Digital signage for apartment buildings, condos and HOAs
Quick answer: DigitalSignage.com runs apartment, condo and HOA lobby screens for $0 on the first 3 screens and $3 per screen per month above that, so three single-lobby buildings pay nothing and three buildings with two screens each pay $18 per month in 2026. The screen replaces the lobby cork board: notices and maintenance alerts from a Google Sheet the manager edits from a phone, package arrivals, amenity bookings from a shared calendar, weather and transit, resident events and, if the board agrees, a slot for local businesses. Mount it in portrait where residents stop, by the mailboxes or the elevator, and prepare the emergency scene in advance.
Key facts
- The first 3 screens are free forever on DigitalSignage.com, with no credit card, no ads and no watermark, so a management company's first three lobbies cost nothing in software.
- Six screens across three buildings cost $18 per month or $216 a year in 2026, every screen billed once the account has 4 or more.
- The SignStudio Google Sheets component shows a shared sheet on screen, so a manager edits a notice row from the Google Sheets app on a phone and every lobby follows on its next refresh.
- The SignStudio Calendar component connects to Google Calendar, Outlook and Office 365 or an iCal feed, so the amenity booking calendar shows on the lobby screen with no retyping.
- Weather components need only a location, the RSS component shows 1 to 10 headlines, and the Web Page component shows any page that loads without a login, such as a transit departures page.
- A portrait lobby screen uses the Portrait HD preset (1080 by 1920) in SignStudio and a rotated player output.
- Hardware per lobby is a 43-inch consumer TV at $200 to $300 or a 55-inch at $300 to $450 plus a $40 to $100 Android TV stick, and electricity is about $75 a year per screen.
Last updated October 23, 2026. Product facts from the SignStudio components, scheduling and user management documentation and our portrait screens page; hardware prices from our cost pages and pricing FAQ; brightness from our nits guide.
What should an apartment lobby screen show?
The lobby screen should show what a resident would otherwise ask the front desk or find on the cork board: today's notices, whether a package is waiting, when the gym is booked, the weather, the next bus and this month's events. One sheet and one calendar feed all of it.
| Content | Source in SignStudio | Who updates it | How often it changes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Building notices (water shut-off Tuesday 9 to 12, lobby painting, inspections) | Google Sheets component, one row per notice with start and end dates | Property manager, from a phone | As needed; rows expire on their end date |
| Package arrivals ("Packages for units 3B, 7A, 12C at the desk") | Google Sheets component, a tab the desk edits | Front desk or concierge | Several times a day |
| Maintenance status (elevator service, boiler, pool closed) | Google Sheets component | Maintenance lead | As needed |
| Amenity bookings (gym, party room, roof deck) | Calendar component from the shared booking calendar | Automatic | Live |
| Weather and the week ahead | Weather components, location only | Automatic | Every 15 to 60 minutes |
| Transit departures or traffic | Web Page component with a page that loads without a login, refresh interval set | Automatic | Live |
| Local news headlines | RSS component, 1 to 10 items | Automatic | Live |
| Resident events (board meeting, movie night, garage sale) | Google Sheets component or Calendar component | Board secretary or social committee | Monthly |
| Rules and reminders (recycling day, quiet hours, parking) | Text slides with date ranges | Property manager | Quarterly |
| Local business slot | Image slide with a date range | Management, with board approval | Monthly |
| Emergency message (fire, evacuation, no water) | Emergency priority campaign, prepared in advance | Property manager | Only when activated |
Bottom line: four of the eleven rows are automatic, five come from one Google Sheet, and the manager never opens the layout editor after the first week.
How does management update the screen from a phone?
Through the spreadsheet, not the editor. SignStudio runs in a desktop web browser with nothing to install, and its editor is designed for a laptop screen; the daily updates do not happen there. The manager keeps the notices, packages and maintenance rows in a Google Sheet shared with the SignStudio service account, edits it from the Google Sheets app on a phone, and the Google Sheets component shows the current rows on every lobby screen.
Give each row a start date and an end date, and show only the rows whose dates include today. A notice about Tuesday's water shut-off then appears on Monday and disappears on Wednesday without anyone remembering to remove it, which is the single biggest improvement over the cork board.
How do package and maintenance alerts work?
Package alerts are a tab in the same sheet that the front desk edits several times a day, showing unit numbers only, never names. A resident walking past the screen sees "Packages waiting: 3B, 7A, 12C" and goes to the desk; the desk clears the row when the package is collected.
