Introducing Pilot – simple digital signage from Axion Displays

Our new browser-based digital signage platform makes it easy to create, manage and deliver content to screens – and is another step in building a wider ecosystem of tools and services around the technologies we represent.

At Axion Displays, we spend a lot of time helping customers find the right technology for a project, whether that’s projection, LED, displays or media servers. But choosing the hardware is only part of the equation. Once the screen is in place, you still need a straightforward way to get useful, engaging content onto it.

That thinking led us to develop Pilot, our new browser-based digital signage platform.

Pilot is designed for customers who need the core capabilities of digital signage without unnecessary complexity. There’s no software to install and no requirement for proprietary playback hardware. If your device has a web browser and an internet connection, there’s a good chance you can use it – whether that’s a smart display, Android set-top box, Windows PC, laptop, tablet or dedicated signage player.

The aim is to make getting started as easy as possible, while still providing the flexibility to do more as requirements grow.

More than 30 ready-made templates provide a quick starting point for common signage applications and can be adapted with your own logo, colours, fonts and content. For customers who want more control, Pilot also includes a visual Studio editor for creating bespoke layouts.

Content can be centrally managed and scheduled by date and time, with different content assigned to individual screens, groups or locations. This means the same platform can work just as comfortably for a single display in a reception, classroom or restaurant as it can for screens distributed across multiple buildings or sites.

There’s plenty more under the hood, including live data feeds, user roles and approvals, screen monitoring, emergency messaging and optional AI-assisted content creation. But the principle behind Pilot remains simple: provide the functionality most customers actually need and make it logical and easy to use. Ready-made templates cover the majority of everyday requirements, while Studio provides greater creative control when something more bespoke is needed.

More than the products we represent

Pilot is also part of a bigger picture for Axion Displays.

We work with some of the industry’s leading technology brands, and those partnerships remain at the heart of our business. But we also believe a good technology partner should add value around the products it supplies – helping customers and partners find the right solution, making it easier to specify and deploy, and providing useful tools and expertise along the way.

Pilot gives us another way to help. A customer might be working with Axion Displays on a projection or LED project, for example, but also have signage displays elsewhere in the same venue or organisation that are static, underused or difficult to keep updated. Pilot gives us a simple solution to bring into that conversation, helping customers make better use of the displays they already have and allowing us to support more of their wider visual requirements.

“Pilot came from looking at the wider display ecosystem and asking where else we could make things easier for our customers,” said Roderick Bokdam, Marketing at Axion Displays. “We’re not trying to make every application more complicated than it needs to be. If there’s a straightforward requirement that we can help solve, we want our customers and partners to be able to come to us for that too.”

It’s an approach we’re continuing across Axion Displays, developing our own software, online tools and services where we see an opportunity to solve a practical problem or make working with display technology easier. Pilot is the latest example, with more to come.