How To - EZ Plus, the most modern and affordable signage solution

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: https://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 https://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- The EZ Plus management app is available through the following

Web: available at https://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.

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.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

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.