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Is Xiaomi's transparent TV the biggest design fail ever? (archive)
Many strange things have happened in 2020, so it's probably the perfect year for Chinese tech company Xiaomi to announce the world's first completely transparent TV. And if you're wondering that the point of it is, we're here to tell you that you're not alone.
Available in China from from 16 August, the snappily named Xiaomi Mi TV LUX OLED Transparent Edition will cost ¥49,999 ($7,200/£5,500), offering "an ultra-immersive viewing experience" in which "images seem to be suspended in the air". That is, we assume, as long as your TV isn't positioned against a wall.
[...] In a blog post on its website (adorned with several images of women in extravagant ballgowns standing behind transparent TVs, because why not?), Xiaomi calls the TV "a new way to consume visual content previously only seen in science fiction films". Unlike traditional TVs, the Mi TV LUX Transparent Edition "creatively embeds all the processing units in its base stand". The TV sports a 55-inch OLED panel with a 120Hz refresh rate and 150000:1 static contrast ratio.
Get your transparent APNGs ready.
Also at The Verge.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by RamiK on Sunday August 16 2020, @11:15AM (7 children)
So when you turn it off the view won't be obstructed...
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(Score: 4, Insightful) by JoeMerchant on Sunday August 16 2020, @03:27PM (3 children)
Exactly... and it doesn't take too much creativity to put a pane of switchable glass behind it (switchable between transparent and black/opaque).
Our homes have had progressively more and more windows as we've moved, so it must be a preference thing, coupled with a IDGAF about the heating/cooling efficiency thing... Being able to switch from outside view to opaque to TV would be awesome, and I'm assuming if there's any practicality in this idea that - like every other display tech before it - it will be dropping in price by huge multiples over the coming decade.
Instead, with today's tech, we presently have two big TVs on opaque walls each currently showing the view from a different 4K camera mounted outside the house. One unexpected cool thing, I recently installed a camera with a "one way mic" on a post out in the middle of the trees - piping the birdsounds from the yard into the house surround sound system is a really nice thing.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 2) by RamiK on Sunday August 16 2020, @04:27PM (1 child)
Yeah I think the early adopters will be skyline penthouses and beach-side properties where even popup cabinets can block those huge ass windows so it's priced about where it should be right about now.
Hopefully in a decade we'll see these becoming common for kitchens and such. That would be nice.
compiling...
(Score: 2, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday August 16 2020, @05:01PM
Put an Apple logo on it and triple the price.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 17 2020, @06:23PM
Not just a single "paint it black" switch, put a mono LCD behind it for a full alpha channel. Then you can paint in opaque overlays or even translucent ones. Now you get a huge window that can popup a small video as needed, and on command (when something interesting happens) expand up to the whole window. Small info notification boxes floating by, etc. Adding a touch controller is of course a no brainer.
(Score: 2) by martyb on Sunday August 16 2020, @04:30PM
So all your neighbors can watch the same... ummm... "videos" that you are watching.
Wit is intellect, dancing.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Mykl on Sunday August 16 2020, @10:32PM (1 child)
I was actually thinking that the window _is_ the display. Most windows are double-glazed, so you could have your outside layer just go black (so that you aren't displaying your TV preferences to the world) while the inside layer can display your show.
This removes the need to put aside a large opaque section of wall in your living room for a TV, and allows you more flexibility in room design.
Those people dismissing this thing are thinking too small. HUD in cars, window TVs, dynamic overhead signage that is unobstructive, Augmented Reality, Google Glass v2 - there are heaps of applications.
(Score: 2) by Immerman on Tuesday August 18 2020, @01:37PM
Presumably the opacity layer (which lets it do things like let the black panther obscure a vibrant red dress) is behind the color-generating layer, so seen from behind you'd only see silhouettes, and that only if you're displaying semi-transparent images. If you were watching un-doctored TV the whole screen would presumably be completely opaque, and just look like a glassy TV-back from behind.
Unless of course they intentionally designed it to be visible from both sides, which would probably involve sandwiching an entire second transparent OLED TV facing the other direction with the LCD (I would assume) opacity layer between them. Since that would probably almost double the cost of the TV it seems unlikely, though I could certainly see it being done for free-standing/hanging advertising displays in public places.