Digital signage for gyms and fitness studios.

Where the screens go

A gym has more walls than it needs screens. Three places do most of the work, and each one is read differently.

At the front desk everyone passes twice: on the way in and on the way out. This is the screen for the week — the full class timetable, this week's notices, the offer of the month. Mount it behind or beside the desk, where people stand while they check in, not above the door they leave by.

At the studio doors people want one thing: what is on in this room, and when. A portrait screen beside each door, showing that studio's classes for the day, answers it before anyone opens the door on a class in progress.

On the training floor nobody reads a timetable between sets. This is the place for things that work in a glance: a quote for the day, the countdown to the next challenge, a video with the sound off. Mount these above head height and well away from the racks — a screen within reach of a loaded barbell is a screen you will replace.

Leave the changing rooms out. Damp air is hard on any display that was not built for it, and it is the one room where nobody wants a screen.

How big, and which way up

Measure from where people actually stand. A timetable is read line by line, so the furthest reader should be no more than about four screen heights away; a quote or a countdown in large type can be read from about six. At a front desk read from three or four metres that means a 43" to 55" screen; on a training floor read from across the room, 55" to 65", or larger. The hardware guide has the full table.

The view decides the orientation. A week of classes needs width, so the screen at the front desk goes landscape. A list of today's classes reads well on a portrait screen beside a door. Choose on the day you mount the screen: the bracket, the cable and the layout all follow from it. In SignageStack the orientation is a setting on each screen in the dashboard.

A timetable that keeps itself current

The calendar is the timetable. Whoever plans classes in Google Calendar is already keeping the screen up to date.

• One calendar per studio, or one for the whole gym. The app shows one calendar at a time. A calendar per studio lets each door show only its own room; one calendar for everything suits a single-room studio or the front desk.
• Name classes the way members say them. “Spin — Ana” reads from the doorway. “Indoor Cycling Intermediate Level 2 (bring water)” does not. If people choose classes by trainer, put the trainer's name in the title.
• Let finished classes go. Turn on “Only show upcoming events” so a class drops off once it ends, and “Auto scroll” for the days when more classes are on than fit.
• Cancel in the calendar, not on paper. A class cancelled at short notice is removed or renamed in the calendar, and the screen follows. A sticky note on the frame brings back the problem the screen was there to solve.

The screen shows classes; it does not take bookings. If members book online, put a QR code beside the timetable that opens the booking page.

What else goes in the rotation

A screen at the front desk can carry more than the timetable, but someone walking past sees one or two slides, not ten. Keep the playlist short:

1. The timetable, holding the screen longest.
2. One notice in Text — the one thing members need to know this week.
3. The offer of the month, designed in Canva, with a QR code that opens the sign-up page.
4. A quote from Daily Wisdom, or the Countdown to the next event.

If you would rather show everything at once, Zones splits one screen into panels: today's classes on the left, the offer on the right, and a Ticker running notices along the bottom.

On the training floor, video is the usual request. The YouTube app plays a video, and the Live stream app plays a channel with its sound on or off — off, where the gym's own music is already playing. The licences for any music or video you show are the gym's to hold, just as they are for the music.

Keeping it right

Give each kind of content an owner. Whoever plans classes owns the calendar; the front desk owns the notices; the manager owns the offers. Everyone gets a login of their own: trainers can be Members, who change content, and anyone who only needs to see what is on the screens can be a Viewer, who changes nothing.

Set each screen's working hours to the gym's: on before the first class, dark after the last, with different times for each weekday. The screens keep to them on their own clock, even when the internet is down. Look at the screens list in the dashboard now and then, too — every player reports when it was last seen, so a screen that went dark shows up there before a member mentions it.

With more than one club, put what applies everywhere — the offers, the notices from head office — in one playlist, and give each club's screens their own calendar beside it. An offer changed once changes in every club.

Mistakes that are easy to avoid

• A week view on a small screen across the room. If the class names cannot be read from where people stand, show the day instead, or hang a bigger screen.
• Notices that outlive the problem. “Sauna closed” two weeks after the sauna was fixed teaches members that the screen is not worth reading. Switch a notice off the day it stops being true.
• A countdown that reached zero last month. The message at zero stays on the screen until you change it. Point the Countdown at the next date, or take it out of the playlist.
• Screens within reach of the weights. Mount above head height, away from the racks and the lifting platform.
• Sound fighting the music. A video with its sound on next to the gym's speakers makes both worse. On the floor, keep video silent.