Floor-Standing Digital Signage: What to Specify Before You Order

1. The floor is the structure, and it is the part nobody specifies

A wall-mounted screen borrows the building's structure. A floor-standing unit brings its own, and that structure has to be specified like any other component: base footprint, centre-of-gravity height, floor finish, cable route and the light falling on the glass.

Four failures account for most of the service calls on indoor floor units. A unit in a back-of-house corridor gets clipped by a pallet truck and rocks, because the base was never anchored and the floor is polished concrete. A portrait unit develops a lean after six months, because the stand was engineered and tested in landscape. A screen placed in an entrance behind a curtain wall washes out every afternoon, and a 300 cd/m² panel was never going to hold up there. The media player board fails and the whole unit has to be rolled to a workshop and laid on its back to open it.

None of those is a panel defect. They are specification gaps, and each one costs a few lines of text at RFQ stage to prevent. The rest of this article goes through them in the order an installer meets them: stability, orientation, light, position, service.

The reference product is the floor-standing signage line, the SS50 series at 32, 43, 49, 55 and 65 inch in a metal housing with a tempered glass front, available as non-touch, infrared touch or capacitive touch. Where another product form is the better answer, the article says so and links to it.

2. Tip-over is geometry, not weight

Buyers ask how much a floor unit weighs. The number that decides whether it falls over is the ratio between the base depth and the height of the centre of gravity. A heavy unit on a shallow base tips more readily than a light one on a deep base, and a specification that only carries the weight has not addressed the risk.

The mechanics are simple. A unit starts to tip when the vertical line through its centre of gravity passes outside the contact patch. For a flat base the static tipping angle is the arctangent of half the base depth divided by the centre-of-gravity height.

The safety standard for audio, video and information technology equipment, IEC 62368-1, puts a number on it. Clause 8.6.2.2 gives three equivalent static stability tests: tilt the equipment in any direction up to and including 10 degrees, or place it on a plane at 10 degrees from the horizontal and rotate it slowly through 360 degrees about its vertical axis, or apply a defined force. Ten degrees is the figure to design against, and it has stayed the same across the second and third editions of the standard.

Ten degrees converts into a dimension that belongs on a drawing. The tangent of 10 degrees is 0.176, so clearing the tilt test needs half the base depth to be at least 0.176 times the centre-of-gravity height. That is a base depth of at least 0.35 times that height, measured in the direction the unit would fall.

Take two proposals for the same 65 inch screen, one with a 400 mm deep base and one with 300 mm. At an assumed centre-of-gravity height of 1.0 m the first tips at 11.3 degrees and clears the test; the second tips at 8.5 degrees and does not. The two look identical in a photograph. Only one comes with a drawing that carries both numbers. That assumed height is illustrative, not a measurement of any model, which is exactly why the drawing has to state it.

Casters change the answer twice over. The relocation stability test in the same clause accepts equipment on wheels of 100 mm minimum diameter without testing, which is a useful threshold for a unit that moves between events. Once the unit is parked, the locks matter more than the diameter: an unlocked caster on a smooth floor reduces the effective base to something close to the wheel contact patch.

• Base footprint in mm, both axes, and the centre-of-gravity height in mm
• Static stability test method and tilt angle to IEC 62368-1 clause 8.6.2.2
• Caster diameter, lock type, and the floor finish the locks are rated for
• Anchoring points, if the unit is semi-permanent rather than mobile

3. Portrait moves the centre of gravity and changes the direction it falls

The SS50 panel rotates 90 degrees, and some models do it under motor. Rotation changes three things at once: the centre of gravity rises, the panel sweeps a circle that has to be kept clear, and the axis the unit wants to fall along turns.

The sweep is the easiest to get wrong and the cheapest to fix on paper. A panel rotating about its centre sweeps a circle with a radius equal to half the diagonal: 406 mm on a 32 inch, 546 mm on a 43 inch, 622 mm on a 49 inch, 699 mm on a 55 inch and 826 mm on a 65 inch. Anything inside that circle, a wall return, a planter, a queue guide rail, either gets hit or pushes the unit out into the circulation route. Measure the sweep against the actual plan, not against an empty floor.

Raising the centre of gravity lowers the tipping angle for a given base. A unit that clears 10 degrees in landscape can drop under it in portrait, because the panel mass has moved up and the base has not changed. Ask for the stability figure in the orientation you will actually deploy rather than the one that was easiest to test.

Portrait also rotates the weak axis. In landscape the panel is wide and the base is usually wide with it. In portrait the panel is narrow and deep, so the narrow dimension of the base is now the one carrying the overturning moment from a side impact. If the base is a rectangular plate, state which dimension is depth once the panel is rotated.

