Why India needs its own LED testing standards

As India’s DOOH LED ecosystem expands across highways, metro stations, and smart-city projects, the question of standardised testing and certification remains unresolved. Continuing Media4Growth’s exclusive series, ‘Lab Testing: The Way Ahead for LED Displays?’, Aarun Poojary, Managing Director of PixelStar Vision Pvt Ltd, weighs in on the gap, the need for an India-specific standard, and the industry’s role in shaping it. 

Why no standard exists yet 

One of the critical questions that comes up in the context of LED standards is why India has not yet developed a commonly accepted industry standard for testing and certifying LED screens. Aarun Poojary believes one of the reasons has been the industry’s focus on upfront cost. “The market has historically prioritised low initial CapEx over long-term Total Cost of Ownership,” he says.  

This price-sensitive approach has often pushed buyers towards lower-cost or unbranded components, rather than products backed by comprehensive testing and certification. For a technology expected to operate outdoors for years, this can eventually translate into higher maintenance, replacement and operational costs. 

Another reason is the fragmented nature of the market. DOOH LED deployments involve municipal authorities, media owners, retail developers and system integrators, but there is no single body responsible for setting display-specific standards across these stakeholders.

Aarun also points to a regulatory gap. Existing electronics regulations have largely focused on consumer display products (IS 13252 / IS 616) and other categories, while high-power, modular DOOH LED screens require their own set of thermal, photometric and environmental parameters. 

India cannot simply rely on global testing conditions 

Aarun believes international standards should form the foundation, but they cannot be adopted without considering Indian conditions. “An Indian standard should adopt international frameworks such as IEC, CE and ISO as the baseline, but must incorporate local, harsh-environment stress modifications,” he says. 

As he points out, an outdoor LED screen installed in India may have to operate through temperatures of 45°C–50°C, humidity levels of 90% or more during monsoons, heavy airborne dust and significant grid-voltage fluctuations. These conditions can put considerable stress on electronic components over time. 

A local standard, therefore, would need to introduce specific stress parameters. Aarun suggests a 55°C thermal stability threshold for outdoor operating conditions, along with stronger PCB protection through anti-fungal and anti-humidity conformal coatings. Power protection is another area that needs attention. He also proposes surge protection device (SPD) testing for 4kV–10kV surge conditions. 

So what should the standard measure? 

According to Aarun, testing must go beyond basic electrical safety and examine how a screen performs over its operating life. The framework should cover UL94-V0-rated fire-retardant materials, leakage protection and surge resistance, along with environmental testing such as accelerated weather ageing, IP65/IP66 dust and water protection, and salt-spray corrosion. 

Photometric performance should also be measured through brightness decay, optical uniformity and anti-glare compliance. He points to LM-80/TM-21 extrapolation for 100,000 hours as one possible benchmark for assessing long-term brightness performance. 

Energy consumption should form another part of the equation, with benchmarks for watts per square metre (W/m²) during dynamic media playback. 

Who should set the benchmark? 

Aarun believes this cannot be driven by one stakeholder. Bureau of Indian Standards (BIS), in consultation with the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY), industry associations (such as Indian Media Centre/IOAA), display technology experts and NABL-accredited testing agencies should collectively develop the framework. 

A common testing standard can give buyers greater confidence and also encourage manufacturers to build for India’s real-world conditions. For a fast-growing DOOH market, it could be an important step towards better quality and long-term performance.