Maintenance alerts follow the same pattern with longer dates, and the urgent ones use a different tool. A planned elevator service is a sheet row; a burst pipe, a fire alarm test or an evacuation is the emergency priority campaign in SignStudio, a prepared scene that overrides everything when activated and lets normal content resume when it is cleared. The emergency override is included on the free tier.
Can residents book amenities through the screen?
The screen shows the bookings; the booking itself happens in the calendar or booking tool the building already uses, which is the right division because the lobby screen should never ask for a resident's login. Connect the shared amenity calendar to the SignStudio Calendar component (Google Calendar, Outlook and Office 365 or an iCal feed) and show today's bookings by room and time, with no booker's name.
Several amenities mean several calendars, or one shared calendar with the room in the title; our calendar and room booking guide covers both layouts. A touch screen where residents browse the calendar uses the touch components in mediaCLOUD Plus+ at $3 per screen per month; a locked self-service kiosk is an Enterprise feature, and most buildings do not need it.
How do weather, transit and resident events get on the screen?
Weather and transit are automatic components with no login: the SignStudio weather components need only the building's location and no API key, and the Web Page component shows a public transit departures or traffic page at a refresh interval you set. Put them in a side zone that stays on every slide, so the resident waiting for the elevator gets the bus time without waiting for the loop.
Resident events come from the board secretary's sheet or the community calendar, shown through the Calendar component with the next 5 events. A QR code beside the event, part of mediaCLOUD Plus+, takes a resident to the sign-up form or the newsletter on their phone.
Can the building sell slots to local businesses?
Yes, if the board agrees, and the same loop arithmetic applies as in any lobby: a fixed number of slots at a published rate, with building content first and paid content under a third of the loop. A dry cleaner, a dog walker or a café across the street pays for a 10-second slide with a date range, and the screen's cost is covered.
| 90-second lobby loop | Slots | Seconds each | Share of loop | Plays per hour |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Notices, packages, maintenance | 4 | 10 | 44 percent | 40 |
| Bookings, weather, transit, events | 3 | 10 | 33 percent | 40 |
| Local business slots | 2 | 10 | 22 percent | 40 |
Bottom line: two 10-second slots at 40 plays an hour in a lobby every resident passes twice a day is a real audience for a local business, and the board keeps 78 percent of the loop.
Proof of play, a log of which file played on which screen and when, is an Enterprise feature; for a local advertiser the loop schedule plus a remote screenshot from SignStudio player management is usually enough evidence. Keep paid content off the emergency and notice zones, and put the rate card in the board minutes.
Where and how should the lobby screen be mounted?
In portrait, at eye height, at the place residents stop: beside the mailboxes, facing the elevator call button or above the package shelf, never above the door people walk through. Portrait suits a notice board because notices are lists, and a 43-inch portrait screen reads like a tall poster.
Design the scene with the Portrait HD preset (1080 by 1920) in SignStudio and rotate the player's output to match the mounted screen, as our portrait screens guide explains for Windows, Raspberry Pi, Android and Chrome OS players. A lobby near a glass entrance needs 700 to 1,500 nits by our brightness guide; a windowless lobby is fine with a consumer TV at 250 to 400 nits. Our lobby digital signage guide covers placement in more detail, and the elevator displays guide covers taking the top notice into the cab.
Who updates what across several buildings?
Each person gets a SignStudio login with a role and a scope, so the desk at building A cannot change building B and the board secretary cannot delete a scene. SignStudio user management has Owner, Administrator, Content Manager, Editor, Operator and Viewer roles, and scopes that limit a user to specific screens or screen groups.
| Person | SignStudio role and scope | What they change | Where |
|---|---|---|---|
| Management company admin | Owner or Administrator, all buildings | Layouts, users, emergency scenes, rate card slides | SignStudio in a desktop browser |
| Property manager | Editor, scoped to their building's screens | Notices, maintenance, rules | The building's Google Sheet, from a phone |
| Front desk | Operator, scoped to their lobby | Package rows, screen status | The packages tab; player status in SignStudio |
| Board secretary | Viewer, plus edit rights on the events sheet | Resident events | The events sheet or community calendar |
| Maintenance lead | No SignStudio login needed | Maintenance status | A column in the sheet |
Bottom line: one SignStudio account, one screen group per building, one sheet per building, and five people who each touch only their own rows.
