Customer Facing Display: You Already Own the Hardware
Every POS vendor sells the customer facing display as a piece of equipment: a pole display, a tethered screen, an $800 register. It is not equipment. It is software. digabloPos turns any spare monitor or old tablet into a live CFD showing the cart, the total and the change due. Free, with no tip prompt and no ads.
The CFD is sold as hardware. It is software.
Search for a customer facing display and you will find pole displays, USB-tethered screens, and registers that bundle a second screen for several hundred dollars. Square includes a CFD with its Register, priced at $799. Shift4's SkyTab ships a dedicated display on a USB-C cable. The whole category has been framed as something you buy, mount and wire, which is why so many small merchants quietly decide they cannot afford one. None of that is necessary. A customer facing display is a view of the cart, rendered on a screen the customer can see. The screen can be the old monitor in your back office, the television already hanging behind the counter, or the Android tablet in your drawer that nobody uses. digabloPos treats the CFD as what it actually is: a second window on your sale. You supply the glass, we supply the display, and it costs you nothing.
- A CFD is a software view, not a peripheral you have to purchase
- Any spare monitor, television, tablet or phone becomes the display
- No pole, no mount, no USB-C tether across the counter
- No driver, no serial port, no OPOS configuration
- Included free in digabloPos, not sold as a hardware upgrade
What the customer actually sees
The display mirrors the cart as it is built. Each item appears with its name, quantity times unit price, its variant if it has one, any preparation note, and the line total. The most recently added line flashes green for a moment so the customer's eye can follow along without hunting. When the cashier voids an item, the line is struck through in front of the customer rather than quietly vanishing, which is exactly the moment when trust is either earned or lost. At the bottom, the total is set in very large type, and its label changes on its own: Total while items are being rung up, To pay once the payment window opens, and Left to pay when a bill is being split. Discounts appear by name, loyalty points show the amount they knock off, tax appears at payment time, and parts of a split bill that are already settled are listed with their method. When the payment goes through, the screen shows the amount tendered, the change due and the payment method for six seconds, then returns to your logo.
- Itemized cart in real time: name, quantity, unit price, variant, notes
- Voided lines struck through on screen, never silently removed
- Large running total that becomes To pay, then Left to pay on a split bill
- Named discounts, loyalty points, tax, and settled portions of a split
- Amount tendered, change due and payment method shown after the sale
- Optional secondary currency conversion under the total
Two ways to set it up, neither involves a purchase order
Plug a monitor into your digabloPos till and there is nothing else to do. The app detects the second display on its own, opens the customer view full screen and borderless, and closes it again if you unplug the screen. No settings page, no checkbox, no reboot. It even reacts to a monitor being plugged in mid-service. Prefer no cables? Start a cast from the POS and a QR code appears alongside a six digit code. Scan it with a tablet or phone running digabloPos and that device becomes the customer display immediately. It stays awake for the whole shift, with the status bar hidden and the idle lock suspended, so it behaves like a purpose built kiosk rather than a phone that dims halfway through a transaction. That is the same pairing pattern Shopify uses for its Customer View, without requiring you to buy their terminal.
- Second monitor detected automatically and opened full screen
- Wireless pairing by QR code or six digit code, no cable at all
- The paired tablet stays awake and locked to the display for the whole shift
- Reacts live to a monitor being connected or disconnected
- Each till pairs its own display, so screens never cross wires
No tip prompt. On purpose.
The customer facing display has quietly become the most resented surface in American retail, and not because customers dislike seeing their receipt. It is because the screen that shows the total also asks for 20 percent while a queue forms behind them. Pew Research found that 72 percent of Americans think tipping is expected in more places than five years ago, and that opposition to businesses suggesting a tip amount on a screen outweighs support by 40 percent to 24 percent. That is a rare thing in survey data: an interface that most people actively resent. digabloPos does not ship a tip screen, and it does not ship ads or upsell carousels either. The display is passive by design. It shows the price, it does not lobby for a bigger one. If you want your customer to look at that screen, and you do, then the fastest way to get them to look away from it forever is to turn it into a guilt machine. Order accuracy is what earns their attention. Everything else spends it.
- No suggested tip percentages, no tip screen, no nudge
- No ads, no promotional carousel, no upsell prompts
- Pew Research: 40 percent oppose on-screen tip suggestions, 24 percent support them
- The display asks nothing of the customer and captures nothing from them
- Read only: the paired screen cannot alter, void or take a payment
Where the law does have something to say
Nothing obliges a general retailer to run a customer facing display. But if you weigh goods and sell them directly to the public, the rules are different and most merchants do not know it. NIST Handbook 44, the national standard adopted by state weights and measures departments, requires under section 2.20 that a computing scale used for direct retail sales show the customer the same digital indications the operator sees: net weight, unit price and total price. A deli counter, a butcher, a produce scale or a bulk goods station falls squarely inside that requirement. Beyond the scale, the customer display is simply the cheapest defence against a dispute you cannot win after the fact. Nigeria's FCCPC has publicly gone after retailers over exactly this gap, noting that the price displayed on the shelf differs from the one charged at the till and calling it misleading. Whether you trade in Lagos or Louisville, the argument is the same: the moment to settle a pricing disagreement is while the item is still on the counter, not in a refund queue the next day.
- NIST Handbook 44 section 2.20 requires customer side indications on retail computing scales
- Applies to deli, butcher, produce, bulk goods and any direct weighed sale
- Nigeria FCCPC has publicly challenged shelf price versus till price discrepancies
- Disputes are settled at the counter, before payment, not in a refund queue
- Customers spot the double scan and the item that is not theirs, and they say so
Use Cases
Deli and butcher counters
The price follows the weight, so the customer wants to watch it. Each weighed line appears with its quantity and unit price as it is served, which also aligns with the customer side indication rules that apply to retail computing scales.
Coffee shop with a tip problem
You want customers to check their order, not to be cornered into a percentage. The display shows the drinks, the modifiers and the total, and then it stops talking. Staff report fewer remade drinks, and nobody leaves the counter annoyed.
Grocery store in Nairobi or Lagos
The customer pays by mobile money and needs the exact figure before they authorise it. The total is on the screen, the change due is on the screen, and there is no shouting the amount across a busy till.
Key benefits
No hardware to buy
A monitor you already own, an old tablet, a television. Not an $800 register.
Plug in and it opens
The second screen is detected automatically and goes full screen. Nothing to configure.
Pair with a QR code
Scan once and any tablet or phone becomes the customer display. No cable.
Works offline
A screen plugged into the till keeps displaying even with no internet connection.
Change due, in big type
Amount tendered, change owed and payment method, shown after every sale.
No tip prompt, no ads
The display shows the price and asks for nothing. Passive by design.
Frequently asked questions
Stop paying a hardware tax for a software feature
Download digabloPos free, plug in a spare screen or scan a QR code with a tablet. Your customer facing display is running in two minutes, with nothing to buy.