invidis confidential 02|24: CES Highlights | First Glimpse at ISE Launches | Brightsign’s CEO in Conversation

Dear readers,

the new year was off to a slower start than usual: CES started one week later this year, which means the tech tittle-tattle revolved around ‘what happens in Vegas’ for just a little longer. But this week, the buzz has moved to the ProAV space and our newsroom inbox was suddenly flooded by companies sending in their ISE announcements and product launches.

We’re still waiting for one of them dropping hints on a really big launch with the potential to dominate all ISE headlines and leave big imprints in the Digital Signage and ProAV market for the year to come. There are, however, still two weeks left. And judging from the previous years, the two weeks prior to the show are when companies really start to funnel their attention towards the integrated systems show. Also, big manufacturers like Samsung and LG currently still have their PR departments processing all the CES material.

Hi there! I’m Antonia, junior editor at invidis. Whenever I’m not bent over my laptop writing, you can find me out and about in the local mountains of Bavaria or in a kickboxing gym – though mostly as the coach, not the one throwing punches. Together with invidis-founder Florian Rotberg, I write for our weekly international newsletter “invidis confidential”. I’m also the face behind a lot of articles on our German website.

What we’re looking forward to this week

There are a few technology launches we already have our eyes set on for Barcelona: We – like probably everyone – are curious about the world’s first transparent MicroLED that Samsung presented at CES. From the videos that are available the brightness levels look intriguing.

And speaking of brightness: At CES, LG Display showcased OLED displays with up to 3.000 nits. Integrated into professional displays, this would be a gamechanger because it would make OLED eligible for digital signage applications. In the 10 years since its introduction, the high price and the low brightness levels never made it feasible to choose them over regular LCDs in retail environments. With the “Meta-Technology 2.0,” this could change. But seeing is believing, as the invidis team is still struggling to believe that LG Display developed a real 3.000 Nits high-brightness OLED.

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Your invidis team

Personally, we hope to see some advancements regarding Green Signage at this year’s ISE: displays that use less energy, have a longer lifespan, use more recycled materials, and are designed for repairability. One company we have set our eyes on is PPDS, which has made impressive strides in that direction by overhauling part of their offering to lower its carbon footprint. During the past year, they released the first ever full color digital signage e-paper display, followed by an LCD line-up that consumes half the energy of regular LCD displays. We had a few doubts ourselves about this proposition but learned more about the technical execution when we visited PPDS’ Amsterdam office in December. PPDS has also announced their biggest product launch to date, so we expect some innovation happening also on the LED and software side.

At ISE 2024, we generally expect AI to be even more of a topic than last year. But the allure of AI is only as good as data privacy, a domain in which global corporations like Samsung have an advantage through the trust they have earned over the years. Samsung in its CES keynote, respectively, pledged to “bring AI to millions around the world” with AI-enhanced smart-home devices. In this article, we stripped the keynote down to what’s relevant for the digital signage industry.

Our end of year trips 2023

In December, our team had closed off the year with some pretty exciting trips. Florian Rotberg went off to Broadsign’s HQ in freezing Montreal after two days at DSE in Las Vegas. Despite a baggage disaster, the trip was well worth it because of the profound conversation he had with Broadsign’s CEO and owner Burr Smith. Not too many in the industry are as passionate about building and managing a company as Smith and describing the process as “the most fun I’ve had in my life”. That’s an attitude that made us curious about Broadsign’s future green plans for the global OoH market. This week, we published the full interview with Burr Smith:

Meanwhile, our editor-in-chief Balthasar Mayer was among the first group of journalists to visit Samsung’s The Wall factory in Slovakia. In his report that was also published this week, he describes in detail how Samsung’s premium MicroLED product is manufactured in a 24/7:

Some of our favorite stores 2023

During the first few weeks of 2024, we had a lot of fun reviewing our favorite digital signage installations and most exciting places we saw in 2023. We collected all of them and shared some on our freshly launched international site invidis.com. If you have time for a bit of digital inspiration or simply want to check out your competitors’ work, here is just a small selection of the stories we published:

• Golden Goose in Milan where sneakers are semi-destroyed on purpose in special washing machines
• Lefties in Barcelona that’s so highly digitalized that even the check-out becomes an experience
• Polestar at the Polar Circle with a minimalistic Swedish design and fully made from snow

Last but not least: The DSS ISE 2024 program went live this week. The first Digital Signage Summit of the year will take place on January 31st under the motto “Beyond Pixels: A Holistic View on Digital Signage”. Check out who will be joining invidis’ Florian Rotberg and Stefan Schieker on stage:

DSS ISE announced – and a new event for ISE 2024

Additionally, we announced a second event that we will be hosting for the first time this year in cooperation with the ISE team: the ISE Retail Forum, a hosted buyer event where we bring together end-users with digital signage and retail design professionals. The goal is to provide retailers with the knowledge they need to tap into retail media revenue streams. If you’re interested, shoot over an e-mail to our wonderful colleague Merle via merle.mommaal@invidis.com.

Next week, we’re looking forward to more ISE announcements and also some retail stories which Florian will bring over from NRF in New York.

Wishing you a lovely weekend,
Antonia Hamberger