Transparent screens are the cool new tech trend

In a video released Monday at the CES 2021 All-Digital Consumer Tech Conference, LG (LPL) unveiled a transparent TV with a screen you can see through when it’s on or off. The clip shows a 55 inch OLED screen rising from the foot of a bed, resembling a sheet of glass before a movie appears on the screen. You could still see furniture behind.

While 8k TVs may be the next real big bump in screen resolution, many TV makers are using CES as a testing ground to tease new innovations. In recent years, we’ve seen TVs that roll and fold, 292-inch modular TVs, models that double as works of art, and even talkative TVs.

Transparent TVs are not entirely new, but more and more companies are developing prototypes. In August, Xiaomi started selling a 55-inch transparent TV with a hefty price tag of $ 7,200. Panasonic (PCRFF) introduced a similar model a few years ago, but didn’t start shipping it to the markets of Japan and Asia-Oceania until December. LG’s model is not yet commercially available and the company has not revealed a price.

“The major use case is going to be commercial right now,” said James McQuivey, analyst at market research firm Forrester. “Environments such as malls, art museums, and upscale restaurants will want display technology that can be unobtrusive when it’s not supposed to be the center of attention.”

Manufacturers say companies can use transparent TVs to display information or menus creatively; LG even said it could act as a health partition between workers and guests. And while a sports bar may have many TVs on different channels, an upscale restaurant may want screens that look more like moving art.

It may seem out of step at a time when most people are at home during the global pandemic, but display makers are spending many years developing technological innovations that can often seem out of sync with market demand, McQuivey said.

“At some point in the distant future, transparent displays will be useful for a variety of applications, certainly commercial displays and perhaps even in limited cases in the home, especially as prices go down and the technology is improving, ”he added.

It is not uncommon for companies to launch technology without a clear market for them. This helps gauge people’s initial response and interest, much like the early days of OLED display technologies.

LG’s decision to hide a transparent TV in a bed for its promo video shows how technology could find a home beyond public places, especially to save space when getting up and down the footboard. “Today’s televisions are usually placed against the living room wall – now they can be placed as a space divider or against a large glass window, which will only look like glass when not. used, ”said Khin Sandi Lynn, analyst at ABI Research. “This is a great feature for modern smart homes if the price and quality meet consumer expectations.”