Outdoor digital signage is a display engineered to remain bright and legible outdoors, where direct sun, rain, dust, and heat would defeat an ordinary screen. It suits just about every outdoor space in a business you could think of: a shopfront facade, an alfresco area, a drive-thru lane, a forecourt, a plaza or a council precinct.
A screen facing the street advertises to passing traffic every hour of the day, including the hours you are closed, and its content can change as often as you like at no print or installation cost.
Amped Digital sources, installs, manages and supports outdoor displays across Australia and New Zealand. We are technology-agnostic, so we specify the panel that suits your site and budget rather than one fixed product, then handle the mounting, enclosure, content and ongoing support.
We were engaged by Coogee Chemicals to transition their print/static information boards. The Coogee Chemicals communication and safety team were spending too much time printing and pinning up information across their site.
We source the most suitable displays for outdoor use through our trusted partner network. Whether it is a small screen for a restaurant drive-through or a large display for an open, outdoor area, we can source the best signage for the job at the best possible price. What makes a display genuinely outdoor-ready comes down to five things.
Brightness is measured in nits. A consumer TV sits somewhere around 250 to 450 nits, which is plenty in a lounge room and close to invisible in Australian daylight. Outdoor and window-facing displays run from roughly 1,000 nits up past 5,000, and the panels we specify most often for full-sun positions sit between 2,500 and 4,000 nits.
Higher is not automatically better. A 4,000-nit panel under a deep awning is money spent on headroom you will never use, and it will need dimming at night anyway. We assess light on the actual wall across a full day before recommending a screen or brightness figure.
An IP rating has two digits. The first covers solids and dust, the second covers water. IP55 means dust-protected and able to handle low-pressure water jets; IP56 raises that to powerful jets from any direction.
That second digit matters more in practice than most spec sheets suggest. A screen under an eave only ever meets rain falling straight down. A screen on an exposed facade or a coastal drive-thru meets rain driven sideways at pressure, plus salt and wind-blown grit. The same panel can be right for one and wrong for the other, so the rating needs to match the position rather than the postcode.
Heat is where consumer displays fail first. A domestic TV is typically rated to operate up to around 35 to 40°C ambient, and a north-facing wall in a Perth or Darwin summer clears that comfortably. Once it does, the panel dims to protect itself or shuts down entirely, usually at the exact hour you most want it running.
Commercial outdoor panels are engineered for the range instead. They are generally rated to operate up to around 50°C ambient, with active or convection cooling, sealed enclosures and thermal management designed to hold full brightness. Read more on how sun, heat and council rules shape outdoor installs in Australia.
Outdoor large-format panels commonly run from 46″ to 86″ and beyond, in both portrait and landscape orientation. Most sit at a standard 16:9 aspect ratio, with stretched and square formats available where the space calls for it, and LED offers effectively any size once you are building from modules.
Orientation follows the audience. Portrait suits narrow facades, entries and pedestrian traffic at close range. Landscape suits drive-thru lanes, forecourts and anything read from a vehicle. Size follows viewing distance, and a useful rule of thumb is roughly 25mm of screen height for every metre between the screen and the viewer.
If you are still weighing up the technology itself, our guide to LED vs LCD digital signage covers the trade-offs, and the keys to successful outdoor digital signage covers what separates a good install from an expensive one.
Two screens 20 metres apart on the same site can need different brightness, different enclosures and different content entirely.
Fully exposed and often read from across a road or car park, so this is the high end on brightness and weather sealing. Expect 3,000 nits or more, IP56 or a rated enclosure, and large-format LCD or LED sized to the viewing distance. Council approval is often part of the job.
Partly shaded and read from a few metres away, which relaxes the brightness requirement to somewhere around 1,500 to 2,500 nits. Sealing still matters, because these areas take wind-driven rain and get hosed down.
Read from a stationary or slow-moving vehicle in a fixed position, so glare control and a weatherproof enclosure carry more weight than raw size. Landscape orientation, high contrast, and short menus work best.
Mounted inside the glass, so weatherproofing stops being the issue and heat build-up between glass and panel becomes it. These need high brightness to punch through glazing, and a matte finish to kill reflection.
Long viewing distances from multiple angles, with wear, weather and vandalism all in scope. Larger formats, wide viewing angles, protective glass and robust structural mounting apply here.
The table below covers outdoor and high-brightness displays currently available through Signspace, our online store. It gives you a realistic sense of the sizes, resolutions and brightness levels on the market. We supply beyond this range and will specify to your site.
The displays listed above are a small selection of the outdoor range that we commonly recommend and use in our installation projects. It is not extensive, and we can source other screens or combinations to suit your use case.
We supply a range of digital signage equipment from trusted worldwide brands, keep up to date with new products and source only the best for our clients’ needs. If you’re looking for a specific solution we can source, install, manage and support it. From budget planning to design we work with you to get the right fit.
We’re partnered with industry leaders in the technology space to provide you with the latest and highest-quality digital signage screens. Our expert team will help you choose the right screens to meet your needs and budget.
Our experienced technicians will ensure your outdoor digital signage is installed and integrated correctly for maximum functionality and effectiveness. We also provide training to help you get the most out of your new screens.
Our creative team will work with you to design custom content that showcases your brand and engages your audience. From eye-catching graphics to informative videos, we’ll make sure your content stands out.
We take care of everything from updates to maintenance, so you can focus on your business. Our team will ensure that your digital menu boards are always up-to-date and functioning optimally.
“We can do pretty much anything on those screens, it can be for a particular marketing campaign or a seasonal period like Christmas or Chinese New Year, or it may be to renew or bolster our brand vision. There’s also a revenue opportunity for brands in leasing those screens to increase instore exposure and we benefit from a return on investment as well.”
Explore the possibilities with Amped Digital. Discover how you could integrate digital screens into your retail, hospitality, government, or educational space.
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