OLED technology appeared many years ago, but without any chance for near-term success because of challenges about reliability, design, and price. We have seen some nice products presented by Audi, Osram, Philips, Astron-Fiamm and some set makers but without enough differentiation to go into production.
But in the last months, I have seen three interesting prototypes: one from BMW in the M4 Concept Iconic Lights, the second one from Audi which will be presented at IAA 2015 (read about Matrix OLED this week), and the third one from Valeo. These three prototypes, I am sure, will convince us all about the great future of OLED now that some differentiation has entered the mix.
And another interesting point is the recent information showing the great possibilities concerning OLED price decrease (read about it this week).
The OLED light, without need of any cooling, attains a new level of homogeneity never before achieved. The lights do not cast any shadows and do not require any reflectors, light guides or similar optical components.
Of course, we will see also at ISAL and IAA 2015 in September other interesting achievements. The path to arrive in production was long for OLED but we can see now that commercial production is coming very soon for interior lighting and position lights…and from then it’s only a matter of (probably not much) time before OLEDs begin to show up as signal lights. It’s very exciting—let’s watch!
Sincerely yours
DVN Editor in Chief