Wearable OLEDs - Introduction and Latest Industry News - Page 25

LG announced their first-gen Android Wear smartwatch (the G Watch, which uses an LCD display) in March 2014, and the company is already reportedly getting ready to release the 2nd gen smartwatch next month during the IFA 2014 trade-show.

LG G Watch

According to Korea Times, the new G Watch 2 will adopt an OLED display, produced by LG Display. If this is true, it's highly likely that this is a flexible OLED. After all, LG Display does not produce non-flexible small OLED panels.

On March 2014 Motorola showed their first smartwatch, the beautiful Moto 360, and it will launch it on September 4th. It was widely speculated that it adopts an OLED panel - especially as it is always on and the battery drain on an LCD will be quite large.

But today Best Buy posted a product listing by mistake (they took it off-line a short while later) which revealed the Moto 360 specifications: and it uses a 1.5" 320x290 round LCD panel. This is quite a disappointment, I really hoped this beautiful time piece has an OLED display.

Update: it turns out the Moto 360 uses an LCD, and not an OLED...

On March 2014 Motorola showed their first smartwatch, the beautiful Moto 360. This Google Android Wear OS device uses a round display, which is probably an OLED but we're not sure. Motorola sent out invitations today to a launch event on September 4th, and they will probably finally unveil this interesting device.

From the invitation, it seems that Motorola will also show new smartphones, including the follow-up to their flagship Moto X with it's 4.7" 720p AMOLED display. Motorola has been using AMOLEDs for several of its phones in past years, so it's likely their new devices will also use OLED displays.

eMagin, the OLED microdisplay maker, reported their financial results for Q2 2014. Revenues were $7 million (the same as in Q2 2013), while net loss was $1 million (the same again as in Q2 2013).

eMagin XGA096 OLED-XL

While the company's financial results are still not very impressive, they do report significant advances in their R&D programs, mainly for ultra high-brightness displays and direct-patterned panels. In the near term, they hope that new R&D projects will help them increase revenues. In the long term, they seem certain that the advantages of direct-emission displays will enable them to achieve design wins in future commercial wearable devices such as HMDs.

Taiwan's AU Optronics has been struggling with AMOLED production for years now, but finally the company started mass production of two AMOLED panels: a 1.63" 320x320 panel for wearable devices (smart watches), a 4.3" 480x272 panel and a 4.97" 1280x720 panel. Towards the end of 2014, AUO will also release a 5.46" Full-HD panel.

This is great news for the OLED industry and for everyone who wants to adopt AMOLEDs in their products. Please contact us if you want to find a supplier for these OLEDs.

Last month Oculus started to ship their second-gen (DK2) development kits - for over 40,000 pre-order customers. Those Gen-2 devices switched the 7" LCD used in the first-generation headsets to newer AMOLED panels. Back when they unveiled the DK2, Oculus explained that they wanted a low persistence display, as it makes an incredible difference. Oculus said that their OLED runs much faster than any other OLED panel on the market.

It was always assumed the panel maker was SDC (they even announced a co-development effort later on), but the actual display was unknown. Today iFixit posted a teardown of the DK2, and it turns out that the display is the same 5.7" FHD Super AMOLED panel used in the Galaxy Note 3 (you can see it in the lower-left part of the image above). In fact, Oculus uses the exact module, with the touch-controller in tact and the camera holes and all.

EverDisplay Optronics was established in October 2012 in Shanghai, China with plans to become China's first AMOLED producer. Everdisplay is constructing a Gen-4.5 AMOLED fab. Those AMOLEDs will be deposited on an LTPS backplane.

The company's marketing team were kind enough to answer a few questions I had. This is a very short interview (they do not seem like the talkative types) - but this is one company that anyone interested in OLEDs should keep an eye on in the near future. They also sent me the photo you see below, showing their latest HD (720p) AMOLED prototypes. From left to right: 5-inch (293 PPI), 5.5-inch (267 PPI), 6-inch (244 PPI).

LG's Lifeband Touch smart wearable fitness device is now shipping or $149.99 in the US. The Lifeband uses a small touch white PMOLED that can display incoming call and text information, when the band is paired to an iOS or ANdroid device. The Lifeband touch can also be paired with LG's Heart Rate Monitor earphones that measure signals from the inner ear to track heartbeats.

Meanwhile, Samsung reduced the price of the Gear Fit to only $143. At least if we consider the display, the Gear Fit is more exciting - it features a flexible (curved) 1.84" (432x128) Super AMOLED panel

Yesterday Google officially launched the Android Wear OS for smart watches. The first devices will come from LG, Samsung and Motorola. We now hear that Asus is also developing a smartwatch based on Google's new OS version, and it will, like Samsung's Gear Live, sport an AMOLED display.

Samsung Gear Live

Asus intends to offer a cheaper watch compared to LG and Samsung, and they want it to cost between $99 and $149 when it launches in September.

There's an interesting report from Korea that suggests that Apple and Samsung are showing "signs of a ceasefire" in their long-running patent fight. According to the report, Apple wants to keep Samsung as its component supplier.

Apple 2011 flexible OLED watch patent

Samsung Display is a key Apple supplier. SDC makes 9.7" LCD panels for Apple's iPads, and they shipped over 5 million such panels in Q1 2014 alone (Apple is on of SDC's top three clients, responsible for 9% of SDC's sales).