Android v4.4.105 was recently released and has new features:

  1. Support for MRSS feature (coming soon in the Studio)
  2. Support for data expression (data connected labels) in ticker widget records
  3. Support in dynamic RFID events

Data expression

Now you can use data expressions in the ticker widget (which has multiple lines/records), in the same way you use it in the label widget. To remind you how the data expression works, please read this article.

Dynamic RFID digital signage

Dynamic RFID events

Till now, when you wanted to create a playlist which has creatives that are triggered by RFID events (or other events, such as barcode), you had to set each creative to be triggered by a certain event.
Now, there is a new feature which allows you to do it in a dynamic way. How does it work?
The RFID reader (connected to your Android TV box with USB cable) sends a keyboard event to the Android box once you place a product on the RFID reader. The keyboard event is the product code, followed by Enter key.
Then, NoviSign’s app gets the product ID and send the product ID to your web server (predefined in the app) which gets that product ID and immediately responds with an event (actually event value). The event value which comes from your web server goes to the NoviSign app on the TV box. If the app has a creative that may be triggered by that event, it will trigger it and that creative will appear on the running playlist.
But that’s not all, to make it more dynamic, the response from your web server can bring some more data in the event_data response. You can add, for example a URL, and then in the triggered creative you can put a webpage widget with a data expression in its URL property, like this: ${ID.url}, so the the displayed website will actually be chosen on the spot, by the response from the server! This way you just use one creative and one or more events, but with many options for displaying different websites.
In the above example you should have a website that can get the request and send a response. In that example, there was a data event key called “url“.
Last note: if the RFID code is not in the list which you have in the web server, then the RFID code will be counted as the event value itself for the app (and in that case, if you have set a creative to be triggered by that event, it will be triggered).

How do you configure this in the Android player app?

  • You should have an RFID reader with few RFID passive tags (to be attached to products).
  • You should have a web server with a service that was programmed to respond to those requests from our app. It should have a table there (which you can edit) that binds product RFID codes (as they are in the RFID tags) to event names (as they are in NoviSign’s system).
  • You should build content – a playlist which has creatives that are set to be triggered by events.
  1. Enter the app’s settings (click the gear icon in the top right corner of the entrance screen).
  2. Scroll down to the “Advanced” block of settings.
  3. Turn on the “RFID Reader” setting, in order to allow the app to accept keyboard events.
  4. Access the “IoT Remote Events” submenu. You will have 4 settings there:
    * Enable Remote Events – Turn it on.
    * Event Name Prefix – The default is “ALL”. no need to change it. It can only filter the product code to be sent to the web server.
    * Custom Remote Events API URL – Set here the URL of your web server for responding to the app (the cloud that should respond with events).
    * Integration API Key – If the cloud’s API requires a key (will be sent in the header as api-key), this is where you should type it.
  5. Right click 3 times to exit the settings.
  6. Press “Go” in the entrance screen to run your playlist.

Sounds like this is for pro? You’re right. This is a feature for retail PROs.
Nir