This story is part of CESHere our editors bring you the latest news and the hottest gadgets of the fully virtual CES 2021.
LG Display, the company that does the OLED Panels used in LG TVs, Sony, Vizio and others around the world are also showing off some of the coolest and most futuristic concept technology at CES. At the private booth I'm first I was mesmerized by an 18-inch roll-up OLED In 2016 I saw it even crazier 65 inch version two years later. It's where me too sniffed OLED flowers and relaxed in one Airplane berth lined with OLED.
With CES 2021 will be purely virtual I won't get the chance to see the booth in person, but the company's online showroom is the next best thing. This year the focus is on new transparent OLED screens that LGD has improved to 40% transparency compared to 10% for current generations. Clear displays aren't new - LGD has been touting them in commercial applications for a while and earlier this year Xiaomi started selling 55-inch transparent TVs in China for $ 7,200 per inhabitant. LGD, the only transparent OLED manufacturer in the world supplies these panels, but as usual, they are not specific products that are put on sale with the latest concepts.
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The online showroom shows the following scenarios, each with a transparent 55-inch OLED screen.
- Smart bed: Press a button and the transparent OLED screen pops out of a frame at the foot of the bed to show TV shows or other information. The screen itself acts as a speaker - a feature found on some recent OLED TVs - and according to LG, the frame and its transparent screen can be moved to other areas of the house.
- Restaurant layout: Menu items or videos can be displayed on the screen between the customer and the chef, which is shown as part of a sushi bar, while people wait for their food. At the same time, viewers can watch the chef at work and maintain the integrity of a partition.
- Subway window: Route information, weather, news and maps can be viewed in a window on a subway while drivers look outside.
According to LGD, there is an increasing demand for transparent screens in smart homes and buildings, as well as in driverless cars, planes and subways. Of the three scenarios in the Virtual Showroom 2021, the "smart bed" seems to me the least useful, but it is easy to imagine that such displays are so cheap and ubiquitous that videos or information can be displayed on any normally transparent surface from windows to glass coffee tables to glasses. It's not as stunning as a roll-up TV, but it's arguably more practical.
One great thing about virtual CES is that for the first time ever, booths that were personally private can be made more widely available. According to LG Display, the online showroom will be open to all general visitors during CES 2021.
