Required Hardware and Software

Our Service has two parts to it. A Management application and a Display application. You will also need to have some sort of display/TV/monitor/projector to connect to the Apple TV device.

The EZ+ Management application is currently available on the following platforms (if your favorite platform is not listed here, please contact us):

  • Web: app.eztv.plus
  • iOS (iPhone, iPad): You can search for “ez plus” in the Apple App Store on your device or follow this link. The bundle ID is “bnm.eztv-phone”.
  • macOS (all Mac and Macbook models): You acn search for “ez plus” in the Apple App Store on your device or follow this  link. The bundle ID is “bnm.eztv-phone”.

The EZ+ Display application is currently only available on Apple TV App Store. You can search for “ez plus” on the Apple TV App Store to find our application. The bundle ID of the Apple TV app is also “bnm.eztv-phone”. 

If you are deploying your devices where there is a firewall/VPN, please whitelist the following addresses so that our services are reachable from the Apple TV devices:

  • www.ezplus.app
  •  app.eztv.plus
  • www.eztv.plus
  • www.ezplus.app:8080
  • app.eztv.plus:8080
  • www.eztv.plus:8080

You will also need to have some sort of display/TV/monitor/projector to connect to the Apple TV device. For displays, we recommend models that support CEC to make it easier to turn on/off the display when turning on/off the Apple TV. Note that you can use any display that can connect to the HDMI output of the Apple TV device; in addition to HDMI-to-HDMI cables, you can also fine HDMI to DisplayPort cables. 

Apple TV 4K (3rd Gen) is our recommended model for the best performance, and image/video codec support.

Apple TV 4K (3rd Gen)

Apple TV HD (2015) is the oldest model of Apple TV that we support. However this model does not play 4K videos and have limited support for modern image and video codecs.

Apple TV HD

Apple TV 3rd gen and older models are NOT supported as they lack App Store capability.

Apple TV 3rd Gen

Downloading and Installing EZ+

1- The EZ Plus management app is available through the following

  • Web: available at  app.eztv.plus which is also the DASHBOARD menu tab on this website.
  • iOS/macOS (iPhone/iPad/Mac): search for “ez plus” in the App Store on your device and download the Management App. Here’s a link for you to the our App Store page.

The functionalities of the Web and iOS/macOS application are identical and we have worked hard to keep those applications consistent so that you will have a seamless experience working on different platforms.

After downloading the Management App or using the web portal, create an account for yourself by clicking on sign-up on the landing page and filling in the sign-up form and submitting it. Note that you should use an email address that you have access to as password resets and other communications related to your account will be send to the email you have used in the sign-up process.

  • If you want the Management app to remember your login information, check the “Save Email/Password” box
  • If you want the Management app to automatically log you in with the saved credentials when you launch the Management app, check the “Auto Sign in at Launch” box


1.a- Navigate to https://app.eztv.plus or open the EZ+ app

1.b- Fill in your information and hit Signup

2- Once you login, you notice that we have already created a Playlist and a TV for you. Note that there are no Slides created yet.
Click on the TV object to navigate you to the form page for that TV, then lick on “Link With New Device”, and select “Link using code displayed on the TV”

2.a- Select the TV object you want to link to the TV app

2.b- Select “Link With New Device”

2.c- Select “Link using code displayed on the TV”

2.d- We will enter the code displayed on the TV here later on

3- Now it is time to setup your Apple TV. When setting up your Apple TV device, make sure

  • Location Services” is turn on in Settings –> General –> Privacy & Security –> Location Services. This will let us show the correct Time/Date and Local Weather in the EZ+ app
  • Share Apple TV Analytics” and “Share with App Developers” is turn on in Settings –> General –> Privacy & Security under “ANALYTICS AND IMPROVEMENTS. This will help us debug any crash issues that might happen when using the EZ+ app


4- Go to the App store on your Apple TV, and search for “ez plus”, and download the EZ+ app on your Apple TV device

4.a- Search for EZ-Plus on App Store on your Apple TV device

4.b- Download ez plus to your device

5- Open the EZ+ app on your Apple TV, press the menu button on your remote once to see the menu options on the top bar and select the gear icon. This will take you to the Settings page on our TV application.
In the Settings Page, click on “Link with Management App” and wait for the linking code to appear on this page. Note that his code is unique to you and will expire to 15 minutes. When the code is expired, the TV app will automatically pull a new unique code for you.

