The Apple Watch may adopt microLED display technology in three to four years

For those keeping track, the Apple Watch has been rumored to be adopting microLED display technology since 2016, and here we are in 2020 and it still hasn’t happened yet. So the wait continues.

And that wait will be just under a handful of years, according to a new report from DigiTimes. Based on information shared by Lee Biing-jye, the chairman of Epistar, Taiwan’s top LED producer, microLED is still going to be a huge focus for companies down the road. What’s more, Biing-jye believes that smartwatches will be the first “major applications for microLED” seeing volume adoption, but that is still three to four years out from this point.

Smartwatches will be the first major applications for micro LED with volume adoption likely to take place 3-4 years from now, according to Epistar chairman Lee Biing-jye.

There are smartwatch vendors showing interest in adopting micro LED displays, Lee said, adding a smartwatch screen resolution of about 300 x 300 is equivalent to 300,000 micro LED chips, which can be mass transferred in one go.

As far as the technology is concerned, microLED changes the technology behind the display panel in an effort to reduce power consumption, make the display brighter, and make it possible for devices to get even thinner.

At this point, Apple’s switch to microLED has been rumored off-and-on for years now. There have been rumors in the past that Apple is planning on adopting microLED displays in the Apple Watch first, with a few years passing before the same technology gets put into the larger iPhone displays.

While Apple was rumored to launch the first Apple Watch with a microLED display way back in 2017, it hasn’t happened yet and we’re still a ways away from it becoming a reality. There were even rumors that Apple would make the switch for the 2020 Apple Watch (Series 6), but that model will probably retain the OLED display. It will be interesting to see when it finally does roll out, though, and how Apple can promote the benefits of switching away from OLED display panels.

Are you looking forward to this future change to not only the Apple Watch, but with Apple’s lineup of devices?