Right now, thanks to its fascinating design, MUXWAVE M3 is enjoying great popularity in the LED sector. Let’s get to the bottom of the product’s great appeal.
MUXWAVE M3 is transparent, it’s flexible and it’s currently taking the LED market by storm. Considering all of its characteristics individually, it doesn’t do anything new – but it does do everything right. After all, there is a reason why a huge MUXWAVE installation greets the visitors of the ISE 2024 right at the entrance to the trade fair, and LANG is also putting MUXWAVE on display at their booth 3H500. In this interview, Technical Director at LANG, Hubertus Beckmann tells us more about the reasons behind the MUXWAVE hype.
Transparency may be nothing new anymore in the LED sector, but MUXWAVE still manages to regularly catch everyone’s eye. Why is that?
Hubertus: It’s because the MUXWAVE M3 looks inconspicuous and merely like a somewhat strange foil or panel at first glance, but thanks to its flexible and smart design, it takes transparency in LED to a whole new level. The panel is 1.8 mm thin, which means it can be bent, moved, and even carefully cut like cardboard. But despite its ultra-thinness, it has a pixel pitch of 3.9 mm and the M3 White Face achieves an impressive brightness of up to 5,200 nit – so together with a transparency rate of 50 %, the M3 is a flexible LED product that stands out thanks to its specifications and built-in technology. It is designed to display brilliant, eye-catching images.
What variants of the MUXWAVE does LANG offer?
Starting with the most basic unit, we offer the MUXWAVE as panels of 1,000 x 250 mm or 1,200 x 250 mm. This variant comes with an adhesive film either on the front or the back side, making it possible to install the strip directly onto surfaces like glass panes – and you can either remove the panel again or leave it installed permanently. You can place these panels side by side to create a big, seamless Muxwave wall. In addition, we also have the Poster as a rental solution, designed for temporary installations and flexible movability. In this instance, the MUXWAVE is clamped into a frame to create a surface of 1,000 x 2,000 mm, which can then be easily moved and installed either hanging or standing on rollers. The whole construction weighs only 37 kg and is, thanks to our pre-assembly, incredibly easy to set up exactly where it is needed. And our latest application is LUCY; here, the panels are pre-installed on 1 x 1 or 0,5 m frameless acrylic glass panels. Those can be connected to each other horizontally, creating one long and seamless screen. Additionally, you can install two LUCY panels on top of each other for even more possibilities. Like the MUXWAVE Poster, this product is also an excellent rental solution for a wide range of projects.
Speaking of projects: What are typical application areas of the MUXWAVE?
In short, it’s perfect whenever you need transparent, multi-layered and flexible visualisations. Shop windows are a popular example here because these can be equipped with the MUXWAVE to present products directly on them. Traditional shop window structures can thus be enhanced and upgraded, representing a completely new and forward-thinking way of promoting products – digital signage in a fresh and modern form. At the same time, none of this is visible from the inside and you can still look out the window. Another example is meeting rooms, where the MUXWAVE could show current information and data on something like glass room dividers.
Of course, it is also popular at fairs because it does exactly what exhibitors want: attracts attention and piques the interest of visitors. Just look at the MUXWAVE products we have here at ISE; the entire front of the fairground entrance is basically turned into one giant LED screen with beautiful images while still staying transparent – all thanks to MUXWAVE. Also, we installed three Posters hanging over our LANG booth 3H500 as a striking digital sign to inform visitors about presentations and events. And, you can combine MUXWAVE with other screens and displays by putting those behind the transparent panels and playing coordinated content on both. This creates multiple layers in the presentation space, making the installation multidimensional, vivid, and dynamic. Such a spatial experience is something very special and will be remembered by the audience. And one last example was when we used the Poster as a digital signpost at an in-house event where a moving avatar showed you where lectures were taking place or where to find catering.
MUXWAVE features what is known as Active Matrix technology. What exactly is that?
Let me start with the opposite, the passive matrix. Here, the driver ICs and decoders are located outside the matrix, ensuring the LEDs are driven sequentially. Together with the pulse-width modulation, this leads to high frequency on and off switching. In products with active matrix driving like the M3, things are obviously different and here, each LED package has a micro-IC that controls it on its own.
What does that mean in practice?
It means that the rapid on and off switching is avoided, making the image display much more homogeneous and preventing the notorious scanlines. This is especially noticeable when filming the Muxwave M3 with a camera – annoying flickering simply does not appear. In addition, the image is more pleasant to look at due to more consistent brightness and colour, and it tires your eyes way less. From a technical standpoint, the integration of a micro IC in the LED package is what makes the design of the M3 possible in the first place because it allows transparent LED products to be built without bothersome elements such as power boxes.
How can the MUXWAVE be controlled?
There are various possibilities. For our M3 posters, for example, we use the A100 controller. It can either be connected conventionally to a PC via HDMI cable, or you can connect it wirelessly via an app using a smartphone or tablet. Controllers from Colorlight or Novastar can also be used with the M3. This way, you can adapt the control completely to the circumstances and your own preferences – so you always remain absolutely flexible with the MUXWAVE.
Thank you very much!