From Fire TV to Signage Stick: University of Utah's Digital Signage Evolution
A Case Study with Jake Sorensen, Director of Sponsorship & Advertising
About the Institution
The University of Utah, established in 1850, is the state's flagship institution of higher education. Located in Salt Lake City, it serves over 34,000 students across 17 colleges and schools. The university's sprawling 1,535-acre campus requires extensive digital communication networks to reach its diverse community of students, faculty, and staff.
The Catalyst for Change
The University of Utah's digital signage infrastructure was a complex patchwork of mini-PCs, Raspberry Pi boxes, and Fire TV Sticks, each requiring unique setup processes and management protocols. This fragmented approach, spanning 500+ displays across campus, led to mounting installation challenges, escalating maintenance costs, and increasing system failures. "Managing this diverse hardware ecosystem became increasingly unsustainable," explains Jake Sorensen, Director of Sponsorship & Advertising. "The growing complexity of maintaining consumer media players, particularly Fire TV Sticks, resulted in reliability issues that compromised our professional, unattended signage deployment. We were facing both rising operational costs and declining system performance."
Meet the Innovation Leader
Jake Sorensen, who oversees sponsorship and advertising and Student Media in Auxiliary Business Development at the University of Utah, has navigated the digital signage landscape for nearly 15 years. His experience spans the technology's evolution from unwieldy traditional displays to today's streamlined solutions. This expertise proved invaluable in recognizing Amazon Signage Stick's potential as a platform for professional digital signage deployment.
Initial Pain Points
Managing hundreds of Fire TV Sticks for digital signage was becoming increasingly complex. Despite being an Amazon product, Fire TV Sticks weren't designed for digital signage deployment, creating unnecessary complications in setup and maintenance across the university's extensive display network. System hiccups frequently required time-consuming manual intervention to restore service, driving up both labor costs and downtime.
The Discovery
The critical juncture came when software updates to Fire TV Sticks began affecting their compatibility with digital signage requirements. These changes, coupled with the devices' inability to maintain reliable, uninterrupted operations, motivated Sorensen to consider alternatives.
"We needed a solution that could run continuously without interruption," explains Sorensen. "When I learned that Amazon had launched Signage Stick, specifically engineered for digital signage applications, it was exactly what we were looking for. The fact that it was an affordable Amazon device gave us confidence in its longevity and support," notes Sorensen. "As an Amazon device that’s less than $100, it offered the stability and design functionality we needed, along with the assurance of long-term support."
The Solution
Implementing Amazon Signage Stick with a content management software (CMS) reduced operational complexity while improving system performance. What previously required 30-45 minutes of complex configuration per Fire TV Stick now took just 10 minutes with Signage Stick. The nature of the device eliminated the need for workarounds and complicated setup processes while the CMS integration was seamless and worked out-of-the-box.