News, Product Updates
Here's what's new this week! 💫
You can now spot screens that are frozen but still reporting as online, stop or wipe a misbehaving app from the API instead of dispatching someone, stack multiple policies on a device and let priority sort out the conflicts, and add validated typed config to applets built in the Box editor.
Catch frozen screens before your client does
A screen can read as online while it's been stuck on a frozen frame for hours, and usually, your client is the first one to notice. Frozen Content detection watches what's actually on screen by comparing each device's two most recent screenshots and flagging the ones that haven't changed, so there are no reference images or thresholds to tune.
Why it matters: Online doesn't mean playing, and this closes the gap by watching the screen itself rather than just whether the device is reachable.
Every organization with Content Guard gets a ready-made Frozen Content category, so there's nothing to set up. You just drop the condition into an alert rule, pick your devices, and you're covered, and it's included at no extra cost.
Basic applets can now define their own configuration
Basic applets built in the Box HTML editor now support configDefinition, the same typed config schema that CLI applets already had.
Why it matters: A simple HTML applet often still needs real config like an API endpoint, a key, or a refresh interval, and now those values get validated and masked for you instead of being free-form with secrets in plain view.
You can define typed fields like string, url, enum, number, secret, and encrypted in the new Box editor, or pass configDefinition in your version POST or PUT. When you assign the applet through Timing, it renders a real form and enforces the mandatory fields, with secrets shown masked and encrypted fields returned empty.
Existing applets keep working unchanged.
Stop and reset apps on a device, remotely
Two new package management APIs let you control running apps without touching the hardware: stop a package, or clear its data. Handy when an app is misbehaving, stuck, or holding onto corrupt cached data and you'd otherwise be dispatching someone to the screen.
Why it matters: When a player app freezes or gets into a bad state, the usual fix is a site visit or a full device reboot. Now you can stop the app or wipe its data from the API and let it start clean, which means less downtime and fewer truck rolls for problems that don't need them.
Assign multiple policies to a device, with priority
Devices can now hold more than one policy, each with its own priority, and the platform merges them into a single policy to push out, where higher-priority settings win.
Why it matters: Instead of maintaining one bloated policy or duplicating settings, you can layer a broad org-wide baseline with targeted overrides and trust the system to resolve the conflicts.
A new REST endpoint returns the final aggregated policy per device, so you can confirm exactly what's applied instead of guessing, and it supports bulk operations, so it holds up across large fleets.