How much does it cost for 3 buildings in 2026?
Three buildings with one lobby screen each pay nothing in software; from the fourth screen every screen is billed at $3 per screen per month, and the TVs and sticks are a one-time purchase per lobby.
| Portfolio | Screens | Software per month (2026) | Software per year | TVs and players, one-time | Electricity per year |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 3 buildings, 1 lobby screen each | 3 | $0, free forever | $0 | $720 to $1,650 (43 or 55-inch consumer TV plus Android TV stick, each) | $225 |
| 3 buildings, lobby plus mailroom or gym | 6 | $18 (6 x $3, every screen billed) | $216 | $1,440 to $3,300 | $450 |
| 10 buildings, 1 lobby each | 10 | $30 | $360 | $2,400 to $5,500 | $750 |
Bottom line: a 10-building portfolio pays $360 a year for the software, and two 10-second local business slots per lobby can cover the TVs in the first year.
SignPlayer runs on Windows, Android and Android TV, Chrome OS, Raspberry Pi and Mac devices and in any browser; it does not run on Fire OS, Tizen or webOS smart TVs, so a donated smart TV still needs a $40 to $100 stick. Our illustrative property management scenario, a composite rather than a named customer, shows the shape of result a portfolio can expect: fewer repeated questions at the desk and notices that are actually read.
Frequently asked questions
Digital signage for apartment buildings, condos and HOAs
A lobby screen that replaces the cork board: building notices and maintenance alerts from a Google Sheet the manager edits from a phone, package arrivals by unit number, amenity bookings from the shared calendar, weather, transit, resident events and optional local business slots, with a prepared emergency scene. On DigitalSignage.com the first 3 screens are free forever and three buildings with two screens each pay $18 per month in 2026.
How does a property manager update the lobby screen from a phone?
By editing a Google Sheet, not the layout. The sheet is shared with the SignStudio service account and shown through the Google Sheets component, so the manager edits a notice row in the Google Sheets app and every lobby screen follows on its next refresh. Start and end dates on each row make notices appear and disappear by themselves.
Can the lobby screen show amenity bookings?
Yes. Connect the shared booking calendar for the gym, party room or roof deck to the SignStudio Calendar component, which reads Google Calendar, Outlook and Office 365 or an iCal feed, and show today's bookings by room and time without the booker's name. Residents keep booking in the calendar or booking tool the building already uses; the screen only displays it.
Should an apartment lobby screen be portrait or landscape?
Portrait, in most lobbies. Notices are lists and a 43-inch portrait screen reads like a tall poster beside the mailboxes or the elevator. Design the scene with the Portrait HD preset (1080 by 1920) in SignStudio and rotate the player output to match the mount. A lobby near a glass entrance needs 700 to 1,500 nits; a windowless lobby is fine with a consumer TV.
Can an HOA sell advertising on the lobby screen?
Yes, with board approval. Sell a fixed number of 10-second slots at a published rate, keep paid content under a third of the loop and off the notice and emergency zones, and record the rate card in the board minutes. In a 90-second loop each slot plays about 40 times an hour. A logged play count needs proof of play, an Enterprise feature; a remote screenshot is usually enough for a local business.
How much does digital signage cost for an apartment building?
On DigitalSignage.com the first 3 screens are free forever, with no credit card, ads or watermark, so a single building or three single-lobby buildings pay nothing in software. Six screens across three buildings cost $18 per month or $216 a year in 2026, every screen billed once the account has 4 or more. Each lobby needs a 43-inch TV at $200 to $300 or a 55-inch at $300 to $450 plus a $40 to $100 Android TV stick, and electricity is about $75 a year.
Related guides
- Lobby digital signage and welcome screens
- Digital notice boards for buildings
- Elevator and lift digital displays
- Calendar and room booking on digital signage
- Portrait screens and rotation
- Weather on digital signage
- SignStudio user management and roles
- Property management signage scenario
Try it on your own screens, free
DigitalSignage.com, which publishes this guide, runs a permanent free plan: the first 3 screens are free forever (no credit card, no ads, no time limit), then from $3 per screen per month with volume pricing via a public calculator. The free SignPlayer runs on Windows, Mac, Android and Android TV, Chrome OS, Raspberry Pi, iPad or any modern web browser. Start free · 2026 pricing