New Product Idea: Cisco Meraki Digital Signage

[PhilipDAth]

@GeorgeB I have just had a brainwave for a new Cisco Meraki product that would also fit your department.

The retail and hospitality sectors are quite big for Cisco Meraki, and I was thinking about things Cisco Meraki does not do yet.  And it struck me, digital signage.  I could picture a Cisco Meraki box the size of an MX65 with one or two HDMI outputs, and it would have Ethernet and WiFi for Internet connectivity.  Perhaps 256GB of flash for pre-positioned content.  If it could run on 30W of PoE+ that would also be excellent.  It would be able to stream video (from third party sources), and play pre-positioned content (which should also have a scheduler).  It would need an API to allow third parties to integrate it with other Meraki components.

It would also be great for "projecting" Cisco Meraki overview pages onto - for monitoring for IT departments.

If it could also be used the "Screen casting" then you could also tie it in with Meraki phones.  Imagine "projecting" the video from a Meraki phone onto a larger screen in a meeting room.  You could also cast a mobile device screen onto it using a protocol like Chromecast.

I could also see it being used in Government for a public safety system.  Lets say you have those road side screens all up over the place and you wanted to update every screen in an area to say their had been an accident.  It could be Merakified.

Or even just for in store retail safety.  Lets say their is a fire - have the screens direct people to leave the building.

And then it struck me - it would also be a brilliant companion for the Meraki Security Cameras.  Imagine saying you want this video wall presented on "that" digital signage display.  This would instantly solve a problem that lots of Meraki cameras users have with wanting permanent video walls.

[PhilipDAth]

Just imagine having a digital signage system monitored by a Meraki Security camera - and using that camera to track the impact of users on what is being displayed (hot spots), or even just using the "simple" WiFi analytics in conjunction.

[mmmmmmark]

That would be awesome Philip! In my last position, we were looking for a digital display vendor and we never found a decent one so we held off. Seeing how Meraki does things though, I can happily say that they'd easily make the short list 🙂

[Uberseehandel]

Faster cheaper better to use an Intel NUC, the impending Hades Canyon can handle up to 6 4K displays. No need to reinvent the wheel.

And with the free time, they can sort out the multicast mess, which has been outstanding for a long time, and release the phones outside North America.

[PhilipDAth]

So tell me the reason use use an MX instead of an Intel NUC?

[Uberseehandel]

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@PhilipDAth wrote:
So tell me the reason use use an MX instead of an Intel NUC?

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??????

[PhilipDAth]

Well an Intel NUC is cheaper than an MX, and you can certainly install firewall software on an Intel NUC - so why would you use a Meraki MX instead of an Intel NUC on your Internet connection?