Oculus VR shows a new HMD prototype with a low-persistence OLED

A few months ago we reported that Oculus VR's CEO hinted that the company aims to adopt an OLED display (instead of the current 7" LCD) in their upcoming head mounted display (HMD), the Oculus Rift. Yesterday at CES the company unveiled their latest prototype (called Crystal Cove), and indeed it uses an OLED.

Oculus chose an OLED because they really want a low persistence display. They say that "it’s incredible the difference low persistence makes... It’s mind-blowing.". The OLED display runs at a high refresh rate - it switches in well under a millisecond - faster than any LCD monitor on the market. In fact, the company says that this is also much faster than any other OLED panel on the market.

This is interesting. It's highly likely that Oculus are using SDC's AMOLEDs (it could also be made by LG, but I don't think so) - but perhaps the company designed those displays together with SDC specifically to lower the refresh rate. Oculus didn't reveal any details on those OLEDs - even not the size or resolution. Of course this is just a prototype to demonstrate the technology, this is not the final product.

As far as we know, Oculus aims to release the consumer version of their headset sometime in 2014. Oculus VR is a high profile company that raised $16 million (partly by crowdfunding) and already offer "development kits" HMDs (those use the 7" LCD).