Portrait is the right choice for menu boards, tall promotions and wayfinding. It is not a free setting, and specifying it without restating the stability numbers is the common error. The mechanical detail of the rotation mechanism itself, including cycle rating and service access to the motor, is covered in the rotating display panels guide.

4. 300 cd/m² describes the lighting, not the screen

SS50 is a 300 cd/m² panel. That figure is a capability of the backlight. What the viewer sees depends on how much light is falling on the glass, and that is a property of the position, not of the product.

Light reflected from a flat display front follows a Lambertian approximation, R = ρE/π, where ρ is the diffuse reflectance of the front surface and E is the illuminance on it. Taking ρ as 0.04, the Fresnel reflectance of an air to glass interface at normal incidence, and combining it with the panel's own output gives an effective contrast of (L white + R) divided by (L black + R). At 300 cd/m² and a native 1400:1, the panel's own black level sits near 0.21 cd/m².

Run that across the illuminance levels a unit actually meets indoors and the placement rule falls out:

• 300 lux, typical retail sales floor: R near 3.8 cd/m², effective contrast about 75:1
• 500 lux, typical office and reception: R near 6.4 cd/m², about 47:1
• 1000 lux, daylit lobby or beside glazing: R near 12.7 cd/m², about 24:1
• 2000 lux, entrance behind a curtain wall on a bright day: R near 25.5 cd/m², about 13:1
• 5000 lux, direct daylight patch: R near 63.7 cd/m², about 6:1

Read the bottom three rows as a buying rule. At 24:1 the screen carries large type and not much else. At 13:1 it is a grey panel with a faint picture on it, which is the condition most shopping-centre entrance units are actually sold into. The numbers are a model, not a test report: they assume a diffuse reflector and no mirror reflection off the glass.

The fix is not a brighter floor unit. Indoor floor-standing panels are built for controlled light, and pushing one past about 700 cd/m² brings power and thermal penalties into a slim housing that has nowhere to put them. The correct answer near glazing is the window display line at 700 to 5000 cd/m², or moving the floor unit away from the glass. One of each, a window unit for the street and a floor unit inside the entrance, is a standard pairing and costs less than forcing one product to do both jobs.

Check the operating envelope while you are at it. SS50 is specified at 0 °C to 40 °C and 10 to 80% RH, and that rating applies at the air entering the housing. A unit standing in a sun patch behind glazing can sit well above the room setpoint, which is a temperature question rather than a brightness one.

5. Sizing: the distance is short and the dwell is shorter

Sizing a floor unit uses the same arithmetic as any other display. A 20/20 observer resolves a Snellen optotype at 5 arcminutes, so the threshold character height is about 0.00145 times the viewing distance, and design text runs three to five times that. At a 3 m reading distance the threshold is 4.4 mm and practical body text starts near 18 mm.

The difference on a floor unit is the dwell. People walk past a totem at 1 to 3 m and give it a few seconds, not the minute they give a waiting-room screen. That pushes the design toward fewer, larger words rather than toward more lines, and it is why a 43 or 49 inch panel is often the right answer in a lobby while a 65 inch earns its cost only where the crowd is deep enough to read from 5 m and back.

Resolution follows the same logic. Individual pixels stop being separately visible once the pitch subtends less than 1 arcminute. On a 55 inch FHD panel that happens beyond about 2.2 m, so a 4K upgrade on a floor unit only pays where viewers stand closer than roughly 1.1 m, which in practice means a unit people walk up to and touch.

6. Where the unit may stand: protrusion, reach and circulation

A floor unit takes floor area that the building's circulation plan has already allocated, and in most jurisdictions that is a code question rather than an aesthetic one. Two figures from the 2010 ADA Standards for Accessible Design decide most placements in the United States.

Section 307.2: an object with a leading edge between 685 mm and 2030 mm above the finished floor may protrude no more than 100 mm horizontally into a circulation path. A totem with a 500 mm deep base set against a corridor wall protrudes 500 mm, five times the limit. The fix is a recess, a different position or a shallower base, and all three are cheaper decided at design stage than after the first inspection.

Section 308.2.1: an unobstructed forward reach runs from 380 mm to 1220 mm above the finished floor. If the unit carries a touch option, the interactive elements have to sit inside that band. Ask the supplier for the finished floor to panel bottom dimension and check the band against it before the stand height is signed off. On a tall portrait panel the reachable band is a fraction of the screen, so the interface has to be laid out inside it rather than fitted into it afterwards.

If touch is the primary function and the unit will be used all day, a purpose-built enclosure is the better product than a floor screen with a touch option bolted on. The touch kiosk buying guide covers that decision.

These are United States figures. Other jurisdictions set their own, and a CE mark on the product does not answer the building code question. Confirm the local requirement with the authority having jurisdiction, and get the corridor width and the accessible route from the client before the base dimension is fixed.

