From passive screens to responsive retail experiences

That is where the physical store has a unique opportunity.

In store, customers can touch, feel, compare, explore and make decisions in the moment. For retailers and brands, the challenge is to make digital communication respond to that behavior in a way that feels natural, helpful and relevant.

Together, Nexmosphere and Dise make this possible by connecting sensor based interactions with content management. Nexmosphere provides the hardware that detects what happens in the store. Dise enables the content, logic and experience to respond.

The result is a retail environment where screens are not just playing content. They are reacting to the shopper.

Making retail environments interactive

Nexmosphere describes itself as a sensor technology company serving the retail and digital signage markets. Its hardware can detect interactions such as presence, product pickup, motion, touch and other physical triggers in store. Over the years, the company has also expanded into power control and data gathering, helping retailers understand how screens and experiences are actually being used.  

As Hubert van Doorne, CEO of Nexmosphere, explains, the value is often surprisingly simple. A sensor can detect when someone is standing in front of a screen. A product pickup sensor can trigger content when a shopper lifts a specific item. A power controller can help make sure screens are switched off when they should be.

On their own, these may sound like small additions. But in a retail environment, they can fundamentally change the experience.

A passive screen might start its story halfway through when a shopper happens to walk by. A responsive screen can start the right message at the right moment. That makes the content feel more intentional, more relevant and more connected to the customer journey.

Why timing matters in-store

One of the clearest examples is presence sensing.

In traditional playlist based signage, content runs continuously. The customer sees whatever is on screen at that exact moment. They might catch the end of a product story before understanding the beginning, or miss the key message completely.

With presence sensing, the content can start when someone is actually there to see it.

Hubert compares this to a salesperson. A good salesperson would never begin a product story halfway through. They would start with context, build interest and then move toward the reason to buy. Digital signage should be able to do the same.

This is where sensor driven communication becomes more than a technical feature. It becomes a way to improve the quality of the message.

Turning product interaction into engagement

Another strong use case is lift and learn.

When a shopper picks up a product, the screen can automatically show content related to that specific item. It could explain features, show the product in use, compare options or create an emotional atmosphere around the purchase.

This is especially valuable for products that require more information or emotional reassurance. Hubert points to categories such as electronics, tools, cosmetics, shoes, bags and other feature rich or higher consideration products. Think of a mobile phone, which may look like a black box until the experience explains what it can do. For a beauty product, the story may help justify why it is different. A travel bag, on the other hand, may become more desirable when the content places it in the context of a journey

In one example, Hubert shared, handbags were connected to pickup sensors. Instead of only showing a price or product description, the content created a mood. Picking up an evening bag triggered restaurant and dinner related visuals. Picking up a travel bag triggered airport and travel inspired content. The technology itself stayed in the background, while the experience helped the shopper imagine the product in their own life.  

That is where interactivity becomes powerful. It does not need to feel technical. It needs to feel relevant.

Small additions can create a bigger effect

A common misconception is that interactive signage is expensive or complex by default.

According to Hubert, the sensor itself is often a small part of the total installation cost. If a retailer is already investing in screens, media players, mounts, installation and content, adding sensors can create a richer experience without fundamentally changing the entire setup.

In many cases, Nexmosphere technology can also be retrofitted into existing environments, as long as the digital signage player and CMS are capable of supporting interactive content.  

This matters because it lowers the barrier to testing. Retailers do not necessarily need to redesign a full store concept from scratch. They can start with one trigger, one screen, one category or one experience and learn from there.

As Hubert puts it, retailers should test, start small and avoid overcomplicating the first step.

The role of data in better retail experiences

Interactivity is not only about creating a more engaging experience for the customer. It also creates new opportunities to understand what happens in the store.

With sensors, retailers can measure signals such as approach, dwell time, product pickup and interaction frequency. This helps answer questions that many retailers still struggle with.

• Do people stop in front of the screen?
• Are they staying long enough to engage with the message?
• Which content keeps attention?
• Which product interactions are happening most often?
• Does triggered content perform better than looping content?

