You already pay for an LED hotline. It is just slower and more expensive.
When a screen fails today, you have two options: roll a technician, or face the manufacturer's support. Both cost you — in euros, hours and stress. LED Doctor exists because most failures deserve a third way.
Three ways to handle the same failure
| Technician call-out | Manufacturer support | LED Doctor | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Availability | ✗Business hours, schedule permitting | ✗The manufacturer's hours, often another time zone | ✓24/7, show nights included |
| First response | ✗24 to 72 h depending on contract and region | ✗Hours to days | ✓Seconds |
| Language | ✓Local language | ✗Mostly English, highly technical | ✓Yours — French, English, Spanish, German, Italian, Dutch… |
| Typical cost | ✗Hundreds of euros per visit | ≈« Free », paid in lost hours and downtime | ✓From €19/month per screen (excl. VAT) |
| Written record | ≈Report, depending on provider | ✗An e-mail thread | ✓A service report after every case |
| Knows your screen | ≈Depends on who they send | ✗Knows its hardware, not your installation | ✓Built-in product sheets + per-screen history |
| Human escalation | ≈It IS the default option — even for a cable | ✗Hard to reach an engineer | ✓From the Team plan (€149/month), file already built |
The real cost of a service call-out, in figures
Let's put amounts on the bill, for the end client and for the integrator. AV technician labour is commonly billed at €75 to €110/hour (excl. VAT) in France, travel on top — and an intervention rarely takes less than half a day, journey included.
On the integrator's side, sending your own technician is not free either: a service technician earns €30,000 to €35,000 gross a year, i.e. €42,000 to €50,000 fully loaded — around €300 per day of internal cost, before the vehicle. And every day on the road is a day not billed elsewhere.
And in 20 to 40% of cases, the technician finds no hardware fault: the failure was a loose cable, an unsaved configuration, a misconfigured source. Exactly what a guided remote diagnosis fixes in twenty minutes.
| Cost item | End client (billed) | Integrator (internal cost) |
|---|---|---|
| Technician labour | €75 to €110 / hour (excl. VAT) | ≈ €300 / day fully loaded (€42-50k/yr) |
| Travel | €80 to €180 flat fee by distance | Vehicle + fuel + tolls, ≈ €0.88/km |
| Typical intervention (half-day incl. travel) | €350 to €600 excl. VAT | ≈ €200 + half a day not billed elsewhere |
| Full day on site | €600 to €950 excl. VAT | ≈ €300 + €450-650 of lost billing |
| Evening / weekend / emergency premium | + 25 to 50% | On-call bonuses + compensatory rest |
| Call-out verdict | In 20-40% of cases: no hardware fault found | The same pointless trip, paid twice |
Manufacturer support was not built for you
A controller or panel manufacturer's support answers about its own hardware, on its own hours, mostly in English — and its first goal is qualifying the warranty, not saving your show.
Your installation mixes a controller from one brand, panels from another, a video source, a network: the failure lives precisely between those worlds, where each support desk points at the other.
Lédia reasons across the whole chain — source, processor, controller, cards, panels, power — and speaks every brand: NovaStar, Colorlight, Brompton, Linsn, Kystar, Huidu, Megapixel.
Integrators: what your internal hotline really costs
Many integrators support their clients with their own technicians, between two jobs. That line appears on no invoice, but it is paid every month.
A level-2 technician fluent in NovaStar, Colorlight and Brompton costs €3,500 to €4,200 a month fully loaded. Support calls easily absorb the equivalent of 2 to 3 days a month — senior time taken from billable work.
And true availability does not exist: compliant 24/7 coverage requires an on-call rotation of 3 or 4 people, with bonuses and compensatory rest. In practice the « hotline » stops on Friday evening, collapses during holidays, and the knowledge walks out with the technician who resigns.
What about calling the factory in China? With a 6-7 hour time difference, their day ends as yours begins: unreachable from early afternoon European time, and completely in the evening — precisely when screens fail, before a store opening or during an event.
| Hidden cost item | Order of magnitude |
|---|---|
| Level-2 technician (employer cost) | €3,500 to €4,200 / month |
| Factory support in China (+6/7 h time difference) | Unreachable in the European afternoon and evening — exactly when failures strike |
| Time absorbed by support calls | 2 to 3 days / month of senior time |
| Compliant 24/7 coverage | 3-4 technician rotation + on-call bonuses |
| Unavailability (holidays, sickness, training) | 6 to 8 weeks / year |
| Technician leaving | The know-how leaves with them |
| LED Doctor Team, by comparison | €149 / month, 24/7, 3 users, engineer escalation included |
What a 24/7 line actually changes
Failures don't wait for business hours: they come on Saturday night at H-1, during build-up, after the storm. An answer in seconds changes the nature of the problem — from crisis to procedure.
Every case ends with a written report: cause, fix, prevention. Your team learns, your history builds, and if an engineer must step in, he starts from the complete file instead of asking the same questions again.
And when the failure is genuinely hardware: on every plan, Lédia hands you the written diagnosis ready to forward; from the Team plan up, an engineer calls you back with the part already identified.
The bill, side by side
An Essential plan at €19/month per screen is €228 a year: less than a single avoided call-out. Pro plans (€59 to €349/month) cover whole teams, voice included from November 2026.
No subscription and a screen down tonight? The 48-hour Emergency at €89 gives immediate access, refunded if the problem is neither solved nor taken over.
And to start without risk: the pilot phase offers 90 days of full access, no credit card.
Orders of magnitude observed on the French market in October 2026, excluding special cases: your local rates may vary.
See also: VNNOX Care, OEM contract, freelancer — the full comparison →
Frequently asked questions
Does Lédia replace my maintenance provider?
No — she complements them: 24/7 support handles the immediate and avoids pointless trips; your provider keeps physical interventions, preventive visits and parts. Many of our pilot customers are providers themselves, equipping their technicians.
What happens if the diagnosis concludes it is a hardware failure?
Lédia builds the file — tests done, part at fault, reference. On Team and Fleet plans (and the 48-hour Emergency), an engineer calls you back with that file; on other plans you forward it as is to your provider, who arrives with the right part first time.
My screen is not a Pixelight — is that a problem?
Not at all. LED Doctor covers screens of every brand and all major control ecosystems. No Pixelight purchase required.
How long does a typical diagnosis take?
Most common failures — dark area, black screen, lost configuration — are diagnosed in 10 to 20 minutes of guided dialogue. Complex cases escalate with the file already prepared.