LG Display will showcase what it believes will be a more transparent future for OLED displays that could become increasingly prominent in people’s daily lives.
Transparent OLED has up until now been seen as something of a luxury or a gimmick, but LG says the technology could be used in a number of settings. One idea it’s now promoting is using it as a panel built into a frame that sits at the end of your bed.
LG’s transparent OLED bed display, for lack of a better name, will be able to emerge from the frame as with traditional TV-in-bed offerings. But the advantage, besides being see-through, is that it will be able to display information at various aspect ratios, which means users won’t necessarily use all of the screen all of the time.
The prototype will be shown off at the Consumer Electronics Show later this month, and comes complete with cinematic speakers built into the frame. What’s more, LG reckons the frame can be removed from the bed and moved easily to anywhere else in the home.
Perhaps the most encouraging thing with this offering is that it’s the first clear consumer concept for transparent OLED TVs, which have previously only been envisaged for commercial settings.
For example, LG’s transparent OLED displays have already been installed in subway trains in China to show useful information such as maps and schedules to passengers. It has also agreed a deal with a company called Assa Abloy Entrance Systems to make transparent OLED doors for use in office buildings. Meanwhile, Panasonic in December launched its first transparent OLED display for displaying adverts in shopping malls, retail outlets, exhibitions and so on.
LG has other ideas on the commercial front though. Also at CES 2021, it intends to showcase its transparent OLED displays in restaurants so diners can view the menu and order food via the screen without having their view of the premises blocked.
LG’s ideas are interesting for sure, but it remains to be seen how effective they will be. Transparent OLED has in the past been plagued with problems such as poor contrast and black levels, though LG says its latest displays provide “clear image quality” so maybe some improvements have been made.
There’s no word on when LG’s latest transparent OLED displays might go on sale, but we imagine they’ll be prohibitively expensive if and when they do.
