,
Linux , MacOS, BrightSigns Player, and OptiSigns pre-configured Android Stick.

A wide range of use cases can be supported with IoT sensors.  This youtube video
shows how it supports the lift and learn use cases using Nexmosphere sensor.

 

 




 


QUICK START GUIDE TO USE OPTISIGNS IOT SENSOR ADD-ON:

In this guide, we will use a temperature sensor with Arduino board to
demonstrate how it works. The temperature sensor will send data in its own
format to OptiSigns player through serial communication. The temperature data
can be displayed on the screen in realtime, and when the defined condition met,
the screen content will change to show overheat status. 



To set up the IoT sensor app, we will need:

 1. Set up the serial communication channel.
 2. Set up IoT sensor Add-on app to define the condition so that the player
    knows when to change the content.
 3. Activate the IoT sensor on the screen and assign the IoT sensor addon app to
    it.

From there you can modify the set up to fit your need.


1. SET UP SERIAL COMMUNICATION CHANNEL.

In the admin settings, expand Advanced and go to External Communications (RS232)
page. You can also go the the page using the link below.
https://app.optisigns.com/app/s/external-coms



Click Add New in the Connections tab to bring up the connection creation page,
where you can define the parameters for the serial communication. In this case,
we use Braud rate 9600 for the communication with Arduino board. When work with
Nexmosphere sensors, the baud rate is always 115200.

Save the connection once the configuration is complete and then it is ready for
use. Please note, different systems will organize the serial port differently,
on windows, it is normally like "COM3", whereas on Linux, it is normally like
"/dev/ttyUSB0" or "/dev/ttyACM0". On Brightsigns player, it is normally "1" or
"2". On OptiSigns preconfigured Android sticks, you can put "USB0" there.

Also note, both Arduino board and Nexmosphere controller are using USB port,
please make sure the media player you use comes with USB port.



2. SET UP IOT SENSOR ADD-ON APP

IoT sensor app is only available with enterprise plan, to use it you will need
to contact OptiSigns support team to upgrade to enterprise plan. After that, you
can select the app and bring up the app configuration page.



 



 

You can see how the asset is set up:

 * Play for at least: when triggered, the app will play the content
   corresponding to play rule for at least X seconds. (Default is 3s)
 * Rest for: when the triggering condition is not met, the device will resume
   playing the content assigned to it for at least X seconds (Default is 3s) 

We recommend to keep Play for at least and Rest for at 3s, to give smooth
feeling experience when in cases the triggering events are received and met
frequently.

 * Play rules: set content you want to play corresponding to trigger event: i.e.
   you received a specific code from the sensor. In this case, when the serial
   command received from the sensor is "TOOHOT30", it will play the asset "Heat
   Sensor - Overheat State". 

Depending on the use cases, there are 2 more optional settings available. 

 * Commands: if you need to send out commands to sensors instead of just
   receiving commands from sensors, you can use this option to achieve it. For
   example, when you received overheated status from the heat sensor, instead of
   just show the warning on the screen, you also want to send commands to turn
   on a warning light, you can specify the commands you need to send out here.
 * "</>" - processing rule: In the case, the sensor is sending you data
   following a certain standard and you will need to process the value to
   determine the triggering event,you can use the processing rules to achieve
   it. The processing rule is just a Javascript based function, where you can
   apply the needed logic to process the incoming command and derive the needed
   result. In this example, the Ardunio board will send the temperature data
   from the sensor in a string, the processing rule will extract the temperature
   value and determine when "TOOHOT30" command will be returned to trigger the
   event.



 


3. ASSIGN THE IOT SENSOR ADD-ON APP TO THE SCREEN

After above steps, go to Screen Management, click Edit the screen you want to
add this Add-on to.
Click Advanced -> More IoT Sensor Add-on Activate.

On the screen, you should also select the standard content that should be played
on the screen in the normal, in this case we use the "Heat Sensor - Normal"
asset that display the standard content and also data from temperature sensor in
realtime.

Once IoT Sensor Addon is activated, you can assign the IoT sensor Add-on app
that was created earlier, in this case it is called "Sensor". And also select
the sensor connection that was created in the first step, in this case it is
"Arduino - Win". Since we are only recieving commands from sensors, we will
leave the sensor commands template as "None".





 

Now you have completed all the needed configurations to use the IoT sensors
addon, just connect the sensors and controller to your screen(media player),
then you are ready to go. In this case, the screen will play the standard
content like the one on the left with real time data from the temperature
sensor, and when the temperature surpasses 30 degrees in Celsius, it will
trigger the overheat content on the screen like the one on the right. 



 

That's all!

This is how you can use OptiSigns IoT Sensor Add-on.

If you have any additional questions, concerns or any feedback about OptiSigns,
feel free to reach out to our support team at support@optisigns.com or
just submit a ticket.




ARTICLES IN THIS SECTION

 * How to consume API and publish the API data on the screen
 * Advanced Playlist Item Playback Control & Campaign Management
 * Update OptiSigns player on OptiSigns Pro Player via script
 * How to Use The Asset Tag Features in The Playlist
 * How to use the External Storage on your device
 * How to Control and Schedule Playlist Items
 * How to Customize the Thumbnail of Files, Assets, and Folders
 * How to Configure Multi-Factor Authentication with your OptiSigns account.
 * How to use OptiSigns Auto Provisioning Template on ChromeOS
 * Event logging and analytics for External Communication(RS-232)

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