5.a- Open the TV app and go to the settings page

5.b- Select “Link With Management App”

5.c- Wait for the linking code to appear

6- Note down the code shown on the TV and enter it in the box in the Management App and hit Link. After linking is successful, your TV will show as linked on the TV form page. Hit “Save & Exit” on the top right corner of the form to exit the form. Notice how the first TV will now have a background of green indicating it is linked and online. A background of red means the TV is linked and offline and a background of orange means the TV is linked, online, and requires a EZ+ App update on the device

6.a- Enter the code from the TV and “Link”

6.b- Save & Close the TV form

6.c- Your first TV is linked now!

1. Overview and Access to the EZ Plus Management App

  • Web: available at  app.eztv.plus which is also the DASHBOARD menu tab on this website.
  • iOS/macOS: search for “ez plus” in the App Store on your device and download the Management App.

Both the web portal and iOS/macOS apps provide identical functionalities to ensure seamless management across platforms.

Now you have to create an EZ Plus account:

  • Open the EZ Plus app or navigate to app.eztv.plus.
  • Fill in the sign-up form with a valid email to receive important notifications and password resets.
  • Use the Save Email/Password option to store your credentials and Auto Sign in at Launch to log in automatically when launching the app.

1.1- Navigate to https://app.eztv.plus or open the EZ+ app

1.2- Fill in your information and hit Signup

2. Preparing for Auto-Sync and Configurations

  • Auto-Sync allows bulk linking of Apple TV devices to your EZ Plus account in just a few clicks.
  • Navigate to the TVs tab and select Auto-Sync from the left navigation bar.
  • Use the App Config Generator button to create the necessary Application Configuration.
  • Choose an Existing Site or enter a new site name for each device. If a new site is needed, it will be created automatically during the process.
  • Note that eztv_secret and eztv_org values are unique to you and you should not share it with anyone else for security reasons.
  • Auto-Sync is available in version 13.3 binary (7.3 App Store) of the management App and requires version 13.3 binary (7.3 App Store) of the EZ+ Apple TV app.

2.1- Click on the TVs tab to go to the TVs page

ezplus auto-sync

2.2- Navigate to the Auto-Sync section

ezplus auto-sync tv linking

2.3- Select App Config Generator

ezplus auto-sync tv linking App Config Generator

2.4- Generate an App Config fitting your need

ezplus auto-sync tv linking App Config Generator

3. Configuring Your Apple TV Devices

Prerequisites:

  • Jamf Pro (10.7+) or any other major MDM provider, and an Apple Volume Purchasing Program (such as Apple Business Manager, or Apple School Manager)
  • Purchase the EZ Plus app licenses under the bundle ID: bnm.eztv-phone (ensure tvOS is selected).

Steps:

  • In Jamf or your MDM, find EZ Plus under “Mobile Device Apps.”
  • Paste the App Configuration you generated in the Preferences section of the app configuration in Jamf.
  • Assign the app to your Apple TV devices to deploy the EZ Plus app.
  • If EZ Plus was installed previously without the correct App Configuration, remove the app first and re-deploy it. We support in-place updates of App Configs but the process might not be fool-proof.

Pro Tip: Set devices to Single App Mode with EZ Plus to ensure it launches at boot. You can remove the single app mode configuration from your Apple TV devices after the setup is complete. If you are only using the Apple TV devices for digital signage, we recommend setting it to single app mode.

ezplus auto-sync and jamf app config

4. Running EZ Plus on the Devices

  • Run EZ Plus at least once on your Apple TV devices (either via manual launch or single app mode).
  • After EZ Plus launches, it will be discoverable in the Auto-Sync section as an Unlinked Device.

5. Linking Devices with Auto-Sync

 Fetch Unlinked Devices:

  • Navigate to Auto-Sync > Get Unlinked Devices to list all deployed but unlinked devices.

