At a glance
| Method | On screen at once | Works with |
|---|---|---|
| Your tool’s playlist | One at a time | That tool’s dashboards |
| A tab-rotation extension | One at a time | Any site, in Chrome |
| Tiled browser windows | Up to four | Any site |
| More screens | One per screen | Any site |
| A canvas browser | All of them | Any site, on a Mac |
Rotation hides more than it looks like
A rotating screen feels complete because everything appears eventually. But with six dashboards on thirty seconds each, any one of them is on screen a sixth of the time and gone for two and a half minutes at a stretch. A short spike — thirty seconds of errors, say — has about a one-in-three chance of being on screen while it happens. The slower the rotation, the worse those odds get, not better.
That’s fine for a lobby screen that shows off numbers. It’s the wrong trade for a screen someone watches to catch problems.
01
Your dashboard tool’s playlistA wall screen for one tool
Most dashboard tools can cycle their own dashboards full screen. In Grafana it’s a playlist: under Dashboards › Playlists, add dashboards in order, choose how long each shows, and start it in kiosk mode so only the panels are visible. Datadog has a TV mode for the same job. If everything you show lives in one tool, start here.
- Built in, nothing to install
- Kiosk mode hides the menus
- Set the order and timing
- Only that tool’s dashboards
- One dashboard at a time
02
A tab-rotation extensionMixing tools on one rotating screen
Extensions such as Revolver Tabs switch Chrome to the next tab on a timer, so a full-screen window cycles through Grafana, a sales dashboard and a status page alike. Heavy dashboards can take ten seconds or more to render after each switch, so either keep tabs loaded between turns or give each one longer.
- Works with any website
- Mixes tools freely
- Free
- Still one at a time
- Load time eats into display time
- Chrome only, and one more extension
03
Tiled browser windowsUp to four, all visible
Drag one browser window into each corner of the screen and macOS tiles them into quarters. Four dashboards stay visible all the time — a good trade on a large monitor, cramped on a laptop. Every way to split a Mac screen.
- Everything on screen at once
- Built into macOS
- Any website
- Four is the practical limit
- Every window keeps its toolbar
- The layout goes when the windows close
04
More screensWhen the budget allows
A second monitor or a TV on the wall doubles the room. It’s the simplest answer when you can afford it, and every method above works on the extra screen too.
- More room, full stop
- Each dashboard can be big
- Costs money and desk space
- Still one layout per screen to manage
05
A canvas browserAll of them live, sized by importance
Tabula puts each dashboard on one canvas as a live tile. Make the one you watch most the biggest, keep the rest smaller around it, and zoom in when one needs a closer look — nothing rotates away, and the arrangement is still there tomorrow. For an unattended lobby TV, your tool’s kiosk mode is simpler; for the screen in front of you, this is the one that keeps everything in view.
- Every dashboard visible and live
- Size each by how much you watch it
- Zoom into one without losing the rest
- Mac only
- A new browser to learn
- Many live dashboards use more memory
Keeping a dashboard wall readable
- One number per panel beats a dense chart when people read it from across a room.
- Use a dark theme on screens that are on all day — easier on the eyes and on the panel.
- Group by who’s watching. A screen for the support team shouldn’t rotate through finance.
Want to try a wall before changing anything? The multi-site viewer puts up to six dashboards side by side in one tab — as long as they allow being framed.
Questions
- How do I show several dashboards on one TV?
- Either rotate them — your dashboard tool’s playlist or a tab-rotation extension shows one at a time on a timer — or tile them, so all are visible at once in a grid. Rotation keeps each one large but hides most of them most of the time; tiling keeps everything visible but smaller.
- How do I rotate Grafana dashboards automatically?
- Create a playlist: under Dashboards, open Playlists, add the dashboards in order, and set how long each one shows. Start it in kiosk mode to hide Grafana’s menus, and press Esc to stop it.
- How long should each dashboard show in a rotation?
- At least as long as it takes to load plus the time someone needs to read it — heavy dashboards can take ten seconds or more to render after each switch. Thirty to sixty seconds is common. Remember that the longer each shows, the longer the others are hidden.
- Can I show dashboards from different tools together?
- Not with a tool’s own playlist, which only knows its own dashboards. A tab-rotation extension can mix any sites; tiling or a canvas can show them side by side.
- Do the dashboards stay live?
- In a tiled window or on a canvas, yes: each is a real page, refreshing on its own schedule. In a rotation, a dashboard updates while it’s hidden only if its page stays loaded — extensions that reload each tab on arrival start it from scratch every time.