According to a new report by Business Korea, Apple are currently working on its own screen system for the Apple Watch using micro LEDs rather than OLED.
Back in April 2014, Apple bought LuxVue, a company centered on power-efficient LED. This adds weight to the rumor if we consider that a low-power display is essential for battery-powered tech and when you consider the size of the battery in the Apple Watch, this is particularly important.
At present, the Apple Watch series 2 models have impressive OLED displays that already offer some power-saving options. This is why many of the screens are dominated by black, saving power in the OLED display that an LCD wouldn’t. The Apple Watch was the first Apple gadget to feature an OLED screen and it’s likely that we’ll see this tech being introduced on the iPhone later this year. However, current technology makes it difficult to create larger-scale micro LED displays which is why the Apple Watch is the perfect candidate for this type of tech.
LuxVue have already filed multiple patents on micro LEDs but it’s still likely that multiple patents are still to come. Back in 2015, the website patentsencyclopedia.com reported a patent by LuxVue that was concerned with developing “display panels, systems and methods of operation are described in which LEDs may be used for both emission and sensing.” This fits in nicely with what we know about Apple’s focus on putting it’s fingerprint sensor TouchID behind the display on the new iPhone.
A new set of Apple Watches are rumored to be released this autumn, so we’ll have to wait until then to see if this new technology will be donning our wrists anytime soon.