The old idiom says cleanliness is next to Godliness. While Planar takes no formal position on anything related to deity, we certainly agree that keeping your Planar displays and video walls clean is smart, especially when something nasty like the novel coronavirus is going around.
With COVID-19 dominating the news, business logistics, revenues, and—most importantly—people’s health, we’ve all been reminded that it’s important to do more than simple rinsing or dusting. We must disinfect. People are rightly scrubbing their hands and covering their coughs more effectively. Unfortunately, that doesn’t stop 100 percent of our germs from spreading, often to the devices we’re touching or near. Our desktop monitors, collaboration touchscreen video walls and even LED digital signage displays have surfaces where bacteria and viruses can live.
The good news is you can disinfect Planar’s LCD and LED displays in only a few simple steps. Here’s how:
- Turn it Off
If you’re new to electricity, you may not know that it doesn’t generally mix well with water. As our recommended cleaning method involves water and we’ve not yet invented electricity-free displays, turn off your video walls, large-format displays and desktop monitors and disconnect them from power before anything else. - Create the Solution
The Center for Disease Control recommends many products that can effectively disinfect, but we recommend keeping it simple. The best, and easiest product to disinfect your Planar displays can be found in most households. No, it’s not bleach, which we actually recommend avoiding as it can degrade the look and performance of the displays. Instead, find a spray bottle and mix 30 parts distilled water with 70 parts isopropyl alcohol, sometimes called rubbing alcohol. The CDC says a solution with at least 70% alcohol disinfects best. This solution can be used on all Planar LCD or LED displays. - Wipe
If you have eye glasses, a smartphone or a TV, you’re probably familiar with microfiber cloths. They work great for smudges, and they’re also what we recommend using to wipe the disinfecting solution onto your Planar display. You can and should wipe it on the screen and any exposed surface including bezels, metal and plastic. Make sure the cloth is lint free, then dampen it with the solution and wipe, starting at the top of the display and working your way down. Don’t spray the solution directly onto the display surface like Windex on a mirror.
If you’re disinfecting an LED display, wipe gently, almost dabbing. Pushing hard isn’t going to get it any cleaner. And be sure to wipe vertically or horizontally as wiping diagonally or in a circular motion is more likely to dislodge pixels. - Air Dry
Once you’ve fully wiped down your display, carefully navigating tiled bezels and pixel gaps, let it dry at room temperature. Hopefully you haven’t soaked it, so it shouldn’t take long. There’s no need to fan it with palm leaves or use a blow dryer, just go get a drink and let nature do it. Given LED Video Walls have a rough surface area caused by individual pixel gaps, they may take a little longer to dry; be patient. - Power it up!
When you’re sure your Planar display is fully dry, you’re ready to plug it in and turn it back on.
If you have an LED display and want to be extra sure it’s disinfected, you can power it up, set the display brightness at 100% and a fully white screen. The LEDs will get too hot for any bacteria or viruses to live. But only do this after applying the cleaning solution and letting the display fully dry.
We want our customers to be healthy, and are confident that disinfecting your Planar display solutions will help. Of course we cannot guarantee these efforts will fully eliminate any virus or pathogen, but they won’t hurt either.