How to Display Power BI Dashboard on TV

Your Power BI dashboards are packed with critical insights, but they can't help your team if no one sees them. Moving those key metrics from a small monitor to a large TV screen is a simple, powerful way to keep everyone aligned and focused on the numbers that matter. This article will guide you through several practical methods to get your reports and dashboards live on an office TV, ranging from quick and easy to more robust, professional setups.

Graphed

Still Building Reports Manually?

Watch how growth teams are getting answers in seconds — not days.

Watch the Demo

Why Put a Power BI Dashboard on a TV?

Transforming a standard office TV into a data hub does more than just look impressive, it actively builds a more informed and proactive team culture. When key performance indicators (KPIs) are always visible, their impact spreads throughout the organization.

• Boosts Visibility and Awareness: Placing a dashboard in a central location keeps critical metrics — like daily sales figures, marketing campaign performance, or live customer support tickets — in everyone's immediate line of sight. This constant exposure ensures the whole team stays synced with business goals and performance.
• Fosters a Data-Driven Culture: A highly visible dashboard encourages conversations centered around data. It prompts questions like, "Why did that number just change?" or "Looks like we're close to hitting our monthly target!" This visibility helps everyone, not just analysts, see the direct impact of their work on the company's bottom line.
• Improves Communication and Efficiency: Instead of waiting for a weekly meeting and a static report, everyone has access to live data. Meetings become more efficient because performance metrics are already visible, allowing the conversation to jump directly to strategy and solutions rather than data review.
• Increases Motivation and Engagement: A sales leaderboard, progress toward a team goal, or celebrating milestones in real-time can create a sense of shared purpose and healthy competition. It visually reinforces an "all-hands-on-deck" mentality and celebrates collective wins as they happen.

Method 1: The Simple, Low-Tech Approach (PC & TV)

The most straightforward method involves connecting a dedicated computer directly to your television. It's quick to set up and requires minimal technical fuss, making it a great starting point for smaller teams or as a temporary solution.

What You’ll Need

• A dedicated computer: This doesn't need to be a powerhouse. An old laptop, an Intel NUC, or any small form factor Mini PC will work perfectly.
• An HDMI Cable: The standard for connecting a computer to a TV.
• A TV with an HDMI port: Almost any modern TV will have this.
• Wireless Mouse & Keyboard: While optional, this makes setup and any occasional maintenance much easier than being tethered to the machine.

Step-by-Step Instructions

1. Connect the PC to the TV using the HDMI cable. Use the TV remote to switch the input source to the corresponding HDMI port.
2. On the computer, go into your display settings. You can either "duplicate" your primary display or, preferably, "extend" the desktop so the TV acts as a second monitor. Be sure to set the resolution to match your TV’s native resolution (usually 1920x1080 for HD or 3840x2160 for 4K).
3. Open a web browser on the PC (Google Chrome or Microsoft Edge are excellent choices) and navigate to the Power BI service at https://app.powerbi.com.
4. Log in with your credentials and open the specific dashboard or report you want to display.
5. Activate the browser’s full-screen mode, typically by pressing F11 on your keyboard. This will hide the toolbars and menus, giving you a clean, dedicated view of your dashboard.

Pros and Cons

• Pros: Extremely easy to set up with existing hardware. It’s reliable and gives you full browser functionality.
• Cons: Requires a dedicated computer that must always be running. You may run into Power BI session timeouts, forcing you to manually log back in. The browser won't refresh the data on its own, you'll need the dashboard's slideshow feature or a browser extension to handle that.

Method 2: Using the Power BI App for Slideshows

For a slightly more polished experience, using dedicated apps on devices connected to your TV can provide a better viewing experience designed specifically for large screens. This is where you can take advantage of features like slideshow mode.

Graphed

Still Building Reports Manually?

Watch how growth teams are getting answers in seconds — not days.

Watch the Demo

Using the Windows App in TV Mode

The Power BI app from the Microsoft Store (available on Windows 10/11) is one of the best ways to display dashboards. It’s available on any Windows-based mini PC you might connect to your TV.

The app has a special "TV Mode" which optimizes your reports for big-screen viewing. It enlarges the visuals to fill the screen and removes unnecessary menus. Critically, it includes a Slideshow feature. You can select multiple report pages to cycle through, which is perfect for showing different facets of your business performance (e.g., rotating between marketing leads, sales performance, and operational uptime).

To use it, install the app on your Windows PC, log in, navigate to your report, and select the full-screen icon. From there, you can configure the slideshow and let it run.

What About Apple TV, Android TV, or Chromecast?

Unfortunately, Power BI doesn't have native, installable apps for tvOS (Apple TV) or Android TV. While you can't run it directly on these devices, you can still use them to cast or mirror your screen from another device.

