Setting Up Cellular-Based Digital Signage with Raspberry Pi

Digital signage is a sub-category of electronic signage that use a variety of technologies such as LCD, LED, and others to deliver messages and ads to the general public for marketing and informational reasons. A content, a system that organizes, plans, and communicates your content, a media player, and screens that display the content is all part of digital signage. They are used to offer exhibits, marketing, and outdoor advertising in public areas, museums, stadiums, hotels, restaurants, and corporate structures, among other places.

piSignage is the most popular and cost-effective digital signage platform that enables businesses to manage their network of panels and display centrally through cloud-based storage for the Raspberry Pi.

CHALLENGE

With digital signage needs ever-changing, it's important to be flexible. And more often than not, that means being able to install your digital signage solution in many weird and wonderful places. And also, the internet connection of the Digital Signage infrastructure should be able to upload and control content in real-time without downtime.

SOLUTION

Using Sixfab CORE and 4G/LTE Cellular Modem Kit, they can connect to your content management server and manage all your digital signage units from the remote terminal.

Benefits of 4G/LTE Connectivity

Location - Deploy your digital signage units wherever there is cellular connectivity. This gives you flexibility.

Manage maintenance remotely – maintain your unit without visiting

Easy to scale – Allows configuration of multiple devices in minutes

Failover – Failover between WLAN or WAN systems and cellular connection. It provides better connection reliability and service continuity against disconnections.

In this tutorial, we'll cover how to run Sixfab CORE on piSignage and what it can do. And at the end of the tutorial, you will be able to remotely manage and maintain your digital signage units with 4G/LTE connectivity via Sixfab CORE.

Before we get started, here’s what you’ll need

• a Raspberry Pi 4 (or 3)
• Sixfab Raspberry Pi 4G/LTE Cellular Modem Kit
• a TV/monitor
• an SD Card, Class 10, and at least 8GB
• an HDMI cable (to connect the Pi to the TV)
• a Sixfab and piSignage account
• Basic knowledge of the terminal

Cellular Content Management System Topology

Step 1: Download the piSignage image to your PC

Download the latest piSignage player image, from the GitHub page and unzip the file.

Step 2: Writing Image to SD card

Use a standard program such as Raspberry Pi Imager or balena Etcher to write the image to a SD card.

Step 3: Connect player to the screen and power the player

Insert the SD Card with piSignage Image into the Raspberry Pi And we have your piSignage player ready. After booting, your screen will display an Id which will be your player ID (player Id is also printed on raspberry pi ). Once you Register your player at pisignage.com using the player ID, The player can be controlled remotely from pisignage.com as long as the player is connected to the internet.

piSignage player can be connected to the internet via Ethernet cable or using Wi-Fi. If you have connected the player to internet via ethernet Cable and intend this as a default method to connect to pisignage.com, then skip to Step 5: Signing Up & Registering your player at pisignage.com. To connect the player to network via Wi-Fi, follow the instructions given below.

Few Points to remember

• Default Username & Password: use pi & pi
• Player webUI: http://player-ip:8000
• Ctrl+N or F6: for network/server config from USB keyboard
• Ctrl+Alt+T or F2 for terminal

Step 4: Wi-Fi Configuration in Raspberry Pi to Connect to Network

Connect the power source to power on the player. Raspberry Pi does not have a separate button on the player for power on/off functions.

• Connect a USB Keyboard to the player. Press Ctrl+N or F6.
• Scroll down to wifi config and enter.
• Enter wifi name and password.
• Select Finish

Once This is done the player will Reboot. Now You can Register the player, logging into your account at pisignage.com.

Step 5: Signing Up & Registering your player at pisignage.com

Sign up for piSigane here. If you have signed up already just login.

• Go to players in the left panel and select register a player.
• Enter the 16-digit player Id(on device or TV screen), Assign Group, Timezone, Name for the player, Player Location.
• Here your player is ready!

Step 6: Getting started with the Raspberry Pi 4G/LTE Cellular Modem Kit

Now, power off the Raspberry Pi, and we will do the hardware setup of the Cellular kit.

