Panasonic launches its first commercial transparent OLED TV

Panasonic has been showing transparent OLED display prototypes and concepts since 2016, using panels produced by LG Display. Last year Panasonic said it plans to release its first transparent OLED product in 2020, and true to its word, today Panasonic launched the TP-55ZT110 and TP-55ZT100 transparent OLED modules.

The new transparent display is 55-inch in size, and offers a resolution of 1920x1080 (not a surprise as this is the spec of LG's and the world's only transparent 55" OLED panel in production). The whole display weighs just 1.75 Kg. Interestingly the operation temperature range is quite limited at 0-40 degrees Celsius.

The two modules (TZ100 and TZ110) are similar apart for the fact that the TZ110 includes a dimming unit on the back side. The dimming unit (developed by Panasonic) enables to change the TV into a "black mode", in which the dimming unit reduces the light transmittance - to make the TV less transparent and so improve the image quality by increasing the contrast. This makes the TZ110 suitable as both a regular display and a transparent display and could be an interesting technology (see here for why a regular transparent OLED TV cannot show black colors).

The whole display module is just 3.8 mm thick (for the TZ100. The TZ110 is 7.6 mm in thickness as it adds the dimming unit) . A thin display is of course highly astethic, but Panasonic says that such a thin display also improve the transparency and reduces reflections compared to thicker transparent OLEDs.

Panasonic will begin selling its new display modules in December 2020 in Japan and other Asia-Oceania markets. Panasonic says it sees potential applications in retail stores, museums and also commercial lounges. This is a commercial display and the price is likely to be quite high.

Panasonic's new transparent OLED modules use LG Display's 55" FHD OLED displays, which entered production in 2019. In 2019 LG Display announced it plans to double its transparent OLED production as it sees possible applications in shop windows, building façades and exhibition spaces. LG is also working with other vendors (such as Panasonic, and Xiaomi) to increase adoption of transparent OLEDs.

The transparent OLED market may be finally emerging. Click here to learn all about that market via our $299.99 Transparent OLED Market Report.