Select Devices to Link:

  • Choose the devices you want to link and click Link Selected Devices.

Map Site Names:

  • In the Map Sites dialog, map the site names retrieved from the devices to existing or new sites in your organization.
  • Green Checkmarks will indicate completed mappings.
  • If you choose Create a New Site, the site will be added automatically.

In the example provided in the images, we have 6 devices across different sites that are not linked and we want to link 5 of them.

5.1- Click on “Get Unlinked Devices”

ezplus auto-sync get unlinked devices

5.2- Select tv device you want to link and click on “Link Selected Devices”

ezplus auto-sync link selected devices

5.3- You have to specify how the Site Names from App Configs should be mapped to the sites in your organization

ezplus auto-sync Map Sites

5.4- You can create a new Site for a given retrieved Site Name from the unlinked devices

ezplus auto-sync Map Sites

5.5- You can using an existing Site for a given retrieved Site Name from the unlinked devices

ezplus auto-sync Map Sites

6. Finalizing the Setup

Once the site mappings are complete, the TVs will be automatically linked to your devices, and any new sites will be created. You are now ready to manage your digital signage with ease!

Let us know if you need help with any of the steps.

Additional Notes for fully remote deployment

  • Set “eztv_disable_location_request” to true in the App Config to disable the location access request prompt on first launch, allowing remote deployments without manual interaction. Don’t forget to manually set the location of your TVs or TV Groups to get accurate weather and time information.

Note that this section is linking your devices one at a time which is now deprecated and replaced with our Auto-Sync linking feature, which can link all your devices with a few clicks.

1- The EZ Plus management app is available through the following

  • Web: available at  app.eztv.plus which is also the DASHBOARD menu tab on this website.
  • iOS/macOS: search for “ez plus” in the App Store on your device and download the Management App.

The functionalities of the Web and iOS/macOS application are identical and we have worked hard to keep those applications consistent so that you will have a seamless experience working on different platforms.

After downloading the Management App or using the web portal, create an account for yourself by clicking on sign-up on the landing page and filling in the sign-up form and submitting it. Note that you should use an email address that you have access to as password resets and other communications related to your account will be send to that email.

  • If you want the Management app to remember your login information, check the “Save Email/Password” box
  • If you want the Management app to automatically log you in with the saved credentials when you launch the Management app, check the “Auto Sign in at Launch” box


1.a- Navigate to https://app.eztv.plus or open the EZ+ app

1.b- Fill in your information and hit Signup

2- Once you login, you notice that we have already created a Playlist and a TV for you. Note that there are no Slides created yet.
Click on the TV object to navigate you to the form page for that TV, then click on “Link With New Device”, and select “Link With New Device”

2.a- Select the TV object you want to link to the TV app

2.b- Select “Link With New Device”

2.c- Select “Link using code displayed on the TV”

2.d- Select your MDM and copy the App Configuration

3- We assume you have Jamf Pro 10.7 higher or equivalent Jamf school, an Apple Volume Purchasing Program (such as Apple Business Manager, or Apple School Manager), and have purchased enough EZ Plus App licenses for your Apple TV devices. Our bundle identifier is bnm.eztv-phone if needed. (make sure you select the tvOS software when purchasing the app).
Let’s assume you are using jamf-Pro but directions for other MDMs should be the same if your MDM supports App Configuration that expose the serial number of the device and can pass values to the application on the Apple TV devices. Please contact us if you need help with using a specific MDM. 

Now let’s make sure your Apple TV devices are properly setup with EZ+ app on them.
Go to your jamf-Pro session and look for ez-plus under “Mobile Device Apps”

4- In jamf-Pro, select ez plus app and past the App Configuration from your EZ+ management application into the App Configuration’s Preferences box

5- Now after you have the EZ Plus app with the proper App Configuration, you can assign it to your Apple TV devices to be deployed. Note that if you have already installed EZ Plus without the App Configuration, you need to remove the app from your apple tv devices first before deploying with the correct App Configuration.

