PixelFLEX Heads Downtown to Macy's Brooklyn with Reflect

In recent years, few cities across the United States have seen the type of revitalization that has occurred in Brooklyn, New York. Included in this revitalization, retailers located in the New York City borough have also begun to undergo renovation projects of their own expanding the attention of their retail environments. As Macy's Brooklyn Downtown began their renovation journey, they wanted to expand their digital media to enhance the consumer experience, so they called up longtime partner Reflect who installed a new FLEXLite NXG 3.9mm LED video display from PixelFLEX.

"Looking to add digital media to the new Brooklyn store design, the executives at Macy's brought us on early in the project where they were originally concepting a large video wall composed of 55" LCD displays," says Chas Thornhill, CTS, Reflect's senior systems engineer. "I took one look at that and immediately started working to change the design from LCD to LED. In the end, we were successful in proving that LED would look better while being more cost-effective when considering the full installation and maintenance costs, and the FLEXLite NXG looks great in the new space."

Now with fully front-serviceable video panels, plus seamless right-angle corner capabilities, the FLEXLite NXG is one of the highest resolution LED video displays on the market, the company says. The product is available in 2.6mm - 6.25mm pitch options, plus a 6.25mm full outdoor IP65 version as well. "Macy's has a few corporate owned LED displays, mostly in the Herald Square flagship store, so they weren't completely unfamiliar with the technology, but they did have the idea it would be much more expensive over LCD," continues Thornhill. "Using the entirety of the project cost including installation, maintenance, and content creation, I was able to show them that we could bring in the LED wall at a little lower cost than the LCD."

Getting started on the install, the new LED video display would be placed on a concrete wall of the escalator well, between the first and second floors. Measuring 5m high x 2m wide, Thornhill would need to decide how to best attach the display to the actual concrete, and in the end, he developed a completely custom solution.

"The installation was pretty interesting in that in between the escalator wells there is a 2' thick, 3000 psi concrete sheer wall that runs from the basement all the way to the top of the building," explained Thornhill. "We wanted to hold the LED wall as close to the concrete as possible, so I designed a custom bracket that we fabricated here in New York, and then attached it to the concrete wall. We then attached the top row of the FLEXLite NXG LED tiles to the bracket and hung the remaining panels from the top row. When we got the bottom, we attached a couple of bolts to tabs so that the LED wall couldn't be swung out without an authorized employee."

With the install complete, the design team was ready to start sending content to the new display which would use the proprietary ReflectView system for digital content management that is standard across all Macy's locations.

"The content is mostly experiential and promotional with beauty shots of clothes models and graphical messages to promote sales and other store announcements," adds Thornhill. "The signal is provided by our ReflectView system which Macy's adopted a few years ago to drive digital content to all their locations. We then have an IDF room on the floor above the LED wall with the ReflectView media player and PixelFLEX sending unit, and the entire system is powered from only three 20A power circuits."

In today's consumer environment, LED video is quickly becoming recognized as an affordable and creative design tool to capture the attention of shoppers and drive sales. When showcasing the new Macy's LED video display to the executives in charge of this design, Thornhill was excited for them to see for themselves what he had known from the beginning.

"They absolutely loved it," concludes Thornhill. "They really liked the brightness and the image quality. Even the general contractor who installed the mounting bracket talked about doing similar LED walls in his other projects. They love the fact that it is extremely easy to create the content, and the final design with the FLEXLite NXG LED, instead of LCD, was very well received."