Connecting Your First Display | easyCMS Digital Signage

A display is any screen running the easyCMS player. That might be a PC behind a monitor, an Android box on an HDMI port, or a commercial panel that runs the player itself. Connecting one is three steps: install the player, point it at your CMS address and key, then claim the screen from Add a display. That last step is ours, you never go near the CMS’s own authorisation screen.

The Android player settings screen with the CMS address and key fields The connection settings on an Android player. Both values come from your welcome email.

The Add a display page listing one screen waiting to be connected Your screen appears here within a minute. Name it, then Connect.

What you need

Your CMS address, https://app.myeasycms.com, and your CMS key. Both come from your welcome email and nowhere else, you are not an administrator of the CMS so the key cannot be looked up there. Lost the email? Ask us.
The playback device, powered on and online, driving the screen.
A free display slot. Your 49€ account includes one, a PRO account covers up to 25, and extra lifetime licences are 99€ each.
A phone or laptop on the same internet connection as the screen. A hard requirement.

1. Install the player

Good to know Nearly every easyCMS screen runs on Android, and it is what we would put you on unless you have a reason not to.

Android is cheap, reliable, and the platform we can update centrally. Windows is the other common choice, usually where the PC already exists or the screen has to show PowerPoint. Windows players are free; an Android player carries a commercial per-display licence whose code arrives in your purchase confirmation email. Anything else is covered in other players.

Get the installer from the downloads page, then follow the Android or Windows guide.

2. Point the player at easyCMS

Where the connection settings live depends on the platform:

Android puts them in front of you when the player app starts, a connect-to-CMS screen appears and you type straight into it.
Windows is the exception. The connection is configured in a separate player options application installed alongside the player, not by launching the player itself. Fill in the CMS Address and CMS Key there, save, then start the player.

Type the address in full, including https://. A missing prefix, or a space pasted out of the email, is the usual reason a player never arrives.

The player then registers itself and stops, reporting Display is Registered and awaiting Authorisation from an Administrator in the CMS. That is correct, not an error. An unclaimed player is inert: no display slot used, nothing downloaded, nothing on screen. Leave it powered on and go to step 3.

3. Claim the screen

On a phone or computer using the same internet connection as the screen, open Add a display and Sign in with your easyCMS login. We match your browser’s public address against the player’s, so they really must share one.

The page lists screens that registered in the last ten minutes, at most ten of them. Give the screen a name, which is required, then click Connect. It starts playing at the player’s next check-in, usually within a few minutes. Sign-in lasts thirty minutes, if it lapses sign in again, nothing is lost.

Several screens listed? Then, and only then, each row shows the last four characters of its Display ID. Read the ID off the player’s status window and pick the matching row.

When nothing appears in the list

Different connections. Venue wifi versus mobile data, or a guest network kept apart from the main one. Get both onto the same network and reload.
The ten-minute window. An older registration drops off the list. Restart the player, let it check in, reload. That display is no longer available to claim. means the same thing happened while the page sat open.
Still nothing. Send us a support request and we will connect the screen from our side.

Two licences, kept apart

Claiming a screen authorises it and uses one of your display slots. That is the licence you buy from us, and it does not expire. One screen, one licence, and we check accounts against what has been paid for. You may see Your plan covers N displays and all of them are in use. Add a licence to connect another screen. Either buy another lifetime licence, or free a slot by deauthorising a screen you no longer run. Never delete a display to free a licence: deleting is irreversible and releases nothing.

On Android and LG webOS the player software also carries a commercial licence of its own, re-verified over the internet every 30 days. If that check fails the screen keeps playing what it already has but stops taking anything new, see player licence errors. Windows players have no such check.

Name it, and never let it go blank

Rename the screen from Displays if it needs to be clearer, “Reception left” beats an auto-generated name. While you are there, use the row menu to Edit the display and set a Default Layout, that plays whenever nothing is scheduled, so the screen never sits blank. Then build your first layout and schedule it.

Watch it done: installing the player and an introduction to easyCMS.