EZ Plus needs to run on the destination device at least once before you can link the apps with the management app. For doing so, you can either set up the devices in single app mode running EZ Plus (so that EZ Plus will run on boot) or someone should manually run EZ Plus on those devices after they are deployed.

Note that you can remove the single app mode configuration from your Apple TV devices after the setup is complete. If you are only using the Apple TV devices for digital signage, we recommend setting it to single app mode.

6- Once EZ Plus is deployed and launched once on your Apple TV devices, then you can link individual TVs in your management App to the Apple TV devices using the Serial Number of each Apple TV device. Serial Number of each Apple TV device is accessible under the hardware specification of each device in Jamf Pro/School.

Now copy this serial number from jamf-pro and paste it into the serial number dialog box from step 2.d and select click on the Link button. After linking is successful, your TV will show as linked on the TV form page. Hit “Save & Exit” on the top right corner of the form to exit the form. Notice how the first TV will now have a background of green indicating it is linked and online. A background of red means the TV is linked and offline and a background of orange means the TV is linked, online, and requires a EZ+ App update on the device

6.a- Paste the serial number from jamf

6.b- Save & Close the TV form

6.c- Your first TV is linked now!

For each Apple TV device, you need to create an individual TV item in the EZ Plus management console and repeat the linking process using device serial numbers from jamf-pro/school. In the near future we will automate linking EZ Plus management to your jamf account so that the linking of devices to your management console is automated and you don’t need to do it one at a time. This advanced feature is not available yet but if you are in dire need of it, let us know and we’ll see what we can do.

Creating and Editing Your First Image Slide

We assume you have setup your Apple TV(s) and have linked it to your EZ+ management application. Let’s create a simple image slide.

1- Open your EZ+ management application and either click on the + sign in the Slides row (you can also drag the image file to this area), or navigate to the Slides tab and click on the + button in the lower right corner of the screen to create a new slide

1.a- click on + or drag files here

1.b or navigate to the slides tab first 

1.c click on the lower right + button

2- When starting a new slide, you will be automatically taken to the Files tab in the slide form. We want to add an local file image, so we are in the right place.
click on the Local Files button or the big + button to open the file selection menu

2.a- click on Local Files or the + sign

2.b- pick one or multiple image(files)

3- Now that you have selected your image, it will appear in the your slide form. If you don’t want to make any modification to the images, save the slide by clicking on “Save and Exit”. 

3.a- Click on Save and Exit after picking the image

3.b- you have created your first slide!

4- If you want to crop an image, we have to do some extra steps after selecting an image. Let’s say you have loaded the image as in above and now see the image as in Fig 3.a. Next we have to click on the edit button on the media navigator to crop the image

4.a- Click on edit on the image you want to modify (crop for example)

4.b- Now we are in the image crop screen

In the Crop Image window, you have some controls buttons such as Flip, Rotate Left/Right, Reset, Crop & Save, and Change Aspect Ratio.
When the Crop Image window load, the crop rectangle, which is marked by the red corners, is preset to 16×9 aspect ratio (Landscape). You can resize the 16×9 window and move it round. If you want to crop a Portrait image in 9×16 aspect ratio, click on the Change Aspect Ratio button and choose Portrait. If you want to freely move the corners around the image regardless of the aspect ratio, select Free Form in the aspect ratio selector.
After you are done, select Crop And Save to save the current selection. Note that if you want to keep the whole image, simply don’t crop the image  and save the slide image as stated in Step 3 above.

Displaying Your Slide on the TV

Now that you have created a slide, we have to add it to a playlist that is linked to a specific TV in order for the slide to be shown on that TV.
When you first create your account, we automatically create a new TV and a new playlist for you that is linked to that TV. Later on, we’ll show you how to create new playlists and link them to your TVs or change the playlist of the TVs.
For now navigate to you dashboard, and click on the playlist you want to modify

a- Click on the playlist you want to modify on your dashboard or the Playlists page

b- hit the green up-arrow on your slide in the middle of the screen to move the slide to the playlist slides

c- Click on the Save & Exit button to finish modifying the playlist and go back to the dashboard

d- Note how your playlist now has 1 slide in it and also how your TV is showing the “First Playlist” as the playlist it’s playing

Changing the Settings of Your TVs

Let’s look into what settings are available in EZ+ for configuring your TVs. The settings for the TVs are accessible when editing single TVs and when editing TV-Groups. Let’s first look at configuring an individual TV and then we’ll have a brief review of configuring multiple TVs at one.

