# Digital signage for hotels and hospitality Running hotel lobby boards, function-room and meeting-room signs, guest information and restaurant boards on screens played from the screen's own browser, rescheduled from a phone at the front desk. Source: https://channelos.tv/industries/hotels-and-hospitality ## What runs it ChannelOS plays as a web page in the browser the screen already has: Android TV, Google TV, webOS, Fire TV, a Chromebox, or a laptop in kiosk mode on the HDMI port. There is also a native Android TV app, downloaded as an APK from channelos.tv rather than from Google Play. There is no media player box to buy and no per-device licence. ## What goes on the screen - **Function-room and event signs.** The room name, the event, the host and the time, on the screen outside the door. Reschedule it from the front desk and the door sign changes in seconds. - **Lobby and welcome boards.** Today's events, the weather, checkout time, the wifi name. One board that stops being four printed cards taped to a desk. - **Restaurant and bar boards.** Breakfast through to the late menu on one channel, each board placed on the hours it belongs to, so the screen swaps service periods with nobody in the building. - **Guest information in corridors and lifts.** Spa hours, gym access, where the ice machine is. The questions reception answers forty times a day, answered once on a screen. ## When ChannelOS is the wrong answer ChannelOS does not talk to a property management system. It will not pull arrivals out of Opera, Mews or Cloudbeds, it does not drive in-room TV menus or guest messaging, and it has no folio or room-charge anything. If the requirement is a lobby board whose event list is generated from the PMS, buy a hospitality signage product with that integration and expect to pay for it. ChannelOS fits the hotel that wants its public screens to be current and good-looking, and is content for a human at the front desk to be the one who changes them. ## Questions ### What is digital signage for hotels? Hotel digital signage means running lobby boards, function-room door signs, restaurant boards and guest information on screens rather than printed cards and easel signs. In ChannelOS each one is a real editable show played by the browser inside the screen, scheduled onto a channel with its own timeline, so a board can change service period on the clock and a door sign can be rewritten from the front desk in under a minute. ### Can we change a function-room sign at short notice? Yes, and this is the case ChannelOS is actually shaped for. The editor has a real phone build, so the duty manager rewrites the sign on a phone while standing in the corridor, and the screen picks the change up in seconds because it derives what it shows from the schedule in real time. There is no publish step, no file to re-upload and nothing to walk round and restart. ### Does it integrate with our PMS? No. There is no integration with Opera, Mews, Cloudbeds or any other property management system, and no in-room TV or guest-messaging capability. If your event board has to be generated from the PMS, that is a genuine reason to buy a hospitality-specific signage platform instead. ChannelOS is the lighter answer when a person is happy to type what is on today. ### How do we run several hotels from one account? Screens tune into a channel rather than being loaded one at a time, so a group board that is the same at every property is one channel every site subscribes to, while each property keeps its own channels for its own function rooms. Edit the group board once and every property shows it. The screens board tells you what each site is playing at that moment, which is usually the first question when somebody asks whether the promo went up. ### What hardware does a hotel need? The screens you already have, in most cases. ChannelOS plays in the browser built into Android TV, Google TV, webOS and Fire TV displays, and there is a native Android TV app as well, downloaded as an APK from our own site rather than from Google Play. An old screen with no usable browser takes any cheap HDMI stick, which is a browser you are buying rather than a signage appliance, so no per-device licence comes attached to it. ### How much does hotel digital signage cost? The first screen is free forever, and additional screens are billed per screen per month at the rates on the pricing page. Free screens show a ChannelOS banner that opens into a full slide about every two minutes, so a guest-facing lobby screen is normally a reason to be on a paid plan. Nothing is charged per player device, because there is no player device. ## Related - [Many screens, one channel](https://channelos.tv/blog/manage-many-screens-with-channels): How a second property costs no extra work once the board is on a channel. - [Lobby and welcome screens](https://channelos.tv/use-cases/lobby-and-welcome-screens): What a lobby board should hold, and the four printed cards it replaces. - [Broadcast controls](https://channelos.tv/blog/broadcast-controls-for-your-screens): Taking over every screen at once, and putting them back on schedule afterwards. - [Android TV signage](https://channelos.tv/android-tv-digital-signage): The native app, and when installing it beats pointing the built-in browser at the player URL.