Vercel Analytics on a TV: a wall dashboard

What’s on the screen

Vercel’s Analytics page is built for a desk: one project, filters, panels to click. On a wall you want the opposite, everything at once and nothing to touch. Lookout’s monitor mode shows one board full screen:

• The board’s name, a LIVE marker, the range and a clock.
• The board’s totals: visitors and page views against the previous period, pages per visit, and the top source (or the fastest-rising site, when referrers are hidden).
• A card per site, largest first: its visitors in large type, the change on the previous period, a sparkline, and a line with pages per visit, the top country and the top referrer.

The grid sizes itself to the screen, up to four columns. On a smaller screen or a crowded board the cards drop their detail line, and they never get cut off.

How it keeps itself current

• Pages rotate every 15 seconds when the board has more sites than fit. Space pauses and resumes the rotation; the arrow keys flip pages by hand.
• Data refreshes every 60 seconds, with a countdown ring in the corner. When new figures arrive, the numbers count up again and the sparklines redraw, so a change catches the eye.
• Failures don’t blank the wall. A refresh that fails keeps the last figures up and tries again on the next tick. If the figures go stale, the LIVE marker turns into “Updated” with the time of the last good refresh.
• Controls get out of the way. After 4 seconds without input, the controls and the mouse cursor fade out. Move the mouse to bring them back.
• The screen stays on. Monitor mode asks the browser for a screen wake lock, where the browser supports it, so the display doesn’t sleep.

With reduced motion turned on in the operating system, the count-ups and animations are off; rotation and refresh still run.

Option 1: a board from your workspace

On any board, click Monitor in the header, or press F. The board opens full screen; Esc or the Exit button takes you back. Add ?range=24h or ?range=30d to the monitor’s URL for another period; the default is the last 7 days. If the browser blocks full screen, F11 usually does it.

This needs someone signed in to the workspace on the display device, any role. That’s fine for a screen in your own office. If the session ends, the screen reloads to the sign-in page.

Option 2: a share link, no sign-in

For a screen where you don’t want to sign in, or a client’s office, use the board’s share link. Turn on Open in monitor mode in the share settings and the copied URL ends with ?monitor=1: opening it shows the same full-screen monitor, read-only, with no account. You can also hide referrers and countries if the screen is in a public place.

A shared board’s figures refresh every 15 minutes, and the screen picks them up on its next refresh. If you add a password, a viewer stays unlocked for 12 hours, so an unattended screen needs it typed in again after that. For a wall, a link without a password that you can reset is often more practical.

Setting up the screen

1. Make a board with the sites you want on the wall. Fewer sites means bigger cards and fewer pages.
2. Open the monitor URL in the browser on the device that drives the TV: a mini PC, a stick computer, or the TV’s own browser if it’s a recent one.
3. Go full screen (F, or the browser’s own full-screen key) and leave it.
4. For a workspace monitor (option 1), browsers that install web apps can install the page; the installed app opens straight into that board’s monitor, full screen.

A tab that’s hidden, behind another tab or on a sleeping computer, pauses refreshes and rotation and picks up again when it’s shown. The live demo shows the same cards and figures with sample data (without monitor mode). To put your own projects up, sign up and connect a Vercel team; the access token guide takes about a minute.