New blank and unblank commands turn a screen dark and wake it

Two commands sent through the API pause the playlist and darken a screen outside opening hours or during a meeting, then resume it. Unlike the HDMI-CEC controls, they work with any display, and on x86, Raspberry Pi 5 and generic arm64 boards the monitor goes into standby.

July 2, 2026

From Anthias 2026.07.0 you can turn a screen dark outside opening hours or during a meeting, then wake it again, and it works with any display. There's no button for it in the web interface, so it's for people who can send a command to the player's API, for example from a script.

It's 2 new commands for the viewer, blank and unblank. Until now the only way to do that from Anthias was the experimental HDMI-CEC controls, which work only with a TV that accepts CEC commands.

• blank pauses the playlist and turns the screen dark.
• unblank turns the screen on and resumes the playlist. Sending play while the screen is blank does the same.

What dark means depends on the board. On x86, Raspberry Pi 5 and generic arm64 boards such as the Rock Pi 4, blank switches off the video signal on every connected output, so a monitor goes into standby. On the Raspberry Pi 2, 3 and 4, Anthias can't switch the output off, so it shows a black image instead and the display stays on.

There's no button for these commands in the web interface. Send them through the API's playback control endpoint, the one that takes next and previous, with the same authentication as any other API call:

curl http://<device-ip>/api/v2/assets/control/blank
curl http://<device-ip>/api/v2/assets/control/unblank

The API reference lists only next, previous and asset for this endpoint, but it passes any command on to the viewer.