Car Design Fetish

One of the “God, I wish we can do this one day” thoughts that I have always had is for the ability of a product to change its color based on the user’s preference (without paint, of course).  Star Trek technology, I also always thought.

In comes Kent Displays to both prove me wrong AND make me as giddy as a school girl who had just won Hannah Montana backstage passes.  Kent Displays has been working on a technology called a “cholesteric liquid crystal display”.  Essentially, this technology is an ultra-thin, damage resistent LCD technology under the moniker of Reflex LCD Electronic Skins.  This tech allows the LCD to take virtually any form and when heat is applied, the image can be changed.  The skin also works similar to an e-ink display in that once a charge is applied, another is not needed until the image is needed to change.

Currently, Kent has available single-layer and dual-layer versions for one-or two-color images, and is working on a full RGB three-layer version for images of incredibly high resolutions and variety.  This basically means that the product’s skin can be any color at any time, depending on your mood or wardrobe.  (The demo video shows a mobile phone changing color).  The best part?  The image/skin can stay the same color, without power, for up to 10 years.

While only aimed at small products for now, tech and car enthusiasts can rejoice for the day when the product’s viability and cost have been adapted for large-format use, such as body panels for the next Ford F150.

Click the link for a video of the color-change process on Kent’s site.

Kent’s AMAZING Color-changing Electronic Skin