For retail media, this becomes especially relevant. Advertisers are used to data from digital channels, and physical retail needs stronger ways to show the value of in store audiences. While not every environment needs advanced demographic measurement, simple signals such as presence and dwell time can already create meaningful insight.

Hubert warns against overcomplicating measurement too early. In many cases, retailers do not need every possible data point from every store. They need to understand what they can actually act on. A simple sensor can show whether someone was present and how long they stayed. More advanced measurement can then be added selectively where it creates additional value.  

The most important question is not “How much can we measure?” but “What will we change based on what we learn?”

Why simplicity matters

One of the strongest themes in Hubert’s perspective is simplicity.

The best interactive experiences are often not the most technically advanced. They are the ones where the interaction is clear, the content is relevant and the shopper does not need to understand the technology behind it.

For retailers and integrators, this also has a commercial impact. If creating an interactive proof of concept requires weeks of custom programming, many projects will never start. But if the setup is simple enough to test quickly, teams can learn, adjust and scale.

That is also where Dise plays an important role.

How Dise supports Nexmosphere experiences

Nexmosphere provides the hardware layer. Dise provides the platform layer that makes it possible to manage and trigger content based on those interactions.

In practice, this means that a retailer or integrator can connect sensors to a Dise powered signage setup and define what should happen when a shopper interacts. If someone picks up a product, the right content can play. If someone approaches a screen, the story can start from the beginning. If data is collected, it can support learning and optimization over time.

Hubert describes the value of Dise as making this process more straightforward. While many CMS platforms can technically be programmed to work with sensors, ease of use matters. If the process is too complex, too manual or too dependent on specialist scripting, it becomes harder to test and scale.  

With Dise IXM platform, the ambition is to make interactive experiences more accessible, so partners and retailers can spend less time solving technical complexity and more time designing better customer experiences.

Power control and operational reliability

Beyond sensors for interactivity, Nexmosphere also works with power control. This addresses a more operational but increasingly important challenge: making sure screens are powered on and off in the right way.

In many retail environments, screens are still left running when they are not needed. In some cases, black content is scheduled to make a screen look turned off, even though the screen is still consuming power.

For retailers with larger screen networks, this creates unnecessary energy use and operational inefficiency. Nexmosphere’s power management layer makes it possible to control and measure power more reliably, especially in environments with mixed hardware, media players or legacy setups.  

As retail networks become larger, brighter and more complex, power control becomes part of the broader question of how to run digital signage responsibly and efficiently.

The future of in-store digital communication

Looking ahead, Hubert believes that the future of digital signage in retail will be less playlist driven and more context aware.

That does not mean every screen should always trigger a long interactive journey. The right behavior depends on the situation. On a quiet Monday morning, a screen in a sporting goods store might use presence sensing to start a more detailed product story when a shopper approaches. During a crowded Saturday, the same screen might switch to shorter, high traffic content because people do not have time for a long explanation.

This is an important shift. Interactivity is not only about reacting to one person. It is also about understanding the environment and adapting content to the context.

In the future, it may become a mistake for retail screens not to be capable of interaction or measurement. Not because every screen needs to be complex, but because every screen should be able to contribute to a smarter, more responsive store.

Start small, learn fast, scale what works

For retailers and brands, the advice from Nexmosphere is clear: do not wait for the perfect large scale concept before testing.

Start with a small project, such as adding presence sensing to one screen or testing lift and learn for one product category. Compare looping content with triggered content, measure dwell time and learn what works before adding the next layer.

This approach reduces risk and helps teams build confidence. It also creates a more practical path toward scale.

Retailers do not need to make every experience interactive overnight. But they do need to understand how interaction, timing and data can improve the role of digital communication in the store.

Because the store is not just a place where content is displayed.

It is a place where customers act, choose, compare and decide.

And when digital signage can respond to those actions, the physical retail environment becomes more relevant, more measurable and more valuable.