UK’s NowSignage Releases New Tools For Retail’s New COVID-19 Norms

April 27, 2020 by Dave Haynes

It’s only logical when reality drops a bucket of lemons on your business, you make lemonade.

I’m starting to see numerous digital signage solutions and software companies coming up with products, features and functionality tied to the new norms of public activity. We’ve seen dispensers, line management and thermal sensors to read temperatures.

UK-based NowSignage has introduced a couple of features tuned to the times in recent days.

Last week, the company started marketing a dispenser management solution – software that reads levels of hand sanitizer in those hybrid screens/dispensers that have been around forever, but are abruptly in high demand because of COVID-19.

An app that is now part of the company’s CMS suite sends automatic notifications when a  dispenser is running low on the sanitizer solution. Usage data can also be downloaded, which helps predict the frequency of refills, and also shows where the station gets the most use, if it is moved around.

NowSignage has also developed a camera-based solution that is paired with a Philips commercial display with a smart System On Chip player inside. Designed to to manage in-store capacity limits brought on by the pandemic and social distancing guidelines, the camera does people counting at entrances and exits to provide an accurate live data stream.

Says Now: By connecting this real-time data to NowSignage and your Philips screen you can then easily control the flow of customers at your entrances and visualize exactly when maximum capacity has been reached. It is even possible to automatically open and close entrances and exits when capacity allows. 

“We are living in some unusual times and it is the responsibility of businesses to regulate flow to ensure the safety of staff and customers. Businesses therefore need to adapt accordingly and, crucially, very quickly,” says Tom Ross, Commercial Director for NowSignage.

By activating a “Capacity Management” app within NowSignage, users can add camera locations, set capacity limits for each location, customize dashboards and then apply real-time people counting dashboards to a digital signage screen or screens to manage access. 

This sort of thing is going to grow quite common across software platforms, most notably those dealing with retail, QSR and any public spaces that see all-day, every day foot traffic.