Step 7: Attach the mini PCIe module the HAT

Step 8: Attach the antenna to the mini PCIe module

Make sure the right antenna is connected to the right port. Attach LTE full band PCB antenna/LTE connector of the LTE-GNSS dual antenna to the main Antenna interface/diversity antenna interface & GPS Antenna portion goes to the GNSS antenna interface.

Step 9: Attach header and Sixfab SIM

Step 10: Attach it to the Raspberry Pi and power up.

Step 11: Sign up for Sixfab Connect

Head over to connect.sixfab.com and log in with your credentials.

Step 12: Register SIM

An active Sixfab SIM is required to create a device. If you don’t have one, please register and activate a SIM from the "SIM -> Register a SIM" section.

Step 13: Create Device

View your available SIM cards by going to "SIM -> My SIMs".

Click on the "Create Device" link in the row the SIM for which you will create the device.

Step 14: Selecting Region and Board for Device

Here, choose according to your region and select Raspberry Pi.

Global – For devices to be deployed Worldwide

EMEA – For devices to be deployed in Europe, the Middle East and Africa

APAC – For devices to be deployed in Asia-Pacific only

Step 15: Copy the Installation Code

Step 16: Unplug the USB Cable from the HAT

If the USB cable is plugged in, unplug the USB.

Step 17: Run the Installation Code

Open a terminal(Ctrl+Alt+T or F2) on the Raspberry Pi and run the code you have just copied.

pi@raspberrypi:~ $ sudo bash -c "$(curl -sN https://install.connect.sixfab.com)" -- -t YOUR_TOKEN_APPEARS_HERE' 

=====================================================
[INFO]  Creating sixfab user...
[INFO]  Updating sudoers...
[INFO]  Sudoers updated
[INFO]  Updating system package index...
[INFO]  Looking for dependencies...
[INFO]  Git is not installed, installing...
[INFO]  Pip for python3 is not installed, installing...
[INFO]  ifmetric is not installed, installing...
[INFO]  Installing Sixfab ATCom tool...
[INFO]  Sixfab ATCom installed
[INFO]  Initializing environment file...
[INFO]  Initialized environment file
[INFO]  Downloading agent source...
[INFO]  Installing agent dependencies...
[INFO]  Installed agent dependencies.
[INFO]  Initializing agent service...
[INFO]  Agent service initialized successfully.
[INFO]  Downloading manager source...
[INFO]  Installing manager dependencies...
[INFO]  Installed manager dependencies.
[INFO]  Initializing manager service...
[INFO]  Manager service initialized successfully.
[INFO]  Setting default network priority : eth0 > wlan0 > usb0 = wwan0
[DONE]  Installation completed successfully.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------
Press ENTER to reboot your system. (Recommended)
Press Ctrl+C (^C) to finish installation without reboot.

Reminder: Plug the USB cable to Sixfab HAT!
Warning: Network priority settings will be effective after reboot!
-----------------------------------------------------------------------

Step 18: Plug the USB Cable to the HAT

Once the installation is completed successfully, Hit Enter to reboot the Raspberry Pi and plug the USB cable to the HAT.

Step 19: Installation Complete

After the installation is complete, your device will be online and a cellular connection will be available.

Now let's show something on digital signage. I added an image to a sample playlist I created on pisignage.com and after making the settings, I deployed it to the player.

Next, let's take a look at scenarios of what you can do with a cellular connection and Sixfab CORE.

Case 1: Full Cellular Connection

Deploy your device as you wish in areas where there is no Ethernet or WLAN. Sixfab CORE constantly handles cellular connectivity for you.

Case 2: Use LTE as Backup Internet Connection

In this way, use 4G LTE cellular service as a backup for getting on the Internet should your modem or router fail or go down.

Case 3: Adding the Network Details to your Raspberry Pi

You can add/edit your network details by accessing the device remotely via the remote terminal on Sixfab CORE.

Open the wpa-supplicant configuration file in nano:

sudo nano /etc/wpa_supplicant/wpa_supplicant.conf

Go to the bottom of the file and add the following to the file and save it:

network={
    ssid="testing"
    psk="testingPassword"
}

Reference

• blog.pisignage.com
• Raspberry Pi Documentation
• docs.sixfab.com