Setting up a TV
A television, a streaming box, and your phone. After this the board looks after itself — it comes back on its own after a power cut, and it keeps showing your last menu if the internet drops.
A Fire TV Stick will not work. Amazon blocks the permission the board needs to come back by itself after a power cut, and a screen that needs somebody to pick up a remote every time the power blinks is not a menu board.
On the television, open Google Play and search for Tapline. Install it, then open it. You will see a six‑character code on screen.
If search does not find it, open the listing on your phone or laptop while signed in to the same Google account as the TV, press Install, and choose the box from the list. It installs over the air.
On your phone, open Tapline and go to More → TVs → Pair a TV. Type the six characters from the screen and tap Pair. Your board appears within a few seconds.
The code lasts ten minutes and the TV asks for a new one by itself when it expires, so there is no rush and nothing to restart. A zero typed as the letter O still works.
This is the step people skip, and it is the one that matters. Tapline already tells the box to keep the panel awake while the board is running, which handles it on most hardware. Two things sit outside the app’s reach, and both are worth two minutes with the remote.
The box’s own sleep and screen saver. In the box’s Settings, look under System for anything called screen saver, ambient mode, power, energy or sleep. Set the screen saver so it never starts, and the display so it never turns itself off. The wording differs between boxes and between updates to the same box, so go by what the setting does rather than by its name.
The television’s own power saving. Separate from the box, and easy to miss: most TVs will turn themselves off after a few hours with no remote activity. It is usually under Eco, Power or Timer in the TV’s menu. Turn it off.
One you may want to leave alone: HDMI‑CEC, which lets the TV power the box down with it. For most bars that is the right behaviour — the board sleeps at close and wakes with the TV in the morning, and nothing is lost either way, because the board comes back by itself.
The screen shows a code and nothing else. It is waiting to be paired. Go to More → TVs → Pair a TV and type the code.
The board is showing yesterday’s menu. The TV has lost the internet and is doing exactly what it should — showing the last menu it had rather than an error. Check the wi‑fi; it catches up on its own within a minute of coming back.
The screen has gone dark. Work outwards: the TV’s own power saving, then the box’s sleep setting, then the socket. We email you when a screen stops checking in, so you usually know before a customer mentions it.
Still stuck? Tell us and a person reads it.