Amazon - Signage Stick – Pro 4K Signage – 16GB - Designed for Businesses, Easy Setup w/ free Mobile App/CMS Compatibility - Black

Its a bit indepth and it sucks you pay 100 dollars for this and still need a subscription in order to utilize it.

Amazon - Signage Stick Pro 4K Signage 16GB Physically this looks like the Amazon Fire TV stick, but has some obvious benefits right out of the box. First it’s truly plug-and-play. The intuitive app walks you through connecting it to your Wi-Fi network (if not already saved on AWS). It offers multiple CMS content management sources so you’re not forever locked into a single provider. There are several CMS to choose from, with various specialties and features. My experience with the one that I tested is that the Free tiers are severely crippled, with image watermarking, standard definition (pay $39/month for 4k), no access to background music playback, as well as requiring a verified phone number. My personal usage is / was intended for a home theater business, particularly digital movie posters in portrait mode with motion and animations (pictured statically). I’ve procured 4200+ posters over the years and was hoping that I could just offload favorites to the Amazon Signage Stick (16 GB), but I found a solution that works much better for my specific needs (but not near the $99 stick price) PROS +tiny footprint +stupidly inexpensive +works out of the box +various CMS choices +dark mode option +secure boot kiosk mode +enhanced contrast text +4k resolution choice platforms CONS -micro-USB vs USC-C -16 GB capacity, but 11.73 after OS -glitchy remote pairing process -device does NOT support portrait mode natively -watermarking on some/most CMS free tiers -PosterMarker subscription required for music playback -unsuccessful for my personal digital movie posters project CONCLUSION This digital display solution can easily and quickly transform any monitor or TV into instant digital signage for a mere $99 per stick. However huge catch is that to truly use the device, it requires a CMS subscription, not all of which look cleanly implemented. The one I tried felt clunky, PosterBoard is $39/month in order to get 4k res or do just about anything useful with it. Depending on your business, restaurant, coffee house, welcome signage, announcements, etc it might make more sense and ease the cost, but it’s tough to justify monthly subscription fees if you just have a single unit and minimal needs. The Amazon Signage stick does what it advertises,, however my use-case was more specialized so I will find another use for this. Recommend BUY, but research and select the proper CMS with the features you will utilize for your business.

First the packaged arrived well organized and it looked like my Amazon stick, yet it has plenty of features for our business. The setup is easy, plug and play just like the Amazon Stick, HDMI connected to our TV while the power can be plugged to an outlet using the plug or if available, we plugged in the TV using the USB A plug and done. Since the device looks and feels like the Amazon Stick, it also has an old micro-USB port instead of a USB C just like many other things, but no big deal here. The signage is compatible with many CMS content management sources, on the other hand I wish I did not have to setup something else, it would have been better if it was somehow built in or perhaps one place to setup and done. Regardless it was easy and fast. Many things can be done with the remote, and the remote is small yet useful to control the main devise. The signage can be customized to what you want to display, and it can help small businesses by displaying what we want our customers to know. I would have liked for the application to be included or a few months free to use since it is not free to use, either way it is a nice way to get our business out there. Overall, it is a great way to use our TVs that are either in the waiting are, or facing our customers in any space, there are some services that our customers did not know we offered until they saw it on the monitor, so great job.

Unboxing and initial setup - This is essentially a "bulletproof" amazon fire stick for signage use only. It is a small form factor "stick" with a quad core CPU, 16GB of storage and Wifi 6E connectivity. I unboxed, plugged it into my test bench display and let it startup. The code to add it to the management account on Amazon was available in about 2 minutes. Remote management setup - Amazon's remote management is currently free to setup and use. Connect the end device to wifi, enter the code and it's online in seconds. You can then pair with your favorite CMS provider to setup and manage content. I use Ablesign (Free) for setup, evaluation and testing. Results- Of course I could not resist torture testing by creating a deck with tons of 4k Video clips, intensive website loads and a few static content pages thrown in. The sign stick handled it all without any glitches / display issues nor did it the device heat up on long 4K video plays. Overall - Great performance and tiny size will put this device into consideration for workplace use. What I love ! Survives repeated power pulls, full remote management, remote restore and reimage supported. Incredibly easy to manage, scan the code or enter the ID - Done ! High performance for 4k Video playback with huge local storage. Room for improvement - For commercial use - a wifi antenna port would be a nice addition to keep this secured with a display when surrounded mostly by steel versus having to "remote" the unit and run a cable to an enclosed display. I could not find a way to remotely "hard set" the display resolution. This can be done with the included remote but it requires a physical presence.

PRODUCT REVIEWED Amazon - Signage Stick – Pro 4K Model: B0D4FCG9MX QUICK REVIEW An easy rock-solid way for professional signage on any TV – Plug in the Stick, follow the prompts REVIEW The Amazon Signage Stick is great for creating professional displays that are easy to setup and manage. For the price, it can’t be beat. The results are professional looking and turnkey / bullet-proof. You can also decide if you want to your content to be online or offline or a combination of both. I recommend having some “local content” as a backup in case your internet fails for example. In short it just works. SETUP Setup is pretty straight forward, just follow the prompts. The learning curve is not with the stick but with the CMS (Content Management Software) that you select. Plug in the stick to an HDMI port and power supply, then create an Amazon Signage account to manage the device. During the setup process you will be asked for which CMS you have chosen to use. Most of the CMS systems have a free option for you to experiment with, which I suggest you do before you setup the stick. CMS software is used to create the playlist / content for the stick. (like a slide show). NOTE: If you change your mind on CMS software you must complete a full factory reset on the stick and unauthorize the stick from your Amazon Signage Account. (both of which can be completed easily from the web based Amazon Signage Management Console. I could not figure out how to do with the remote control and the stick itself. After the reset, they you are starting over from scratch. PROS • Turnkey once setup • Seems like a more reliable solution than PC based signs • Support from Amazon • Works with all major CMS systems MINOR TOPICS • Wish it had USB-C instead of Micro-USB • Wish it had a USB input for easier use with touch screens • I could not get the CMS systems I tested to recognize it as 4K, so my screens were 1080 but that was probably a limit of my free CMS accounts, I’m sure there is a way to get 4K, I just did not spend a lot of time trying to figure it out. • Wish it was easier to have installed more than one CMS or toggle between them. • Seems crazy to me that you have to do a full factory reset on the stick to change CMS systems, but it works. SUMMARY If you want a bulletproof simple turnkey solution, this makes a great sign app for any TV. I do recommend it.