7. Power, cable and getting into the unit

SS50 takes AC 100 to 240 V at 50/60 Hz and hides its cabling in a channel inside the stand. One inlet, one cable out of the base. The specification question is where that cable goes.

A floor outlet is the clean answer and the expensive one. Where the unit has to be fed from a wall, the route has to be covered, and a surface-mounted cover in a circulation route is a trip hazard that an inspector will write up. Decide the feed position at the same time as the base position, because the two constrain each other.

Ask three service questions before you order. How is the media player reached, and can it be replaced without laying the unit on its back. Is the AC inlet switched, fused or neither. What is the cord length as supplied, because an extension lead across a public floor is the sort of detail that ends a deployment review.

Connectivity sits inside the housing: HDMI × 2, USB × 2, VGA, audio and LAN in, audio out with SPDIF optional, plus Wi-Fi, Bluetooth and RJ45 Ethernet. If the deployment needs a wired handoff, confirm the RJ45 is brought out to an accessible point rather than terminating on the player board, otherwise every network fault becomes a unit teardown.

The front is tempered glass, 3 mm optional, with IK06 available on request. That covers the display face. It does not cover the base, the stand or the cable exit, which are the parts that take the knocks in a corridor.

8. Floor-standing, wall-mount, kiosk, portable or window

Floor-standing is the answer when the wall cannot carry the load, the position has to move, or the sight line needs the screen away from the building fabric. The other four cases below come up often enough to be worth writing down, because a floor unit is very often ordered where one of them is the better product.

• Wall available and the position is permanent: the wall-mount line runs 32 to 98 inch and puts the load back into the building
• Touch is the primary function and it will be used all day: a kiosk enclosure
• Same screen, different room each week: the portable battery line, which also removes the cable route question entirely
• Within about 2 m of glazing, or any position above roughly 1000 lux: the window display line at 700 to 5000 cd/m²
• Shelf edge and end caps: the LCD bar display at 23 to 58.5 inch

Two products in one campaign is normal rather than a compromise. A floor unit inside the entrance and a high-brightness unit behind the glass reaches both audiences, and it costs less than over-specifying one product to cover both.

9. What this article does not cover

It does not give the net weight of any SS50 model. The product page does not publish it, and a plausible-looking number is worse than a blank line. Ask per model, and ask for it on the drawing rather than in an email.

It does not give a floor load rating. Whether a slab takes a 65 inch unit at a given position is a question for the building's structural engineer, and the answer depends on where on the slab it sits.

It does not cover outdoor placement. A floor-standing indoor unit under a canopy is still an outdoor installation as far as ingress ratings are concerned, and the 0 °C to 40 °C envelope does not describe a covered walkway in winter. The outdoor IP66 line is the starting point for that question.

It does not cover content. Typography, contrast and dwell time are their own specification, and the only figure borrowed here is the character height at a given distance.

10. What to put in the RFQ

Nine lines, in the order they get used. Each one closes a gap that shows up as a cost after delivery if it is left open.

1. Base footprint in mm on both axes, and the centre-of-gravity height in mm
2. Static stability test method and tilt angle to IEC 62368-1 clause 8.6.2.2, stated for the orientation you will deploy
3. Caster diameter, lock type, and the floor finish the locks are rated for
4. Ambient illuminance at the installed position, measured or estimated, with confirmation that the quoted brightness holds at that level
5. Finished floor to panel bottom and panel top in mm, so the touch band can be checked against 380 to 1220 mm
6. Rotation: manual or motorised, sweep clearance radius, and whether the stability figure holds with the panel rotated
7. Service access: how the media player is replaced, whether the unit has to be laid down, the AC inlet type and the cord length as supplied
8. Lead time against configuration: 15 to 25 business days after PO for standard SKUs, 30 to 45 business days from artwork approval to first article for OEM work
9. Warranty duration, spare-parts coverage and support terms, by model, destination market and project

Send the floor finish, the illuminance at the position and the orientation with the enquiry. Those three decide more of the specification than the screen size does.

SS50 floor-standing sizes: display area, rotation clearance and portrait height

Size	Active area (W × H)	Rotation sweep radius	Panel height in portrait	Fits
32 inch	709 × 398 mm	406 mm	709 mm	Reception desk, hotel check-in, small meeting room
43 inch	952 × 535 mm	546 mm	952 mm	Retail aisle end, clinic waiting, corridor recess
49 inch	1085 × 610 mm	622 mm	1085 mm	Mall concourse, exhibition booth
55 inch	1218 × 685 mm	699 mm	1218 mm	Lobby, store entrance, wayfinding
65 inch	1439 × 809 mm	826 mm	1439 mm	Atrium, large lobby, menu board

Frequently Asked Questions