• Casting: You can open a Power BI report on the mobile app (iOS or Android) or in a Chrome browser tab on a PC and "cast" it to a Chromecast-enabled TV.
• Mirroring: With an Apple TV, you can use AirPlay to mirror the screen of your iPhone, iPad, or Mac that's displaying the dashboard.

Screen casting works well for short presentations or ad-hoc meetings, but it's not ideal for a permanent, always-on display. The setup relies on a separate device to remain on, connected, and doing nothing else, which can drain its battery and make it unavailable for other uses.

Graphed

Still Building Reports Manually?

Watch how growth teams are getting answers in seconds — not days.

Watch the Demo

Method 3: Advanced & Professional Options

If you're looking for a more robust, "set it and forget it" solution, it’s time to look past basic screen mirroring. These methods require more setup but offer greater stability, control, and performance in the long run.

Using a Raspberry Pi

For those comfortable with a bit of tinkering, a Raspberry Pi — a tiny, credit-card-sized computer — is an incredibly cost-effective and energy-efficient solution. You can configure it to be a dedicated Power BI display device.

The General Process:

1. Setup the Pi: Install Raspberry Pi OS (its native operating system) and connect it to your Wi-Fi and the TV via HDMI.
2. Go Kiosk Mode: Install a modern web browser like Chromium and configure it to launch automatically on boot. Set it to "kiosk mode," which is a locked-down, full-screen view that points directly to your Power BI dashboard's public URL.
3. Keep it Fresh: You can install a browser extension or run a simple script to automatically refresh the page at set intervals (e.g., every 15 minutes).

The benefit here is a low-cost, low-power device you can tape to the back of the TV and forget about. The main drawback is that it requires more technical know-how to configure and may struggle to render extremely complex, visually dense dashboards smoothly.

Embedding into a SharePoint Page

Another powerful method is to use SharePoint. You can embed a live Power BI report directly onto a SharePoint Online page using the built-in Power BI web part. That page can then be displayed on a TV using any of the methods mentioned previously (like a Mini PC).

This approach is excellent because you can create a richer digital signage experience. You can place the dashboard alongside other valuable content on the same screen, such as company announcements, a calendar of upcoming events, or sales team photos. It turns your TV into a comprehensive communication hub, not just a data display.

Graphed

Still Building Reports Manually?

Watch how growth teams are getting answers in seconds — not days.

Watch the Demo

Dedicated Digital Signage Software

For the most professional, reliable, and feature-rich setup, dedicated digital signage services are the way to go. Companies like Yodeck, NoviSign, and Screenly offer solutions built specifically for this purpose. They often provide their own small hardware player (or support devices like the Raspberry Pi) that you plug into your TV.

With a digital signage platform, you can:

• Remotely manage all your screens from a central web-based dashboard.
• Schedule content to change at different times of the day.
• Rotate through Power BI dashboards, videos, images, and other web content.
• Monitor screen status and health without being physically present.

This is the best option for organizations with multiple office screens to manage, but it typically involves a monthly subscription fee per screen.

Tips for an Optimized TV Dashboard

Simply putting your desktop report on a TV is a common mistake. A dashboard viewed from across the room has different design needs than one viewed on a monitor a few feet away.

• Design for Distance: Create a new report page specifically for the TV view. Use large, clear fonts and simple, high-impact visuals like gauges, big number cards, and straightforward-to-read charts. Avoid dense tables or small text fields.
• Focus on a Few Key Metrics: Resist the urge to cram everything onto one screen. Pick the 3-5 most critical KPIs that the team should monitor. The goal is at-a-glance comprehension, not deep-dive analysis.
• Use Strong Contrast: A dark-themed dashboard often looks better on a large TV, especially in a well-lit office, as it reduces glare. High-contrast colors ensure readability from farther away.
• Automate Refreshes: A dashboard that shows stale data loses its value quickly. In the Power BI service, configure your dataset to have a scheduled refresh. Then, on the display end, use the built-in slideshow feature or a browser tool to refresh the page visual, ensuring the data is always current.

Final Thoughts

Displaying your Power BI dashboards on a TV is a highly effective way to promote transparency and build a data-forward culture within your team. Whether you choose the simplicity of a dedicated PC, the automation of a Raspberry Pi, or the full power of a digital signage solution, there's a method that fits your budget and technical comfort level.

Ultimately, the goal is always to make your data more accessible and easier to understand. Building simple, clear reports is the first crucial step before broadcasting them on a screen. At our company, we built Graphed to streamline that initial and most difficult part of the process. You can connect your marketing and sales data sources and create real-time dashboards just by asking questions in plain English, getting you from confusing spreadsheets to actionable insights in moments — ready for any screen, big or small.