Guide · 6 min read
Last reviewed
How Do You Change What an LED Board Says?
The question almost every buyer has and few ask out loud, because it sounds like it should be obvious. It is not obvious, and the answer should change what you buy.
- Manufacturer warranty
- GST invoice
- Pan-India delivery
- On-site service in Karnataka
- Transparent, published pricing
This is a purchase-blocking worry that rarely gets raised. People imagine calling the supplier every time a price changes, or being handed software nobody can use, so they stay with a printed board that at least they understand.
It is worth answering properly, because the control method is decided at order time and is expensive to change afterwards.
The four ways content reaches a board
| Method | What it means day to day | Suits |
|---|---|---|
| Mobile app over Wi-Fi or Bluetooth | Type the text on your phone, press send. No computer. | Small shop boards, price and offer strips |
| Cloud CMS over Wi-Fi, LAN or 4G | Log in from any browser, schedule content by date and time. | Menu boards, notice boards, anything scheduled or multi-site |
| USB drive | Put content on a stick, walk to the screen, plug it in. | Screens with no network, content that changes rarely |
| Direct cable from a PC | A computer stays connected and drives the screen live. | Video walls, control rooms, live camera feeds |
Most shop and menu boards use one of the first two. A cloud CMS is the practical answer for anything that changes on a schedule or spans more than one location, because scheduling is what removes the daily chore.
What people actually find hard
Typing a new price is easy on any of these. Two other things are not, and they are what leaves boards showing the same content for a year.
The first is making content that fits. A screen has a fixed pixel size and content made at the wrong dimensions gets stretched or cropped. Ask your supplier for the exact pixel dimensions of your screen in writing at handover, and a template at that size. Without it, everything you make will look slightly wrong and nobody will know why.
The second is that nobody was trained. A single walkthrough on installation day, to one person who has since left, is how a board ends up frozen. Insist that two people are trained, and that you are given the login credentials rather than the supplier keeping them.
What to insist on before ordering
- Which control method, named on the quotation rather than assumed.
- Whether scheduling is included, if the content changes by time of day.
- The exact pixel dimensions of your screen, in writing.
- A content template at those dimensions.
- Two people trained at handover, not one.
- CMS credentials in your name, not the supplier’s.
- Whether there is any recurring fee for the CMS, and what happens if it lapses.
None of this costs extra if it is agreed up front. All of it is awkward to obtain six months later, which is exactly when people discover they need it.