Screenly.io OSE

Feb 2019

I like the idea of Echo Show and the Google Hub. It is a quick look at the weather and what is my day's agenda. What I am not crazy about is what I might be giving up for convenience. (Google says 'hidden' microphone in Nest product never intended to be a secret) What I really want to know is if my kids need lunch and to wear their school t-shirt. In other words, they are overkill for what I need.

I did some research and found lots of great ideas. I narrowed it down to two. The first is the "Magic Mirror". It is simple and meets my needs. I can skip the mirror part pretty easily. The other option I landed on was digital signage. I had some experience updating the content on the Navori player at work. I read and understood the concept of what AEM Screens was about. I ended up finding Screenly. What I liked about digital signage was the offline option. I wouldn't have to run a constant connection to the internet if I wanted to cycle through some photos, or an inspiring message. The best part, they support the open source community with an OSE version.

This isn't going to be a "how to" article. The instructions were very straightforward. You can read more about Screenly's OSE version here: https://www.screenly.io/ose/. I ended up using the grabbing the release: https://github.com/screenly/screenly-ose/releases and installing the image via etcher https://www.balena.io/etcher/