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Anonymous
Not applicable

Displaying Power BI On a TV

Hi,

 

Im looking to display my Power BI report in our manufacturing office on a TV.

 

I need to be able to access it live ideally, have tried with powerpoint but again cant display it on a TV without a computer aswell to run it. I tried online powerpoint but it doesnt have a feature to cycle through slides on a timer unlike the desktop app. I am out of ideas.

 

Cant cycle through pages of the report either online ^

Any help?

2 ACCEPTED SOLUTIONS
Idrissshatila
Super User
Super User

Hello @Anonymous ,

 

if you have a what they call a " smart TV" you can download the power bi mobile app and can navigate through the reports that are published.



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View solution in original post

SaiTejaTalasila
Super User
Super User

Hi @Anonymous ,

 

As per my knowledge in manufacturing plants mostly they will use mini PC with TV or large monitors and they will use Microsoft edge(it will allow to stay signed in for longer hours)

browser to display reports.And they will use remote desktop app for management.

 

 

Thanks,

Sai Teja 

View solution in original post

3 REPLIES 3
DMiradakis
Advocate II
Advocate II

As another answer mentioned, many manufacturing (and other similar) companies will purchase dedicated computer devices and connect/plug-in those devices to their TVs.

 

Disclaimer: I run a 3rd party dedicated Power BI digital signage app called Displagent, and this is how my customers setup their Power BI digital signage: they buy dedicated computer devices and run my app on them.

 

There used to be a Windows Store Power BI viewer app that Microsoft had, but they retired it in December 2023. And on top of that, it was Windows-only/not cross-platform. My app is cross-platform, and people seem to really like using Raspberry Pis for their TV digital signage computers. If you are not familiar with them, they are tiny and cheap Linux devices, perfect for scenarios such as you described.

 

There are other solutions like Chrome extensions, the Powerpoint Power BI integration, other digital signage providers, using the built-in TV browsers, and so on, and here is my issue with them:

  • The Chrome extensions are severely lacking in features and don't come with any sort of persistent storage/database. So you can't build and save a proper slideshow that you can reuse across devices. I've also heard that most of the Chrome extensions suffer from Microsoft timeouts/logouts, and that completely breaks your slideshow experience.
  • The Power BI integration with Powerpoint is ok-ish, and now it has some of the same features that my app, Displagent, has. But it's still missing a lot of key features in my opinion.
    • For example, Powerpoint is Windows-only, and I don't think the web version has the same features as the desktop version.
    • Powerpoint can't tightly integrate with a computer and do things like autolaunch on reboot/restart, tracking slideshow heartbeats, provider machine information, and so on.
    • I've heard of several issues with people having timeout issues with Powerpoint, where it logs you out of Power BI and breaks your slideshow. Not sure the frequency of this, but you can't have that going on when the whole idea is that you setup your slideshows, run it on the TVs, and then forget about them. Kinda defeats the whole purpose, you know? My app, on the other hand, has a dynamic slideshow repair feature to prevent issues like this from happening.
    • And after trying out the Power BI integration in Powerpoint, I find that it has really poor UX. Feels kind of clunky and unpleasant to use, way too many clicks and hidden menus. I've tried to make the UX in my app really good.
  • Some of my customers used to try and display Power BI reports on the built-in TV OS browsers that some smart TVs have, but they found that the browsers were often quite weak, and some outright do not support displaying Power BI reports at all. On the surface, it sounds like a good idea so that it saves you the money from having to buy dedicated computer devices for your TVs, but it doesn't work well in actual execution. The browsers are weak, they run out of memory, or they just straight up do not work.
  • A lot of other digital signage providers do some sort of static screenshotting functionality, where they periodically screenshot your Power BI reports on some server and then serve up screenshots every X minutes.
    • I don't like these solutions because they are not NEARLY close enough to realtime like a lot of manufacturing companies need for their Power BI digital signage.
    • A lot of them also have paywalled resolutions, where some plans offer 1080p, others offer 4K. I think that's ridiculous, personally, and is another reason why I like when people buy dedicated computers and run my app off of them: they never have any resolution issues - whatever your TV displays at is what you get, easy peasy.

Anyways, this answer is probably long enough already. Just wanted to provide some details as to why I don't like a lot of the other solutions in this place. This problem is actually a lot harder to solve than people realize. If you have any questions, I'm open to talk, and my email is daniel@displagent.io

SaiTejaTalasila
Super User
Super User

Hi @Anonymous ,

 

As per my knowledge in manufacturing plants mostly they will use mini PC with TV or large monitors and they will use Microsoft edge(it will allow to stay signed in for longer hours)

browser to display reports.And they will use remote desktop app for management.

 

 

Thanks,

Sai Teja 

Idrissshatila
Super User
Super User

Hello @Anonymous ,

 

if you have a what they call a " smart TV" you can download the power bi mobile app and can navigate through the reports that are published.



Did I answer your question? Mark my post as a solution! Appreciate your Kudos
Follow me on LinkedIn linkedIn
Vote for my Community Mobile App Idea

Proud to be a Super User!




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