Displace TV first look at CES 2023: Displace's fully wireless OLED TV sucks... literally

Displace TV first look at CES 2023: Displace's fully wireless OLED TV sucks... literally

Video Transcript

CHERYLYNN LOW: When you're buying a new TV, you're not usually just buying the TV alone. Typically, it comes with a stand or a wall-mounting bracket. But with a new product unveiled at CES 2023 called Displace, you may no longer need to buy any other mounting option.

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The Displace TV is what the company is billing as the world's first truly wireless TV. It basically is a TV unit on its own. It's a 55-inch 4K screen with very minimal bezels that uses active loop vacuum technology to stick to any wall, in fact, any surface, as long as it's mostly even. Here at CES 2023, we saw a demo at the company's suite, where the company just kind of stuck it to a window, which is of glass, but you can also put it onto drywall and stuff like that.

The entire thing weighs under 20 pounds, so it should be easy to lift and also shouldn't really fall off the wall. Because this is a prototype, the parts that were 3D printed, the company wasn't comfortable letting us lift and stick the device onto a wall by ourselves. They did show us how to use it. I did manage to put my own fingers into the little handles that they've built into the device, and it felt sturdy. I definitely didn't lift it.

I did, however, get a chance to jiggle the TV while it was stuck to the window, just to see how firmly it was adhered, and it felt like it was attached firmly. Now, the wireless part of the Displace TV also extends to the power supply. This thing is powered by four hot-swappable batteries on board. And together, they should give you about a month of use if you're watching six hours of TV a day.

For now, the full details about the battery size and runtime is something the company is not ready to share because they've only built these prototypes for CES and are still working on the batteries. They say they may customize the chemistry of the batteries and still are finalizing details, like the amp hours that the batteries themselves have.

But the one thing that remains clear is you will be able to hot-swap these. So I was able to kind of push into one of the slots and pull the battery out just to easily replace one. No details yet, again, about how long it will take to recharge one of these things, but you should be able to have a few spare units to keep your TV charged without any disruption in your viewing.

There's also a 4K camera built into the top of the device that you can push into its slot to protect your privacy when you're not using it. But the camera exists not only for, say, super high-resolution Zoom calls over the TV. You can also activate the TV using hand gestures. Now, we weren't able to check out or try these gestures out for ourselves because of Wi-Fi issues at the company's suite. But the company's CEO did demonstrate what some of them would be.

And I have to say, it feels very "Minority Report" esque. In addition to using two palms to kind of zoom in onto a feed, you can also use a fist and act as if you're grabbing the video feed from one screen and throw it on to another. The camera can also identify if you're in a room and follow you as you move to different rooms in your home so that the content on your TV plays on the screens in your respective areas.

All of this works because there is a base station that comes with the device. That's where all the processing is happening. And really, technically, those are just monitors streaming from the base station. The other thing that you can do with multiple Displace TVs is kind of line them up next to each other to create bigger canvases.

For example, you can put two of the Displace side-by-side for a 110-inch 8K TV, or up to four for a 220-inch 16K monitor. I will say, I did really like the super thin bezels on the one Displace TV that we did see. But it will definitely still create sort of outline and borders if you're putting four together.

In case you only have budget for one Displace TV and you've decided to move it from one room to another, it's pretty easy to take one off and put it onto another wall, too. You would do so by pressing and holding a button on either side of the screen and then waiting till the vacuum kind of releases from the wall. You'd have to stand there to make sure you catch the thing as it's coming off, but then you can move it somewhere else.

Now, to put it onto a wall, you don't actually press a button. You just bring the Displace TV over to a surface, kind of put it onto the surface and wait for the vacuum to detect that is there. Once it starts understanding you want to attach it to some surface, it'll start activating and make this sound kind of like, eee. It's a very noticeable drone. But it does give you an indicator of when it's actually ready to be-- you can let go and step back.

You can reserve a Displace TV. Now, if you have $3,000 to spare, only 100 units will be available, according to the company's website. And the reps told us that they will be shipping, estimated, around in December. I can't wait to get one because I am a person that wants to wall-mount my TVs but just doesn't want to drill into the walls to install a bracket.

So I can't wait to get my hands on a sample. And I will be definitely telling you what I think about it once I get my hands on one. So for that and for more coverage out of CES 2023, make sure you stay tuned to Engadget.