The Android tablet market is alive and well. First came the OnePlus Pad, then the Google Pixel Tablet, and finally, the Amazon Fire Max 11 – all within a few months. But even if all you have is an old Android tablet lying around, there’s a lot you can do with it, especially with a great tablet mount and the ScreenCloud Player app.

In fact, we’d argue that Android tablets are slightly better than iPads for digital signage. Let’s review how to turn your tablet into a professional digital signage display.

Tablets are perfect for creating one-to-one digital signage experiences like showroom floors, real estate open houses, or manufacturing lines. Viewers can get up close and personal with your content, interacting with it in real-time. You can use it to convey important information to deskless workers, internal communication updates, and even timetables or meeting room signage.

Tablets can access the same cloud-based digital signage control as TV screens. You can manage content, create Channels, and update Playlists from anywhere.

Although both Amazon and Android tablets are good options, we rank Android tablets slightly higher than Amazon and iOS tablets for digital signage purposes.

Amazon’s Fire tablets run on the “Fire OS” operating system, which is based on Android, but doesn’t include any Google Play Store services. Other Android tablets, such as the new Pixel Tablet, OnePlus Pad, and any of Samsung’s Galaxy Tab devices, run a more full-featured version of Android with support for the Google Play Store.

The ScreenCloud app lets you to turn your Android tablet into a professional digital sign. Giving you dead simple integrations for powerful apps like Microsoft Teams, Google Calendar, and Slack. 

Here are some of the tablets out there that can easily be turned into a digital signage display using ScreenCloud:

Essentially, any tablet that comes with Android or Fire OS pre-installed should do the trick. Just download the ScreenCloud app from the Google Play Store, Amazon AppStore, or the Chrome Web Store to get started. That said, we typically recommend Samsung’s tablets.

If you want to go with one of Amazon’s tablets, the Fire 8 is one good option. The Fire 8 tablet starts at $99.99 and can handle all types of content in ScreenCloud’s app. However, we recommend only choosing this device if you're displaying a single zone of content, as it may struggle to display multiple zones simultaneously. 

Another option is the Fire Max 11, a significant upgrade from the Fire HD 8 series. It’s $229.99 for a 2000 x 1200 resolution screen powered by a significantly faster processor and more RAM. The larger screen and improved performance mean it is capable of playing multiple zones of content without any lag.

It's worth noting that we tend to recommend Android tablets over iPads and Fire OS tablets. iPads don’t allow the ScreenCloud player app to have offline or media cache support, both of which are very useful when displaying content on a tablet within an office or store. And Fire OS (regardless of whether it's installed on a TV, Fire TV Stick, or Fire Tablet) doesn't allow the ScreenCloud player to skip the default home screen when booting up.

Here’s how to set up your Android tablet as a digital sign

Download the ScreenCloud Player app for Android or for Amazon devices and install it on your tablet.

2. Pair your Android device and ScreenCloud

Launch the app, and make a note of the pairing code that comes up. You’ll use this to connect your Android device to your ScreenCloud account.

3. Lock your Android tablet to only show ScreenCloud

If you’re going to mount or display your tablet in a public place, or even if you just want to ensure no one can interfere with what’s playing, you may want to lock it to only show ScreenCloud.

To enable the App Pinning feature, open your tablet’s Settings window, go to the Security menu (sometimes it’s listed as Security & Location), then scroll down to Advanced. From that window, you can configure your App Pinning settings. Visit your tablet’s manufacturer website if these steps don’t work. Some Android devices use slightly different naming conventions. 

Beyond Screen Pinning, you might want to also consider mounting your Android tablet with a fixed mount, preventing anyone from walking off with it. We’ve used mounts from Bouncepad, as well as all-in-one kiosks. 

Once you have your pairing code, go to screencloud.com/getstarted on your laptop or PC, log in to your ScreenCloud account (or sign up for a free trial). You can open the Screens panel and add your new screen from there.

Enter the code from earlier, and that’s it! Your Android tablet is synced up and ready to be controlled from your laptop. You’re ready to start uploading and scheduling your tablet’s content.

Now the fun part: Deciding what to show on your Android device! You can upload existing visual media (e.g., images and videos) or connect to one of ScreenCloud’s 80+ free integrations, such as OneDrive, Dropbox, Twitter, or Google Slides.

Better yet, create something totally new with the built-in media editor, Canvas.

If you do end up creating something in Canvas, make sure to take advantage of its template features, which let you save, reuse and share templates with your team.

ScreenCloud’s advanced scheduling tool lets you determine precisely when your content plays, whether you want it to begin at a future date or expire in the coming days. This allows you to remotely set up content schedules to play on your tablets without creating them on the device itself. And, of course, you can always view a live preview of your Android tablet from within the ScreenCloud panel.

When a piece of content has expired, it’ll automatically stop playing within your Channel or Playlist. This is an excellent tool for marketing and HR teams to create content in advance, whether for a promotional campaign, announcement, or seasonal event.

If you’ve got an old Android tablet lying around, boot it up and give ScreenCloud a try. You could use it to display a dynamic leaderboard for an office competition, a custom dashboard based on internal data, or anything that works with JavaScript, HTML, or CSS. All you need is an Android tablet and a ScreenCloud account!

A humble Android tablet can serve a wide range of digital signage uses from meeting room signage to browsable menus and more. Find out more in our guide.

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How To Turn an Android Tablet into a Digital Sign 

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