“First-ever commercially-viable OLED concepts” on display in London design show

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Last April at Milan Design Week Philips unveiled its OLED-based Lumiblade lighting which it claimed would be the first OLED lighting to reach the mass market. The designs unveiled at Milan were mostly small, lamp-sized devices that did an excellent job of showing off OLEDs’ potential to provide diffused, wide-area lighting, as opposed to the point-source lighting you get from traditional lighting sources.

Philips has announced new versions of the Lumiblade for the 100% Design Fair next week in London. As you can see in the photo above, these are larger, (or at least are assembled into larger versions.) The transparency isn’t noticeable in the photo, but the reflective surface shows up, making for the ability to have every sub-panel either emit light, reflect it, or be transparent.

Philips isn’t saying what the efficacy of the Lumiblade is. Also, an Engadget post from the Milan show says that the Lumiblade uses Luxeon HB LEDs to boost the panel’s light output. Don’t know yet whether that’s always true for Lumiblades, or just the highest-brightness versions, or whether Engadget is blowing smoke. Regardless, it looks like a remarkable demo of OLEDs for illumination. Does it solve OLEDs traditional problems of short life and light degradation over time? Don’t know that either.