(Huntsville, Alabama — July 21, 2015)
In early June I was thrilled to attend the SID show for the first time in many years. This year the show was held in Silicon Valley, a novelty for the display vendors but much more convenient for me. I have not been to the show for years so it is hard for me to compare it to last year, but I can compare it to Embedded West. It is a pretty big show. Fits nicely in the San Jose Convention hall which is easy access from most anywhere in the bay area. But enough about that, what did I see?
It appeared all the display vendors were there with the largest ones having huge booths with lots of people hosting. Tianma and Japan Display both had huge booths with an enormous variety of products. Sharp’s booth was unique in their focus on wearable device displays. I took a lot of pictures in the Sharp booth as I have gotten into FitBit devices in the past year.
eInk looks to be taking off. Remember the display behind the Kindle? That is an eInk display. They use power only to set the display then turn power off and with their paper white/black display they are very easy to read even in direct sunlight. eInk had signs for stores like Kohls so the store could change the price for any product from the main office. No one has to walk around and change those old stickers. BUT, what was new was the massive amount of wearable devices that they were showing off.
All around the show floor there were massive wall displays. 110” and larger displays that were showing incredibly real images. The one that amazed me was the video of a field of flowers with wind blowing through it. It truly looked like you could reach in and touch the flowers. (I believe they advertised the display as 10K. Like 4K was not enough resolution for us…)
Some booths were showing off curved displays. These are so cool displaying detailed videos. Other booths were showing off circular and odd shaped displays. Most of those were focused on the automotive market. It is crazy how much data we may want when we are in a car; vehicle, phone, infotainment, whatever. The below picture was taken in the Tianma booth where they had a lot of automotive demonstration displays.
Of course I stopped by all our distribution partner booths and chatted with their support staff. Always nice to catch up with the people that we deal with over the phone. Really enjoyed the WPG booth where they were showing off a number of SUPER high bright displays and four demos from the hottest company in HMI devices; Future Designs Inc (yeah I went there).
Finally, we went and talked with a number of display integration companies. At FDI we have need to add a touchscreen, high bright a display or do some other display enhancements. A number of our partners were at the show and we were able to find out the latest in the capabilities. AND they are really incredible.
Hopefully all of you are having a great summer. You can click on the link here to see my pictures from the show.