Digital Menu board for customers

Ive been looking at changing our menu to do something digital with tvs. Right now we have a really old menu board that uses little plastic letters and is a pain in the ass to change things It looks similar to this… image

. Want it to look something like this…

Theres alot of things like this out there that can be managed from a web interface and they cost a pretty penny to implement. Was wondering if anyone else has created or made something similar. It would be really cool if it could somehow tie into the sambapos database to get updated prices as well.

1 Like

it seems possible if these pages have html template.

Yea im not sure thats just a picture i found online… just threw it up as an example of what id like it to kind of look like. Not sure if using something like wordpress to build it would be a good option or not. Im not too familiar with html web design. Willing to learn tho with help!

Depends if and how you want it linked to samba.
I doubt the example uses wordpress.

Depends how your menu changes and how often.
If you have different menus at different times etc.
Allot of variables thank can take it from simple to much more complex very quickly.

Menu doesnt really change at all were a simple sandwich shop… just would be nice to have the price change on the screen when we change them in the system. Instead of having to go into another software to change them there on the menu… Im not sure what that example is using either i was just throwing an idea out there… i was even thinking of making a simple powerpoint type of presentation that would change the screens and show menu items and prices but i dont even know if even something like that can link to the samba database to update the prices. Im at the starting line so i havent been traveling very far down this road ive just been doing alot of googling and getting ideas to see whats possible.

Static ppt would be pretty simple and tbh for simple shop like that an integrated solution probably wouldn’t be worth the effort.

Prepare the standard designs with html codes. Create actions and rules with the Browser Printer using some tags for variables.

Create a separate template for each screen like below

Screen1.html
Screen2.html
Screen3.html

2 Likes

Using browser printer it’s fairly easy. The hard part is the html.

1 Like

Thing is with this type of thing is it’s not going to be as simple as like to samba and use prices.
A few thinks I see that would need taking in to account.

Product name proably would want to be something different to what is used on till. More descriptive/in full without anticipation etc. Product tags would easily solve that.

Grouping and layout. I question that something could be simple plug and play using product group code unless they planned it out before hand, again product tag likely would be useful here as display grouping may not match group code requirements.

Which products actually show. Expect majority of systems will have products not on menu for for odd workaround things. So selecting products to go on menu, this could be coupled with wether or not one of the above is set or not.

Unless it is a propped dynamic setup I don’t see the real use, if it requires template adjustment it kinda defeats the point and might as well go down the ppt type route.

I’m not sure how browser printer would be the route to take, so you would make a fake ticket and print to screen to refresh the board?

i dont know enough about sql or webpages but couldnt you just point directly to the menu item in the sql database and not really deal with the html printer in samba.

This looks interesting… http://www.displaymonkey.org/dm/#section4

Looks like a simple framework, probably plenty of these about.

Yes you could look direct at SQL however this would hit on couple of my points, it’s unlikely you would want every product in database displayed all together.
Also everyone’s use of portions and order tags complicate it further.

An example, at the hotel we have 3 styles of buyers. Each available in either beef or chicken.
Would that be 6 individual products.
A beef and a chicken burger product with style portion, or style tag?
It could be 3 products for the style with beef or chicken choice as portion or order tag.

You probably wouldn’t look directly to products anyway, you would more likely link menu item tables to prices etc and go that way. The menu structure probably better represents you phisical menu Vs products themselves and group codes etc. Issue with that though is menu items themselves don’t have as much flexibility for extra info like product tags do.

The best method is custom html with gql for Sambapos data.

Your biggest cost is the displays hardware, a consumer TV won’t cut it unless you are only open for less than 5 Hours.

Samsung Insight

Depends on your expectations.
Don’t think most bars etc use special TVs for their TVs and they run most of the day.
The hotel has its TVs on for 12-16 hrs a day, just normal TVs and they last many years without issue.
Screen burn is less of an issue as it used to be but careful setup to move things about now and again.
This I thought no will be one of those situations where you can use a cheap £300 odd screen and replace every few years when required Vs a pro screen which might last 10 years but cost 3x the price.
In my opinion if it works out similar price, given how fast tech develops.
A long life device might last allot longer but after half that time what you think the chances are that it will look outdated and you’ll want to upgrade anyway :wink:

at our restaurant we run a cheap regular lcd tv with usb capabilities at the moment. The TV is left on 24x7 and has had no issues in nearly 3 years. Only downside is we have to manually update images on the usb each time we want an update.

Read a while back can use a rasberry pi to over come that issue and the cost factor wont be much. Screenly has an free version to do just that.

1 Like

This is interesting and basically free… https://pisignage.com/ Does not look like it ties into a database but should help anyone else looking for a digital menu program.

1 Like

Interesting.
It has an API so should be intergratable. Looks like you upload files in forms like MP4, jpg or html.