1- Navigate to the TV’s tab of your EZ+ management application where you can access the TVs or the TV-Groups through the vertical tab on the left of the screen. Note that you can also directly access your TVs in the Dashboard tab.

1.a- You can click on the TVs tab on the top or directly on the TV you want to edit in the Dashboard

1.b- All your TVs are accessible in the TVs tab where you can search and filter

2- After clicking on a TV you will be taken to the TV-form where you can modify and adjust the settings of that TV. At the top of the page, we have the “Linked Device” section which we already covered when setting up your TV. Below it there is “Content & Setup”, which we will focus on in this section. After Content & Setup, there is the site-assignment card, followed by the Name card, and finally the Notes card where you can keep notes about this TV.

“Content & Setup” has two main parts, one is the “quick actions” section and then there is advanced configuration accessible by clicking on the gear icon on the top right hand side of the card

2-a. TV-form where you can modify the settings of the TV through Quick Actions of Advanced Configuration

ezplus tv settings

3- Let’s focus on the Quick Actions for now. Quick actions are shortcuts for modify some of the common TV settings including:

  1. “Slides”: select whether to display your own slides on this TV or not, and if yes, which playlist to play on the TV
  2. “News”: select whether to display our curated news items on this TV or not, and if yes, which categories of news to show (defaults to 100 news items)
  3. “Weather”: select whether to display Time/Weather on this TV or not, and if yes, what layout and configuration for doing so
  4. “Auto Advance”: whether to automatically advance the pages on the TV or not, and if yes, at what paste
  5. “Audio”: whether to mute the EZ+ audio on this TV or not, which currently implies whether to mute your Video slides or not
  6. “Logo”: whether to display the EZ+ logo on this TV or not, which translates to whether you want to use one of your Pro TV tokens on this device or not. If you do not have a Pro account, this action item will let you contact us in inquire about it.

3. Slides: Choose “No Playlist” to turn off the slides. You can also modify your playlists from this dialog  

3. News: You can choose which news categories to show on this TV

3- Weather: choose how to display the weather/time widget on this TV

3- Auto Advance: You can turn off auto-advance or choose the paste of the slides

3- EZ+ logo visibility: You need a Pro account to hide our logo on your TV. Contact us to learn more.

ezplus hiding the logos on the TVs

4- Let’s look the advanced configuration options and see what can be controlled here. After clicking on the gear icon on top right corner of “Content & Setup” you will see the following groups of configurations:

  • “Slides” group: has two card letting you control the playlist and also how your slides are mixed with the news items.
  1. “Playlist”: This is similar the quick action for the Slides that we covered before. Here you can turn off showing any slides on this tv by selecting “No Playlist”, or pick the playlift you want to be played on this TV.
  2. “Order of Slides”: Here you get to choose to whether shuffle the news and your slides, or have them displayed in-order. When the slides/news are displayed in-order, the “N” number controls how often you see your slides, with a higher N meaning that your slides will be shown in longer intervals. For example, every 2 slides means your slides are shown every other page, and every 4 slides means that there are three news items between your slides

4- Order of Slides: you can select between shuffling & ordering the news items and your slides in various ways

  • “News” group
  1. “News Categories”: This is similar to the News quick action item where you get to pick the news categories you are interested in.
  2. “Number of News Items”: This controls how many news items are shown on your TV and can be a number between 0 and 100. If you set this number to 0, no news items will be displayed on the TV. Also, when you toggle on the News quick action checkbox, we automatically set this number to 100 for you.
  3. “News Text Visibility”: If you don’t want to see the title/summary of the news slides, you can set this to hidden. This creates a visually appealing and contextually relevant slides of images around the current news of the day

4-Number of New Items: Let’s you control how many news items are displayed on your TV 

