Wearable OLEDs - Introduction and Latest Industry News - Page 20

As some of you know, I've been following OLEDs for over 15 years (OLED-Info itself is over 10 years old) - and the promise of flexible displays has always been there. In fact most people believe this is the true major benefit of OLED displays.

In 2013, both Samsung and LG started to produce flexible AMOLED displays. This was a watershed moment for the OLED industry - but only for people in the know. The production capacity was small, the adoption was limited and most people never heard of the G Flex, the Galaxy Round or the numerous Samsung wearable devices that used flexible OLEDs.

LG is going to launch their latest wearable device, the premium Watch Urbane, in Korea in a few days. The luxury Android Wear smartwatch will cost 650,000 won - or about $590 USD).

The Watch Urbane comes in a metal body in gold or silver finishes and a leather strap. It uses the same 1.3" 320x320 plastic-based flexible OLED display used in the G Watch R, and the same hardware (1.2 Ghz Snapdragon 400 CPU, 512MB of RAM, 410mAh battery and 4GB of storage).

Apple is set to start shipping the Watch wearable device in exactly one month (on April 24th)- with its flexible plastic-based AMOLED display produced by LG Display. A report from China claims that Apple has cut the expected monthly production rate by 50% - due to problems with the AMOLED display.

The report suggests that LG Display struggles with production yields, and Apple only accepts around 30-40% of the screens produced by LGD. Apple planned to produce about 2.5-3 million Watch devices each month, and this has been scaled back to 1.25-1.5 million devices.

Last year Oculus VR unveiled their 3rd-gen VR HMD development, named Crescent Bay. This HMD adopts an OLED display - but the company now reveals that it actually packs two displays, one for each eye.

Oculus adopted a low-persistence AMOLED display for their 2nd-Gen VR HMD - and it was later discovered that it is the same Super AMOLED display used in the Galaxy Note 3 (complete with the touch layer and all). It was a Full-HD display, which means 1920x1080 - for both eyes. The crescent cove uses two displays, and resolution per eye is probably a lot higher.

As expected, Apple officially launched their Watch wearable device yesterday. While the company revealed the release date (April 24) and prices (starts at $350), they did not reveal any more details on the display - all we know officially is that it is a flexible retina display.

It's been pretty much confirmed that it uses a flexible OLED display produced exclusively by LG Display (although reports suggest Apple is in talks with SDC to supply displays for the next-gen Watch). I guess we'll have to wait till the Watch is shipping to finally confirm it is an OLED made by LGD.

Razer first unveiled their open-source VR HMD Dev-Kit, the OSVR, in January 2015. The company has now released an update prototype, and one of the new features is a Full-HD OLED display, which replaces the LCD used in the first iteration. As expected, the OLED offers higher contrast - and lower latency. Razer aims to release the so called Hacker Developer Kit in June 2015, and it will cost $200.

It's great to see another VR developer opting for OLED displays. We've seen this happen with Oculus Rift and just last week Sony unveiled the latest Morpheus OLED prototype. According to Oculus, OLED is a must for VR applications due to the technology's ultra-fast response rate.

On March 2014, Sony unveiled the Morpheus VR HMD system, specifically designed for the PS4 console. The original prototype system shown by Sony used a 5" Full-HD (1920x1080) LCD panel, but reports said that Sony plans to replace the LCD with an OLED display in the production model.

Now Sony unveiled a newer prototype of the Morpheus VR headset, which indeed uses an OLED display - a 5.7" 1920x1080 one. This OLED has lower latency (under 18 ms) and a higher field of view. Sony also said that the headset will launch in the first half of 2016. This is not a huge surprise - OLED enables a much faster display which is crucial for VR applications. Oculus's VR system also uses an OLED panel.

Apple is set to officially launch their Watch wearable device next week. It's been pretty much confirmed that it uses a flexible OLED display produced exclusively by LG Display. Back in June 2014 it was reported that Apple is in talks with Samsung Display to become the second supplier of flexible OLED displays to their wearable devices.

A new report from Korea suggests that while LGD remains the sole supplier to the first-gen Apple Watch, Apple has signed a deal with SDC to become the second supplier to the next-generation wearable, which is expected in the second half of 2015 or early 2016.

Three new wearable devices with OLED displays were unveiled at the MWC tradeshow today. The most interesting one is Huawei's Watch - an Android Wear device that sports a 1.4" 400x400 (286 PPI) circular AMOLED display. It features a heart rate monitor and fitness tracking, six-axis motion sensor and a barometric sensor. Huawei's Watch will ship "in the middle of 2015".

Another interesting device is HTC's Grip - a fitness tracker that was developed together with Under Armour. The wearable device sports a curved monochrome (white) PMOLED display, which seems to be Futaba's 1.4" 128x16 film OLED (similar to the one used in Garmin's Vivosmart). The Grip includes the usual range of sensors in addition to an internal GPS chip.The Grip will ship in the US in the spring for $199.

Last month Apple said that they will ship the Apple Watch in April 2015. Today Apple announced that they are hosting a press event on March 9th - with the message on the invite saying "spring forward". It's highly likely that during this event Apple will officially launch their first wearable device, and hopefully provide all the technical details about the display.

Hopefully Apple will finally unveil the actual display type used in the Watch. In the-launch event they said it uses a "flexible Retina display", which can mean anything. According to several trusted sources, the Watch uses a flexible OLED display.