It depends on where the pictures live. If your screens stream from the internet as they play, they go blank when the Wi-Fi drops. If each screen keeps its own copy, it keeps playing and catches up when the connection comes back. Here’s how to tell which you have, and how to test it before Sunday does.
Streaming screens go blank; screens that hold their files don’t
Church Wi-Fi has a hard job. On a weekday it’s fine. On Sunday morning a few hundred phones join at once, the projector laptop starts a download, and the network slows or drops, usually right when the service starts.
How a screen behaves then comes down to one question: where are the pictures it shows?
- On the internet. The screen fetches each picture as it plays it, like a web page. When the connection goes, there’s nothing to fetch, so it shows a spinner, an error, or nothing at all, in front of the room.
- On the device. The screen has already downloaded everything it needs. When the connection goes, it keeps showing what it has. It only needs the internet to get changes.
Displayte works the second way. Each Apple TV keeps the presentations it’s been given. If the Wi-Fi drops, it keeps playing what it already has, and anything you change reaches it once it’s back online. Nothing on the TV shows an error to the room.
How to test your setup in two minutes
Don’t take anyone’s word for it, including ours. Test it on a weekday:
- Put something on every screen and check that it’s playing.
- Unplug the router, or turn off the Wi-Fi the screens use.
- Walk round the building. Every screen should keep doing exactly what it was doing.
- Wait five minutes, then check again.
- Plug the router back in.
If a screen goes blank, freezes on a loading symbol, or shows a message, it depends on a live connection. That’s worth knowing now, not at 10:01 on a Sunday.
While the router is unplugged, try one more thing: change what one screen should show. With a connection-free player, nothing changes on the TV yet, which is right. Once the Wi-Fi is back, the change should arrive on its own, without anyone touching the TV.
What your team should see when a TV goes quiet
Keeping playing is only half of it. The other half is knowing when something is wrong, before a parent tells you.
A TV can go quiet for ordinary reasons: someone unplugged the Apple TV to charge a phone, or the room’s Wi-Fi is weak. In the room, it may look fine, because it’s still showing what it had. But it won’t get this week’s changes.
You want one place that tells you, without walking round the building:
- which TV has gone quiet,
- when it was last seen,
- what it was showing when it went,
- and what to check.
In Displayte, that place is Displays. A TV that has lost its connection says Offline on its card, over a picture of what it last showed. Its own page says since when, and names what it last showed. The TV keeps showing what it had, and gets changes once it’s back, so nobody panics.
Home shows your TVs as cards, each with its connection and what it’s playing, so one that’s offline stands out: it says Offline.
The one thing to check on Saturday night
Make one habit of it. On Saturday evening, open Displays on your phone and look for two things:
- Every TV is on and connected. Each card shows its connection as an icon by its name, and one that’s lost it says Offline.
- Every TV is playing this week’s presentation. Each card says which presentation it’s playing, with a picture of the screen.
If a TV has gone quiet, you have the evening, not eight minutes, to send someone to plug it back in. If they’re all fine, you’re done, and Sunday morning is one less thing to worry about.
A TV that’s offline during the service keeps playing. The point of Saturday night is the changes: making sure every room has this week’s pictures before the connection gets busy.
You can see an offline TV, and what Displays says about it, in the demo: its café TV is offline.