Chrome Sign Builder vs. SnapComms

If you are looking for an inexpensive, set-and-forget digital signage solution and your content isn't customized often, Chome Sign Builder is a win. It is easy to set up, includes multiple identity providers, and its Kiosk mode makes displaying the content a breeze on many different supported devices. It also doesn't require much maintenance, so if your team is small, it's a perfect fit.

Incentivized

If you need to communicate urgent or timely messages to a specific group is users or computers, then SnapComms is ideal. It is perhaps not so useful to use it as a training delivery tool, but you can use it to send out newsletters or messages that contain a link to a training source.

Incentivized

• schedule YouTube videos and playlists
• Use Chrome Sign Builder to display menus. For example, to show menus for breakfast, lunch, and dinner, create 3 schedules. Each schedule has its own menu URL to display the menu content.
• create a presentation using Google Slides and display it using Chrome Sign Builder.
• When you publish the presentation, set it to start as soon as it loads and restart again after the last slide.

Incentivized

• Clear and direct messaging
• Groups and targets users
• Small footprint on PCs

Incentivized

• Despite its name I found it easier to create my actual signage elsewhere, then use Sign Builder for scheduling
• Does require a base level of technical know-how - not as approachable as other tools may be
• As device count grows, management may become a bit cumbersome

Incentivized

• Auto update of the client silently
• Better data capture for statistics
• One-time licensing

Incentivized

Chrome Sign Builder is pretty much a learn on your own and support yourself option. There is precious little by way of assistance offered by Google for the product, and responses to reports of bugs and even updates are painfully slow in coming if they come at all. If you are an IT guru, this may be ok. If you are not prepared to fend for yourself, then keep looking.

Incentivized

We selected sign builder because of its ability to work across platforms and the promise of dynamic updates so that members and guests would have access to up-to-date information. Unfortunately, Chrome Sign Builder is a low priority at Google, suffers from reliability issues, requires significant user investment in learning the system, and failed to meet our needs. We have gone back to paper calendars and synching issues while we evaluate other products. A bit of time spent on research on the front end would have saved us considerable effort and time. In a volunteer organization, our only cost was goodwill among members while we tried the system.

Incentivized

• Has saved huge amounts of time updating the display TV in the front office
• With a simple add-on designed to sync Twitter posts with Google Slides, it means that the TV now updates live with tweets on the school page
• It is free and only costs the price of a cheap Chromebook device which is plugged permanently into the TV

Incentivized

• Positive reduction of phone contacts with Retail estate
• Positive view on target audience
• Positive improvement via the statistics provided by the tool

Incentivized