This blog post explains why applications like digital signage require a computing platform that combines high-end visualization, AI, and intelligent connectivity – while remaining compact, energy-efficient, reliable, and cost-effective. It shows how processors like the MediaTek Genio 700, based on smartphone processor technology, meet these demands and why they are particularly well-suited for platforms like SMARC. It also highlights the benefits of integrating SECO’s Clea software suite to build a robust foundation for digital signage solutions.
Digital signage systems have become a fixture of modern environments—supporting interactive advertising in retail, delivering passenger information in public transit, and providing digital menus in restaurants. However, the expectations placed on these systems are growing more complex.
Today’s signage solutions must interact with their surroundings, respond in real time, and stay continuously connected. Artificial intelligence (AI) plays a key role by enabling features such as audience measurement and people flow analysis. These capabilities allow signage to adapt dynamically based on viewer behavior, while also supporting advanced analytics and operational insights.
To meet these demands, systems require greater computational performance delivered locally at the edge—without depending on cloud infrastructure. This shift helps reduce latency, preserve privacy, and improve reliability. At the same time, platforms must remain compact, energy-efficient, and cost-effective.
Visual performance remains equally critical. Contemporary installations often employ high-resolution 4K displays, sometimes in multi-screen configurations. These systems must render high-quality animations and effects smoothly across multiple outputs.
Finally, reliable connectivity is essential. Digital signage devices must remain networked—via Wi-Fi, Ethernet, or 5G—to enable remote updates, content delivery, and data synchronization.
Mobile Processor Technology Meets the Challenge
The performance and efficiency demands of modern digital signage—high-resolution graphics, real-time AI, and constant connectivity—closely parallel those of smartphones. This overlap has made mobile processor technologies an attractive option for embedded systems, offering a compelling combination of power, size, and energy efficiency.
A prime example is the MediaTek Genio 700. Based on smartphone processor technology and designed for industrial-grade multimedia applications, this processor brings advanced capabilities to embedded environments like digital signage.
One of its key strengths lies in graphics performance. The integrated Arm Mali-G57 MC3 GPU supports dual 4K displays, enabling vivid, high-resolution content across multi-screen installations. Smooth animations, video playback, and graphical effects can be delivered without compromise, sent via a choice of LVDS, eDP, DP, and HDMI interfaces.
The processor also offers impressive compute capabilities. It combines two high-performance Arm Cortex-A78 cores running at 2.2 GHz with six energy-efficient Cortex-A55 cores at 2.0 GHz. This heterogeneous architecture ensures a balance between responsiveness and power savings—crucial for systems that must operate continuously without active cooling or from a battery.
Artificial intelligence workloads benefit from dedicated hardware acceleration. The Genio 700’s integrated Deep Learning Accelerator (DLA) delivers up to 4 TOPS (trillion operations per second), supporting edge inference for applications like audience detection, object recognition, or behavioral analysis. The processor also includes a hardware-based vision processing unit (VPU) to accelerate imaging and computer vision algorithms. These tasks can be executed in real time, directly on the device, without needing to offload processing to the cloud.
Together, these capabilities make the Genio 700 an ideal foundation for next-generation signage platforms that demand intelligence, responsiveness, and efficiency based on video and other situational parameters—all within a compact and cost-effective footprint.
How SMARC Brings Performance to Life
SECO enhances its hardware offering with the Clea Software Framework—a platform designed to streamline the development, deployment, and long-term management of connected edge systems such as digital signage.
At the edge, Clea OS provides a production-ready Linux environment based on the Yocto Project. It includes all essential drivers and services, allowing developers to get up and running quickly without building a custom software stack from scratch. Built-in support for automated testing and continuous integration (CI/CD) further accelerates development and ensures software quality over time.
Clea also simplifies remote fleet management. Device provisioning, monitoring, and over-the-air (OTA) updates can all be handled centrally, making it easy to maintain signage networks spread across multiple locations. Security features—such as encrypted communication, access controls, and firmware integrity checks—are built in to support reliable operation in the field.
Additionally, Clea OS provides the essential features to facilitate compliance with the Radio Equipment Directive (RED) of the European Union (EU) (Directive 2014/53/EU) Delegated Regulation (EU) 2022/30. This regulation requires most wireless equipment sold within the EU from August 1, 2025 onward to comply with the cybersecurity requirements in EN 18031-1, Clea OS integrates silicon vendor security technologies natively, delivering a fully secure and compliant product experience with minimal configuration from the customer, handling critical security functions like secure boot and firmware validation.
For cloud integration, Clea provides a web-based portal that enables real-time monitoring, data orchestration, and application deployment. This allows system operators to manage thousands of devices, push new content or software updates, and analyze usage metrics—all from a centralized interface.
By combining the performance of the Genio 700 processor with Clea’s infrastructure, SECO delivers a complete solution that supports intelligent digital signage—from initial development through to large-scale deployment and ongoing maintenance.
Integration of SECO‘s Clea Software Framework
This combination becomes even more compelling when paired with an intelligent software solution like SECO’s Clea Framework.
At the edge, Clea OS delivers a complete Linux board support package built on the Yocto project. It provides an integrated DevOps infrastructure with CI/CD pipelines for automated testing, along with device drivers, IoT data orchestration, device management functionalities, and security functions.
This comprehensive stack enables developers to focus on application logic rather than infrastructure. For cloud functionality, Clea provides a matching platform for data orchestration and device management, along with a user portal for direct management of networks. Clea additionally facilitates the deployment of AI algorithms in edge devices. By abstracting away hardware complexity while handling real-time analytics, Clea helps developers fully leverage advanced processors like the Genio 700 series.
Conclusion
Digital signage is evolving rapidly. What’s needed today are systems that not only display content but also react intelligently, analyze data, and stay seamlessly connected. The SOM-SMARC-Genio700 offers the ideal combination of performance, energy efficiency, and integrated AI to meet these requirements.
Ready for your future Digital Signage Solution? Contact SECO today.