4- News Text Visibility: Let’s you control the visibility of the title/summary text in the news slides

  • “Location and Weather” group
  1. “Location”: when location services are enabled on your Apple TV device that is linked to this TV, the location will show the approximate location of your device. You can set or overwrite the location of your device to get the correct date/time/weather-forecast at your TV. When you have not granted permission to EZ+ on your Apple TV to use the location service, or when you choose to disable our automatic location lookups through MDM profiles, you can use this configuration to set the location of your TV. Don’t forget to “confirm” the location you pick to apply your changes.
  2. “Weather Layout”: This is similar to the Weather quick action checkbox where you get to set how you want time/weather to be displayed on your TVs. 
  3. “Temperature Unit”: choose between Celsius and Fahrenheit to suit your needs.

4- Location: you can set the location of your TV for accurate time/date/weather-forecast

ezplus setting the location of your TV for accurate time/date/weather-forecast

4- Temperature Unit: choose between Celsius and Fahrenheit 

ezplus tv setting for temperature unit
  • “Announcement” group
  1. “Announcement”: You can enter a multi-line announcement that will be permanently displayed on this TV. This could be your Wi-Fi username/password. Delete the text to disable this feature.

4- Announcement: This multi-line text will be permanently displayed on the TV

ezplus announcement tv settings

4- Announcement: An example of how announcements will look on your TV

ezplus how announcements look on your TV
  • “General Settings” group
  1. “Logo Visibility”: This is the same the Logo quick action checkbox. If you don’t have a Pro account, it will prompt you to contact us through email.
  2. “Transition Effect”: This controls the transition effect between the slides when auto-advance is enabled. You can choose between the legacy “Slide” and our new “Fade in/out” and “Cut” transitions.
  3. “TV Orientation”: This let’s you set the orientation of your TV. Note that Apple TV itself doesn’t support non-landscape orientations, so when you change the orientation here, if you are using the Apple TV’s remote to navigate the controls, you have to also rotate your Siri remote according to your TV orientation for the directional navigation to work fine. Doing so is not very intuitive but it will get the work done. Hopefully you don’t have to use the Siri remote much with our App in non-landscape orientation; and if you do so, you’ll get it once you practice a little. We have done our best to make this experience as smooth as possible.
  4. “Keep TV On”: This allows you choose whether to keep the TV on (disable the built-in Apple screensaver) when EZ+ is running or allow the Apple TV to switch to the built-in screen saver after a certain amount of time. You should always select “Keep TV on” if you are using EZ+ as a digital signage and/or a supercharged screensaver!
  5. “Per Slide Duration”: You can control the duration of the slides shown on this TV with this configuration card. Note that if you set the Duration of any slides in a Slide form to something other than Default, that duration will overwrite the TV-wide slide duration configuration set here.
  6. “Audio Setting”: This is similar to the quick action Audio checkbox where you get to mute/unmute EZ+ on your Apple TV.
  7. “Conference Room Mode”: When enabled, this will show a permanent message on top of your TVs with the name of the Apple TV box to help with airplay devices connecting to the TV. Note that the name of the Apple TV device set in the Apple TV itself will be shown on the message and not the name of the TV you have picked in the TV-form. 

4- Transition Effect: You can control the slide transition effect when slides are set to auto-advance

ezplus tv settings slide transition effect

4- TV Orientation: You can choose between 4 major orientations for your TV

ezplus TV orientation setup

4- Keep TV On: You can disable the built-in Apple TV screensaver to keep the TV on while EZ+ is playing

ezplus keep TV on setting

4- Audio Setting: you can mute/unmute EZ+ on your Apple TV

ezplus audio settings

4- Conference Room Mode: display the device name of your Apple TV on EZ+ to help with airplay connections

ezplus conference room mode

4- Conference Room Mode: This is how EZ+ will look with Conference Room Mode enabled

ezplus conference room mode on a sample TV
Where are the old installation instructions?

Here’s a very old, and outdated, installation video that gives you an idea of how easy it is to install and use EZ Plus.
Do not use this video for setup purposes.

We can walk you through the installation if needed — it’s super easy.