A failing panel does not keep office hours
Milky from ten to three, perfect after five. That pattern is daylight, and the fix is almost never a new panel.We measured at eleven in the morning with the meter flat against the glass: 1,800 lux. The panel was rated at 500 nits.
Contrast is bright divided by dark. With that much light bouncing off the surface, every dark area lifts until black becomes mid-grey. The panel was doing precisely what it was sold to do.
Moving it beat buying anything
Back 1.8 m, out of the band of direct light from the entrance. The tenant said it looked like a different machine. Cost: one afternoon and a longer power lead.If moving is impossible, anti-glare film at three to five percent haze is the next cheapest step, a few hundred dollars for a 55-inch sheet. It softens fine text slightly, which is acceptable for retail and not for a jewellery display.
High brightness is the last resort: 700 to 1,000 nits, more heat, and a sealed enclosure that derates on a summer afternoon, exactly when the light is worst.
Two things to rule out first
Content designed as light grey on white will look washed out at any brightness.And a three-year-old panel may have lost 20 to 30 percent of its output without anyone noticing. Test at night with the lights off: if black is still grey in the dark, the panel is the problem. If black is black, the room is.