ISE 2025 Day Two Impressions – Wireless Power, Where’s Waldo And Wondrously Stupid 3D

February 5, 2025 by Dave Haynes

Much of my second day at ISE was spent in the invidis digital signage summit, speaking a little on a panel and listening a lot, so I don’t have a whole bunch to report from the exhibit halls.

It was still busy as heck, and when I did, finally, get to the digital signage hall by 3:30 or something, I was dodging and weaving to get down the center walkway.

There are LOTS and lots of tier 2 Chinese LED manufacturers in hall 4 that I genuinely have never heard of, and most of them don’t sell into the US or Canada, so I don’t think my awareness of them will rise. My fave is one that has giant statements on the stand about being a global number one in sales of this and that, but trying to figure out the company name was like a Where’s Waldo game.

I did get few chats in my mad rush around that hall …

Wi-Charge, the Israeli company that does wireless power, had about as terrible a booth location as could be imagined, but companies were finding their way back there because of what their tech does. Waaaaay at the very back of hall 4, they were seeing people coming up intrigued by the idea of not having to run power cables to drive small LCD displays.

I have known the LiveSignage crew from Tuscany for a couple of years now, because of trade shows and conferences, but Wednesday was my first demo. Quite interesting. The company stand suggests CMS, but they call what they do a platform, with a big emphasis on  the idea of set and forget scheduling and content. They have a generative content feature that is quite interesting. Instead of a pre-designed template library, they use AI to auto-harvest the branding, colors and images from company websites to auto-build content. I challenged them to build content for a tourism authority in Niagara Falls, and a couple of minutes later, up it came.

I was grabbed by the Allsee guys from the UK, and they showed me a quick demo of their take of LCD-driven art displays, called Vieunite. They are custom-build flat panels with a “high haze” anti reflection coating that work with a library of artworks. The frames look like picture frames, and they are interchangeable. Like a lot of people, I thought it was E Ink’s Spectra 6, but it is LCD – so full color support, video if needed, brighter in any light condition, and at least half the price of e-paper. The platform can intermingle artworks with conventional digital signage messaging.

Speaking of E Ink, the company’s CTO, Ian French, spoke at the invidis summit. Interesting guy and he made it pretty clear that digital signage and DOOH are a primary focus for growth. There are numerous partners around the show, and French suggested a bunch of advancements were coming this year, probably Q4. The intriguing one is video support, though that was qualified by saying it would be something like 15 frames per second, not the standard of 30. I dunno who wants sluggish video, but we’ll find out. E-paper, in general, seems to be the shiny object at ISE this year.

I confirmed from a couple of people who really know this stuff that the companies touting microLED at their stands are, in most cases, really just showing miniLED. I don’t understand why companies insist on fibbing. I had a chat with Daktronics, which is looking at and working on microLED, and they took me into a meeting room and showed me a prototype … that was the size of, I dunno, a toaster. They said the tech was at least a couple of years out. MicroLED is still mostly an R&D thing, and it is reasonable to wonder if is even needed for mainstream video walls – when the miniLED and COB tech already on the market looks awesome.

Along with the kinetic media wall, the eye candy this year seems to be LED sculptures – all kinds of shapes built and clad with LEDs.

I have yet to see any of those LED light rotor spinning things. There was a time when numerous teeny companies were peddling what Hypervsn has done the best at marketing. Not a big fan, pun unintended, but I get their application for certain things.

The invidis summit had a presentation on AI-generated virtual humans for interactive displays. My take is unnecessary eye candy when text and audio get to the point quickly and without distraction, but I am old and grumpy.  Maybe the kids love it? I think interaction in multiple languages, in text bubbles, does the job without all the razzle-dazzle. I don’t need to see a faux person on a screen when I order food or ask for directions,

The VC guys who bought a majority interest in Navori confirmed as much at the summit, so the insistent spin that the deal was a “strategic partnership” doesn’t hold. Pfffft (long story you don’t need to read).

A whole bunch of companies now have versions of that super-thin, perforated material that holds LEDs and creates the effect of floating  visuals. Muxwave is the most known brand, but I must have seem a half-dozen other companies with variations. Even LG has one at its stand.

They’re not invisible. They’re not holograms. But I do like the tech for things like windows.

BOE has a 3D glasses-needed interactive whiteboard. I was told the main applications was classrooms. I tried watching a science experiment or something. Maybe teachers would think this is amazing but I thought it wondrously stupid.

Great to see a bunch of industry friends today, and also great to be back at the flat by 9:30, and somewhat clear-headed. The Trison/Google party was lovely, but the brick-filled room bounced sound and made it impossible to hear or think. Thank you to the hosts, but we were in and out quickly. I have learned through the years that networking mixers work best when people can have a chat without YELLING.

Thanks to i5LED for having us at their party at a cool tapas bar, and my apologies to my Nordics friends at ZetaDisplay, who also invited us by. Too tired, and I know those folks like to have way too much fun.

No ISE for me tomorrow, as I have another commitment, but I’m there Friday when a lot of attendees are gone and the show is relatively serene.