TABLE OF CONTENTS

• Calendar:
• UPDATE:
• Other Block Types:
  • How Quickly New Photos Appear:
• Display Refresh Rates:
• Frequently Asked Questions:
  • Why has my Screen not updated per the Plan's refresh rate?
  • Why did my Display fail to update at the 6-hour mark, or when I use the Refresh Displays button?
  • Can the DAKboard refresh more frequently? 
• Helpful Articles:

For your Predefined or Custom Screens, we automatically collect content for the Blocks on your Screens from your Linked accounts. This occurs at regular intervals and can be influenced by the Subscription Plan you are on. Below is a list of the times we gather this data from your linked accounts.

Calendar:

The calendar will update depending on your plan. Below are the rates at which we collect your data:

Two timers add together here. Your Screen checks for new events every 30 minutes on Free and Essential, and every 15 minutes on Plus. We also keep a saved copy of your calendar for up to 1 hour on Free, and 15 minutes on Essential and Plus. For example, if you change your Linked Calendar on a Free account, it can take up to about an hour and a half before the change shows on your Screens.

UPDATE:

Google Calendars linked via ICS/iCal links are limited in their refresh rates due to limits in place by Google. These refresh rates may take up to 8 hours for new calendar content to appear on your Displays. For best results, we recommend using the direct Google Calendar integrations in our article How to Add Your Google Calendars to DAKboard, which will have the rates defined in the chart above.

Other Block Types:

The refresh rates below are set to these times to prevent the 429 Too Many Requests errors from your linked accounts. We have balanced these, so you won't see these errors while using your Displays. The remaining blocks will refresh the same regardless of your selected plan:

• Todo - 15 minutes
• Stocks - 15 minutes During Exchange hours of 8:30 AM until 5:00 PM Eastern Time, Monday to Friday.
• Exchange Rates - 30 Minutes
• News/RSS - hourly
• Nest/Ecobee Thermostat - 2 minutes
• Smartthings/Home Assistant - 2 minutes
• Traffic - about 30 minutes
• Airport Delays - 20 minutes
• Spotify/Sonos - When playing during the last 10 minutes, it updates every 15 seconds. When not playing in the last 10 minutes, it updates every minute
• Weather - 20 minutes
• Slack Messaging - 3 minutes
• Photo Blocks - How quickly newly added photos appear depends on the photo service. Dropbox lets us know about changes right away. OneDrive and Immich are checked about every hour, Flickr and SmugMug every 4 hours, and Apple iCloud and Amazon Photos every 8 hours. For OneDrive and Immich, you can pick up new photos right away: open your Photo Block, click Save, then click Refresh Displays. See How Quickly New Photos Appear below for every service, and our article How to Add Photos from Dropbox to learn more about how Dropbox updates work.

These rates will automatically occur and update your Screens and Displays accordingly. 

How Quickly New Photos Appear:

Two timers decide when a new photo shows up on your Display. The first is how often the Display changes to the next photo, which you pick in the Photo Block or the Predefined Screen settings. The fastest option depends on your plan: every 2 minutes on the Free Subscription, every 30 seconds on Essential, and every 5 seconds on Plus.

The second is how long DAKboard keeps a saved copy of your album or folder list before it reads the list again from the photo service. A new photo cannot appear until that saved list has been updated, and how long that takes depends on the service (see the table below). Every Screen also reloads itself every 6 hours, which starts the rotation again from the latest list.

Display Refresh Rates:

When making a change to your Screen, it will be applied to your Display when it is refreshed. Your Display will automatically refresh every 6 hours, no matter which plan you are on. We fully refresh all your content, the Screens you have created, and the connected Displays at this time. This is to make sure your Display is still connected to your account and that all your content is up-to-date. 

For the Free Plan, this is the only method to refresh your Display or apply changes to your Display without rebooting the device. So your Display will only refresh once every 6 hours with the Free plan. With Paid Subscription plans, you also have the option to manually run this refresh from your Predefined or Custom Screen editor pages. With the Essential Plan, the Refresh Display button will push the updates to your Display within 1 to 2 minutes, while the Plus and Pro Plans (No longer available for new sign-ups) will update nearly instantly. These are the refresh rates mentioned on the Pricing Page.

Press the Refresh Displays button to push your Screen changes to all your Displays with the Screen assigned to them. For the Predefined Screen, the button says Refresh Displays and is located in the upper right corner next to the View Screen button. On the Custom Screen, it is the button to the right of the Add A Block button. 

NOTE: Each time you use the Refresh Displays button, it will increase your Screen Usage. If you overuse this, it may cause your Screen to be disabled. See our article High Screen Usage or Disabled Screen (error 429) for more details on this.

Frequently Asked Questions:

Below are the most Frequently Asked Questions about the Content and Display Refreshes:

Why has my Screen not updated per the Plan's refresh rate?

The posted refresh rates for Displays, approximately 2 minutes on Essential plans and instantly with the Plus plan, refer to using the Refresh Displays button in your screen editor page. If you are not using this button, changes made to your Screen will not be added until you either reboot your display or we send the automatic refresh signal at the 6-hour mark. 

Why did my Display fail to update at the 6-hour mark, or when I use the Refresh Displays button?

If the Manual or Automatic Display Refresh is not working and/or your Display is not refreshing per the intervals above, you may be experiencing network connection issues. If you are using a DAKOS device, double-check and see if your Display is showing a message stating it is Offline, or see if your last connect time is greater than 6 hours, as this will indicate your Display is no longer connected to your account. You may also want to check your WiFi signal Strength and make sure you have a strong signal, as this would indicate a connection issue and could cause delays or failures to load. To do this, log in to your DAKboard account, click the Displays & Devices tab, then click the three dots to the right of the Display that is failing. Select Settings to open the settings pop-up window. Here, you can see the Last Connect time of your Device and check the WiFi signal strength by mousing over the WiFi symbol. See below:

This will let you know if you are connected or if you could be experiencing network connection issues. A good WiFi signal strength is between 0 and -50 dBm, with values closer to 0 being better. Signals between -50 and -67 dBm may cause intermittent loading issues, delays, or connection failures, and signals weaker than -67 dBm will cause them constantly. Improving your Signal strength will improve your performance.

If you are using a non-DAKOS device, like a Smart TV, Tablet, or PC, review the articles in our Support Article section called Tablets/Other Devices to review how these connections are maintained or updated if they are no longer connecting. The Last Connect and WiFi signal strength information is not available on these types of devices, so you will need to troubleshoot connection issues using the related support article.

Can the DAKboard refresh more frequently? 

The refresh rates we have set are to prevent the services and accounts we connect to from throwing a 429 Too Many Requests error, which would prevent you from receiving the data to display on your screen. We carefully selected these times and refresh rates to minimize downtime for data collection to your associated accounts and to keep you as updated as possible, so they cannot be changed without jeopardizing your screen's performance. As API for the sources improve, we will adjust these when we can.

Helpful Articles:

Having trouble?  See if these articles help

How To Add Photos To Your DAKboard Screen

How to Add Photos from Dropbox

Advanced Features of the Custom Screen Editor

Remove or Reauthorize External Apps
High Screen Usage or Disabled Screen (error 429)