2025 was a defining year for Hangar.Media. We shipped more features, onboarded more customers, and expanded our hardware support further than in any previous year. As we look ahead to 2026, it is worth taking a moment to reflect on what we built and what we learned.
Major Feature Launches
Three major features defined our 2025 roadmap, and all three shipped on schedule:
Multi-zone layouts launched in Q2, allowing customers to split a single screen into independent content zones. This was our most requested feature for over a year, and the adoption was immediate — within three months of launch, over 60% of active screens were using at least two zones. The feature fundamentally changed how customers think about their screens, shifting from "what should this screen show right now?" to "what should each part of this screen show right now?"
Remote screenshots launched in Q3, giving customers the ability to see exactly what any screen is displaying from anywhere in the world. The use cases went beyond what we anticipated — customers used screenshots for troubleshooting (as expected), but also for proof-of-play reporting, quality assurance, and compliance auditing. We added scheduled automatic screenshots based on customer feedback.
The analytics dashboard launched in Q4, providing screen uptime tracking, content playback metrics, and engagement data in a single view. This was a foundational release — the data pipeline and reporting infrastructure we built for analytics will power more advanced features in 2026.
Platform Improvements
Beyond the headline features, we shipped hundreds of smaller improvements throughout the year:
- Content delivery speed improved by 3x through edge caching optimisations. New content now reaches screens in seconds rather than minutes
- Player reliability improved with enhanced offline caching, automatic recovery from network interruptions, and watchdog processes that restart the player application if it encounters an error
- Dashboard performance was overhauled in Q3, with page load times reduced by 50% through database query optimisation and front-end lazy loading
- Playlist management received a complete redesign with drag-and-drop ordering, bulk duration editing, and playlist templates
- User roles and permissions were expanded to support multi-team environments where different departments manage different screen groups
The improvements that matter most are often the ones customers never notice — faster loads, fewer errors, smoother transitions. Reliability is a feature, and it was our top engineering priority throughout 2025.
Hardware Support Expansion
We added first-class support for several new hardware platforms in 2025:
- Samsung Tizen 7.0 (2024/2025 commercial display models)
- LG webOS 6.0 (2024/2025 commercial display models)
- Raspberry Pi 5 with hardware video decoding support
- Amazon Fire TV Stick 4K Max (3rd generation)
- Chrome OS Flex for repurposing older PCs and laptops as signage players
Our hardware compatibility testing programme expanded to include automated regression testing on all supported platforms. Every platform update is now tested against our full content type matrix before release, ensuring that a firmware update on Samsung or LG does not break playback.
Growth Milestones
We do not share specific revenue figures, but we are proud of several growth milestones from 2025:
- Active screen count grew by over 200% year-on-year
- Customer retention rate exceeded 95% on an annual basis
- Our largest single deployment grew from 80 screens to over 340 screens
- We expanded from a UK-only customer base to active deployments in 14 countries
- The team grew from 8 to 18 people across engineering, product, support, and commercial
What We Learned
Every year teaches you things that no amount of planning can anticipate. Our biggest lessons from 2025:
Simplicity scales, complexity does not. Features that are simple for a customer with 3 screens must remain simple for a customer with 300 screens. We learned this the hard way with our initial analytics interface, which worked well for small deployments but became overwhelming at scale. The redesign focused on progressive disclosure — simple summaries by default, with drill-down detail available on demand.
Hardware diversity is a feature. Our customers deploy on Raspberry Pis, Fire TV Sticks, Samsung commercial displays, LG panels, Windows mini PCs, and everything in between. Supporting this diversity is expensive and complex, but it is also our competitive advantage. Customers should choose the hardware that fits their budget and environment, not the hardware their CMS vendor dictates.
Looking ahead to 2026, our focus is on intelligence — making the platform smarter about content scheduling, audience targeting, and performance optimisation. The foundation we built in 2025 makes that possible. Thank you to every customer, partner, and team member who made this year what it was.
What Is Next
2026 is about building on the foundation we established in 2025. Our priorities include advanced content scheduling with AI-powered optimisation, deeper integrations with third-party data sources, an expanded partner programme, and continued infrastructure investment to improve global performance and reliability. We will share more details on specific initiatives throughout the year.