Is a Videowall Right for Your Home?
August 6, 2024
As if flat panel TVs getting bigger wasn’t enough, videowalls are now making their way into the smart home world. Just as the Sphere has pushed the envelope for stadium performances, large-scale immersive experiences like these have redefined the concept of ‘an impressive display’ at home. This has brought new expectations and demands to the residential market.
Still, the vast majority of videowall equipment is produced for the commercial market. There are a host of design considerations related to bringing this traditionally commercial application into a residential context. So how do you identify when residential videowall deployment makes sense? What design considerations should you make on a videowall project in your home?
As a large-format display technology, videowalls have several clear advantages over projection. They run cooler and quieter (no fans), since they don’t require a powerful fan to prevent overheating. They offer incredible contrast, with true blacks and vivid color saturation, as well as a far wider off-axis viewing area. Direct view displays are also less impacted by ambient light, making videowalls an appealing choice for outdoor applications and open-plan media rooms.
Because videowalls are generally driven by computers, they are easy to integrate with a wide variety of digital and internet-based sources, including streaming video, gaming, and conferencing applications. And since LED displays in particular are infinitely configurable, you can use them for a wide variety of creative applications, including cinemascope displays and art installations.
The popularity of videowalls, particularly fine-pitch and microLED applications, stems from an undeniable ‘wow’ factor that overwhelms the senses and transports the viewer to a new world. This immersive power is why some homeowners are willing to pay the big bucks, so a videowall design must both deliver the desired impact and represent a reasonable ROI on their investment.
When deploying an LED videowall application, one of the most important considerations for both cost and experience is pixel pitch. Pixel pitch is the distance between the center of two adjacent pictures on an LED tile, measured in millimeters. The smaller your pixel pitch, the more densely packed the board is with LEDs.
Fine-pitch LED displays typically have a pixel pitch of 1.2–1.5mm, with some gaming monitors and high-end displays getting down to 0.9mm. MicroLEDs have a pixel pitch of less than 0.9mm, and average around 0.5mm — three times as many pixels per square inch as a standard LED display.
Generally, the finer the pixel pitch, the higher the cost. But finer isn’t always better. More pixels mean increased brightness, which is good for applications with a lot of ambient light but requires increased power and potentially causes eye strain.
An increased pixel count also requires more processing, which raises costs and power consumption even more and makes the equipment more sensitive to overheating and electrical interference. Plus, there are diminishing returns on pixel pitch as viewer distance increases; when viewers get too far away, fine details become difficult to distinguish. There’s no point in paying for pixels that don’t improve the user experience.
Most models use viewer distance to determine appropriate display size and vice versa, but when you factor in pixel pitch, things get complicated. All the old rules apply. The screen shouldn’t be so wide that the closest viewer has to swivel their head back and forth to take in the whole image. But it must also be tall enough that the farthest viewer can discern every detail. However, with a videowall, part of the goal is immersion. You’re looking for the viewer distance sweet spot where the image looks real.
When you step far enough away from a screen that you can no longer detect individual pixels and the image blends into a seamless whole, you’ve reached the Visual Acuity Distance (VAD). People with 20/20 vision can discern details as small as 1/60th of an arc degree, so if your goal is immersive realism, the average viewer should be far enough away that the viewing angle between the dead centers of two adjacent pixels is less than 1/60th of a degree apart.
Thankfully, there’s a simple formula for this, and some even easier math that will get you close enough. The formula for VAD is: VAD = Pixel Pitch X 3438. So, if you’re deploying a microLED videowall with a 1.00mm pixel pitch, the average viewer should be no more than 1.00 X 3438 millimeters away (3.4m / 11.25 ft.) Any closer than that and the individual pixels start to be discernable, degrading the user experience — meaning you might need an even finer pitch.
In US units, you can use the 10X rule: Pixel Pitch in millimeters X 10 = Approximate VAD in feet. Using the 10X rule, a display with a 1.0mm pixel pitch should have an average viewer distance of roughly 10 ft.
That approximation is okay because it’s all pretty subjective. Actual comfortable viewing distance will be based on the content, level of focus, and individual user eyesight. Samsung recommends eight feet for every 1.0mm of pixel pitch, which means the average viewer for a 1.0mm pixel pitch display can comfortably view as close as eight feet. The Average Comfortable Viewing Distance chart (below), a commonly used chart in the commercial AV industry based on subjective feedback from real-world installations, generally puts acceptable viewing distance at about half of VAD — in this case, five feet. Basically, it’s okay if your closest viewer can pick out a pixel or two by squinting.
Large scale LED videowalls can be extremely bright, particularly those densely packed fine-pitch and microLED displays. This is mostly because they’re intended for deployment in brightly lit spaces like large rooms or outdoor areas, You’ll need to adjust the display brightness and, in outdoor applications, consider integrating an ambient light sensor to automatically adjust brightness to avoid frying your retinas at night.
Also, many homeowners are surprised to learn that most LED videowalls don’t really turn off. Instead, the remain in a low-power mode, avoiding a full on/off cycle that can stress their delicate electronics. In outdoor applications, the videowall may also have a continuously operating cooling system.
LED videowalls are admittedly complicated, and still fairly expensive. Projection remains the most attractive solution in a lot of scenarios, such as home theater. It’s familiar, proven, and relatively cost-effective. But for homeowners looking to create immersive, cinematic-quality moments in brightly lit areas, however, videowalls are probably the way to go. With the proper planning and know-how, you can adapt solutions for optimal viewing.
When shopping for a videowall, it is important to look beyond specs and pricing to customer service reputation and warranty practices. The LED tile market is notorious for inconsistent supply and support.
Everything about videowalls is big — the images, the costs, and the expectations. But with the right research and understanding the pros and cons of your intended space, you can manage videowall technology to create truly breathtaking experiences.
Is a videowall in your smart home future? Is the immersive experience worth the investment? I guess that depends on a number of factors. What’s the one thing that would push you over the edge and take the videowall plunge?
Let Debbie and I know what you think in the comments, DMs and emails as we really enjoy hearing from you. Thanks again to all those following Debbie and I through our home building journey. It’s great to hear your success stories and suggestions as we move through the process. And if you like the content I’m posting each week, don’t forget to ‘Like’ and ‘Follow.’
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