Commercial or Consumer Grade Displays?

What should be utilized for your workspace?

This week on the Western Audio Visual Blog, we will discuss the type of displays that can be utilized for your office, and the benefits associated.

In today’s world, we are constantly bombarded by advertisements for the bigger and better TV. Every big box retail store, from Costco to Target, are selling TV’s. And they are ever changing. But what does that mean for the workspace? Nowadays, Commercial Grade Displays are quite advanced from their Consumer Grade siblings. The differences range in Quality of Warranty to Run Life.

What Are the Differences?
We will utilize Samsung as an example in this realm. The majority of manufacturer’s follow similar protocol.

1.) Warranty

Samsung’s Commercial Grade Displays carry a 3-Year On-Site Parts and Labor Warranty. This means that, if there is a Display Failure that is not caused by the Owner, Samsung Service Technicians will come out to the location, take the display down, as long as it is not mounted higher than 8 Feet, and either repair or replace the display.

Samsung Consumer Grade Displays carry a warranty of 90 Days Parts and Labor for a Consumer Grade Display that is utilized in a Commercial setting. Also, the owner will need to remove the display and send it in for either replacement or repair.
In the end, Commercial Displays carry a lower cost of ownership. The benefits outweigh the lower initial cost of a Consumer Grade Display.

2.) Display Run Life

The average display that is utilized in a Commercial setting is on for 8 hours. If utilized for Digital Signage, for menu boards at a restaurant or advertisement in the lobby of a Corporate Facility, the average daily usage can range anywhere from 12-24 hours.

A Commercial Grade Display has approximately 5 times the Run Life of a Consumer Grade Display. This is due to higher quality internal components being utilized for the construction of the displays. Commercial Grade Displays are manufactured with the knowledge that they will be on much longer than the TV in your house. As a result, their average lifetime is much longer.

What this means for a consumer in a commercial setting is again, lower cost of ownership since a TV will not need to be replaced every 18 months, but every 4-5 years or so.

3.) Features, Features, Features

A.) Internal Timers – Many Commercial Grade Displays have internal timers that can be utilized to program the run times. If you would like the Displays to be on from 7:00 AM to 5:00 PM, these settings can be programmed in to the Displays, eliminating the need for the installation of a Control System to turn the displays on and off.

B.) Portrait or Landscape – Commercial Grade Displays can be utilized in either Portrait or Landscape mode, while Consumer Grade Displays can only be utilized in Portrait Mode. This is a problem, as it limits the range of deployment for a Consumer Grade Display.

C.) Quality of the Screen – Commercial Grade Displays utilize Commercial-Grade glass with multiple layers that allow for 7/24/365 operating cycles. This glass is specifically designed for longer hours of operation than the glass in Consumer Grade Displays.

D.) Cooling – Consumer Grade Displays are not built for the same cooling potential that Commercial Grade Displays have. Consumer Grade Displays place importance first on aesthetics of the device, and this affects the cooling potential.

Commercial Grade Displays have full ventilation incorporation and/or cooling fans built in to allow proper ventilation, which increases the lifespan quite drastically. Heat is the number one cause of damage in the screen of displays, and once the damage has occurred, the unit is permanently damaged.

We hope that this information helps you with your decision when deciding to go with Commercial Grade Displays. If you have any questions, please feel free to reach out to us. We will be more than happy to answer any questions that you may have.

– The AV Archivist