CarniDigiSign_IOT

History

Previously, this was part of a three piece solution: this app to display screens on Windows10IOT, another app to create signs, and a third app which acts as the server.

Now this has been simplified as the server solution is legacy in favor of using MongoDB Atlas as the cloud database and MongoDB Stitch as the serverless platform for REST APIs.

About this repo

So now this app will display signs in rotation and the other project still creates signs.

The end result is a simple to deploy and manage utility for digital signage.

These two apps are UWP apps. The intent of this one is to be deployed on a Raspberry Pi or Intel Compute Stick running Windows 10 IOT to display the digial signage

Sign type support

Supported options for the type of screen are:

Hidden - hide - The record is ignored but kept in the database
Image - image - A URL to an image
Text - text - The Text field is displayed in line
Tweet - tweet - The URL to a specific tweet. The Twitter API is called to retrieve and it is formatted
Video - video - A URL to a video file supported by the UWP video element
Web - web - A URL to a website

Deployment

Deploy a Raspberry Pi with Windows 10 IOT
Connect it to the network
Sign up for MongoDB Atlas
Create a cluster and a database called digisign with collections for registration and screens
Connect a Stitch application to MongoDB Atlas cluster
Install the stitch-cli and load the Stitch folder into that app. Note that each config file is expecting a string in the secret field above the SECRET_AS_QUERY_PARAM which I have omitted when I uploaded it to source control. Put your credentials and phone number in the Twilio section and Values section or delete that trigger and twil folders.
Download Visual Studio 2017, open the solution in SignDisplay
Edit the Resources.resw with the URL of the stitch app above and the secret you created above
Deploy the app onto the Pi
It will wait on the regirstration page seen above in the screenshot and should send a text message to you
Log into Atlas and manually enter the feed, baseurl, etc as expected for this to work
Every 90 seconds or so the Pi will update to check if it is registered and start the slideshow
Add to the screens collection with the screens needed to rotate. This can be done manually (sample docs below) or via the other app listed above in the readme

Data flow

Additional features

There is a list Stitch endpoint that when visited will show all registered devices
There is a details Stitch endpoint that you can get to either from the above list endpoint or via the QR code generated while device is pending registration. The idea here is you can print the QR code and affix it to the device to track inventory. You can get to this page via the UUID token generated or via the MAC address.
The registration collection shoudl be manually updated (no UI yet) to store the mac, secret, baseurl, feed, name, location, model and will autopopulate firstseen and lastseen dates based on registration time and last registration request respectively. The secret, baseurl, and feed are required to function (and obviously token which will automatically be there) while all other attributes are strictly for tracking purposes within the list and details UI endpoints for management. Not for required functionality.

Disabling auto-provisioning

comment out the line in SignDisplay/SignDisplay/MainPage.xaml.cs in MainPage method the line starting autoprovision(
Push to the device
make sure that you have a keyboard plugged into the Pi
Manually fill out the URL, secret, and feed into the relevent text boxes
Click the button to load the REST api call to get the screens

Implementation details

the token is generated using the EasClientDeviceInformation in Windows.Security.ExchangeActiveSyncProvisioning and should persist after reboots during my testing. Other methods did not persist on the Pi. Did not yet test to see if it persists after updates
Use a Pi and maintain physical security over this when deployed to make sure that it cannot be tampered with as the URL and secret are not encrypted on the SD Card
It is recommended to use a dumb TV to plug this into as smart TVs leave another attach vector to manipulation by passers-by
Change the default administrator password on the Windows installation, use an isolated network, disable remote access to it
Use strong random secret strings

Sample docs

Registration on initial reg

{
    "_id":"5c3b8c3598f568ae6946bda2",
    "token":"0c93f018-a23b-5b42-ee71-79a607da2a40",
    "lastseen":"2019-01-13T19:20:01.682Z",
    "firstseen":"2019-01-13T19:06:29.693Z"
}

Registration after manual update

{
    "_id":"5c3943c75ee2663fe3a1b230",
    "token":"eb89e839-3850-dadf-7970-7b977627ec73",
    "secret":"supersecretstring",
    "feed":"nameoffeed",
    "mac":"b8:92:cb:f4:aa:b1",
    "baseurl":"https://stitchurlhere",
    "lastseen":"2019-01-13T18:36:06.881Z",
    "name":"Test Subject 1",
    "location":"Chris's Desk",
    "model":"Raspberry Pi 3b",
    "firstseen":"2019-01-11T22:10:43.066Z"
}

Screens

{
    "_id":"594bef61d3d13001432045b0",
    "__v":0,
    "created_date":"2017-06-22T16:25:05.471Z",
    "duration":"10", // seconds to display content before rotate
    "feed":"nameoffeed",
    "modified_date":"2017-06-22T16:25:05.471Z",
    "name":"Connect",
    "order":"140", // order to be displayed
    "sign_text":"",
    "sign_type":"image", // see above for types
    "uri":"https://something.com/pic.jpg
}

graboskyc / CarniDigiSign_IOT