What the screen is for
People glance at the screen to find out one thing: when the next iqamah is. Everything else on it comes second. A good screen shows:
- Today’s adhan and iqamah times for the five prayers, with the next one picked out and a countdown to it.
- On Fridays, the Jumu’ah sessions, with the khutbah and iqamah time of each.
- A few current announcements, each with an end date.
- If the mosque is raising money, the campaign’s progress and a code to scan to give from a phone.
The hardware
Any TV with an HDMI input works. Behind it, the screen needs something that runs a web browser: a small computer, a streaming stick that has a browser, or an old laptop. It also needs power and a steady connection, wired if the router is close. If the TV has its own timer, use it to switch the screen off at night and on again before Fajr.
Set the browser to open the screen’s address full-screen when the device starts, and turn off sleep and screen savers. Then a power cut fixes itself: when the power comes back, so does the screen.
Times that update themselves
Typing the times in each week is where mistakes creep in. Instead, the screen should work out the adhan times from the mosque’s location and the calculation method it uses, and the iqamah times from the mosque’s own rules:
- A rule after the adhan, such as ten minutes after it, rounded up to the next five minutes.
- A fixed time, such as Isha at 8:30 PM all winter, where the mosque prefers it.
- A one-day change for a special day, which goes back to the rule the next day.
When the clocks change, a screen that knows the mosque’s time zone moves with them. Check it the morning after anyway.
Written once, shown everywhere
An announcement should be written once and shown on the screen, the mosque’s website and members’ phones together, with a date when it comes down. Two copies of the same announcement are how the wrong date for the fundraising dinner ends up on one of them.
Easy to read from the back
- Large figures, strong contrast, and nothing that moves except the countdown.
- A common rule of thumb for signs is about 2.5 cm of letter height for every 3 metres between the reader and the screen: in a hall 12 metres deep, times about 10 cm tall.
- No people’s names: no donors, no children, no personal requests. Totals, not names.
Who looks after it
Name one person who looks after the screen, and a second who can stand in. Write down, and keep in the office, what the screen needs: the device’s name and password, the screen’s address, the TV’s timer settings and who to call about the Wi-Fi. Keep a spare HDMI cable and power lead in the same drawer. When the person who set it up moves on, the screen shouldn’t go dark with them.
A weekly check
Once a week, someone compares the screen with the mosque’s printed timetable, and again the morning after the clocks change. If the two differ, the printed timetable is usually the one the community follows, so find out why before changing either. The prayer timetable maker on this site prints a month on one page, which makes the comparison quick.