Display Week: Sun Vision Display Touts Outdoor LCD Display With Up To 95% Less Energy Usage

May 18, 2021 by Dave Haynes

This a demo video from the SID Display Week virtual stand for an Illinois company called Sun Vision Display, which is showing an outdoor-rated LCD display that uses reflective LCD technology.

The company uses reflective LCD technology to work WITH bright sunlight, instead of cranking up the brightness on a conventional LED backlight array to overpower sunlight’s glare.

This SEEMS similar to the technology touted by another Chicago-area company, Azumo. You can get the story on them on this recent 16:9 podcast.

Both use reflective LCD, but I don’t think this is precisely the same tech. The Sun Vision pitch is a mirror is installed behind the LCD layer, either inside the LCD cell or on the rear polarizer. Ambient light passes through that LCD cell from the front side and is reflected by the mirror back to the viewer. The brighter the sunlight shines, says the company, the more light is reflected back to the viewer – all while consuming very little power. 

Azumo uses a micro-thin front light.

However it is done, the argument for this sort of thing is that driving 3,500 nits of brightness from the back array of LEDs in an outdoor display consumes a lot of power, and power is not cheap … nor is the solution eco-friendly. It also necessitates a lot of engineering, science and things like fans to get the heat out and keep the displays operating.

The reflective layer can reduce power consumption by 90%-95%, the companies say.