Wearable OLEDs - Introduction and Latest Industry News - Page 23

LG released the G Watch R smartwatch last week in Korea (for 352,000 Won, or $330). A Korean retailer is now offering this circular flexible OLED Android Wear smartphone in the US via Amazon.com for $398.

The G Watch R uses a 1.3" (320x320) flexible plastic-based OLED panel, Android Wear OS, a 1.2 Ghz Snapdragon 400 CPU, 512MB of RAM and 4GB of storage. It has a 410 mAh battery which should last about a single day.

China-based Lonshine Technologies is developing new analog -smartwatch products that use a transparent OLED over a mechanical watch. There are two devices, the Halo 1 (a smartphone companion) and the Halo 2 (which includes 2G wireless and can work without a companion phone).

Both devices use the same transparent PMOLED that features a resolution of 96x96 and can display up to 256 colors. The watches are powered by an Intel XMM 2231 ARM chip (300Mhz), Android 2.3, 512 MB of RAM and 4GB of storage. There's a 240 mAh battery (a 3150 mAh one on the Halo 2) that should last for three days.

According to Korea's It Times, LG will launch their beautiful LG G Watch R smartwatch on October 14th in Korea and major countries. The Watch will cost 352,000 Won ($330) in Korea.

The G Watch R uses a 1.3" (320x320) flexible plastic-based OLED panel, Android Wear OS, a 1.2 Ghz Snapdragon 400 CPU, 512MB of RAM and 4GB of storage. It has a 410 mAh battery which should last about a single day.

Several OLED markets are heating up - OLED TVs, Flexible OLEDs, wearables, OLED lighting, the automotive market... Barry Young from the OLED Association, one of the world's top OLED experts, was kind enough to offer his views and opinion on the OLED market.

Q: What is your expectation from the OLED TV market in the next 1-3 years? Will LG be the only player (and if so what will be their capacity) or will Samsung and perhaps other enters the market too?

LG chose to implement the metal oxide/White OLED approach and has succeeded, where Samsung’s choice of LTPS/Small Mask Scanning (SMS) has proven too expensive to pursue even with ~80% yields.

IHS estimates that the wearable display market will grow very quickly in the next few years and revenues will climb from $300 million in 2014 (54 million panels) to $22.7 billion by 2023 (800 million panels).

It's likely that the majority of those wearable devices will adopt flexible OLED displays. IHS explains that wearables are best viewed as functional fashion accessories, and this market is defined by design. This means that wearable products must be adaptable to various forms which requires flexible displays. Wearable displays also require outdoor visibility and low power consumption.

DisplaySearch estimate that the plastic OLED display used in the Apple Watch costs more than $27 (this is the production cost, not the display price). They say it is difficult to know for sure as the cost is highly dependent on yield rates at LG Display's fab and they do not know it yet. They assume a 60% yield rate for the $27 estimation.

The $27 estimate includes the plastic AMOLED module, the touch panel interface and the cover glass (sapphire or glass, depends on the Watch model).

Oculus VR recently unveiled their 3rd-Gen VR HMD development kit, codenamed Crescent Bay. Oculus would not reveal any details regarding the display panel used, but they did confirm it is a new OLED display.

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).

Last month Samsung announced their latest smart watch, the Gear S, with a flexible (curved) 2" 360x480 (300 PPI) plastic-based Super AMOLED display. The Gear S includes a 3G chip (it doesn't have to be paired with a smartphone) and Samsung now announced that it is coming to the US "this fall" - and will be available from AT&T, Sprint, T-Mobile and Verizon Wireless.

The Gear S runs the Tizen OS, and includes seven sensors: accelerometer, gyroscope, compass, heart rate, ambient light, UV and barometer. It weights 67 grams (blue black edition) or 84 grams for the white edition and includes a 300 mAh battery which should last for two days.

Ten days ago Apple unveiled the Apple Watch, their first smartwatch product. The company did not reveal the display technology - they just said it was a flexible Retina display. The Watch itself will only be released in "early 2015", and I thought we'd have a long time to wait before we know whether this is an OLED or LCD display.

But according to several sources, it is now confirmed that the Watch uses an OLED. I cannot disclose all the sources, but my trusted and knowledgeable friend Jennifer Colegrove from Touch Display Research says she's 100% sure it is an AMOLED (it is interesting that in June 2013 Jennifer forecasted that Apple will adopt an AMOLED in a product within 18 months, and she hit it right on the mark).

In March 2014, Vrvana (TRG back then) announced the Totem Virtual-Reality headset - a competitor to Oculus Rift's OLED-based HMD. After months in development, Vrvana launched a kickstarter campaign to raise $350,000. As of the time of writing, they raised almost $100,000 - with 28 days to go so this looks like a promising project.

The headset includes a Full-HD RGB-Stripe AMOLED display, HDMI input and 11 sensors (including 2 cameras and 3 gyros). It supports the Unreal, Unity, Havok and CryEngine engines, and can be used with a PC, A PS3/PS4 and Xbox One & 360. An early-bird edition via Kickstarter costs around $400.