Digital signage that survives the network
A signage screen showing a black panel is worse than no screen at all. XiPlay caches everything on the player, so your content keeps looping through outages, and a watchdog brings a stalled player back on its own.
XiPlay is offline-first: scheduled content is cached on the BrightSign® player, so playback is local and a network drop pauses only the content refresh, never the screen. When the connection returns, the player syncs with your Xibo® CMS and catches up.
This matters because signage networks fail routinely: store broadband, shared building Wi-Fi, a switch reboot at 2 a.m. Players that stream or check in per-play go dark exactly when nobody is watching the dashboards. Designing for the failure instead means the audience never sees it.
What happens when…
Network drops mid-day
The screen keeps playing its cached schedule. Only the content refresh pauses; playback never does.
Network returns
The player syncs with your Xibo® CMS over XMDS and catches up on layouts, media and schedule changes.
Player freezes or stalls
The self-healing watchdog detects it and recovers the player automatically, with no site visit.
Trial or license lapses
The screen keeps displaying its last content and stops pulling new content. It never goes black mid-audience.
The rule behind every row: a network event pauses the refresh, never the screen.
Built for networks that fail
- ✓Stores on shared retail broadband: retail signage
- ✓24/7 transit hubs where a black screen is unacceptable: transport signage
- ✓Hospitals and campuses with safety-critical notices: education & healthcare
- ✓Networks with no internet at all: air-gapped signage
Offline signage questions
Can digital signage run without internet?
Yes, in two ways. On a normally connected network, XiPlay plays from content cached on the player, so screens keep running through an outage and only the content refresh waits for the connection to return. And for networks with no internet by design, a signed offline license file activates the player with no phone-home at all. See the air-gapped signage page.
Does digital signage need a permanent internet connection?
Not with an offline-first player. XiPlay caches scheduled content on the BrightSign® player, so the connection is only needed to fetch new content and report back; playback itself is local. A screen with a dead connection keeps looping its schedule.
What exactly keeps playing when the network is down?
Everything already cached: the current layouts, media and schedule. What pauses is new content: schedule changes made in your Xibo® CMS apply when the player reconnects.
Is offline playback the same as air-gapped signage?
No. Offline-first means surviving network drops on a normally connected network. Air-gapped means the network never has internet at all, which XiPlay also supports through signed offline license files. See the air-gapped signage page for that.
How do I know a remote screen is actually up?
The XiPlay portal tracks health and last-seen for every claimed player. A player that hasn't checked in stands out immediately, across hundreds of screens, grouped by site.
Deeper background: Why your screens should never go black.
Test it on your worst network
Start a 14-day free trial, then pull the network cable. The screen keeps playing. That's the point.