Remember those heady days of yesteryear when everything was going to be 3D? Tangled in 3D! Puss in Boots in 3D! Video games in 3D! Those days are gone, friends, as LG and Sony quietly phase out the 3D features for their latest TVs.
Buried in the releases that plagued CES was a notable absence – 3D TV capabilities. Industry experts are saying that 3D – which rose to prominence in 2010 after James Cameron’s Avatar – is no longer a buying consideration for the average consumer. Instead they are looking for 4K and HDR.
“Purchase process research showed it’s not a top buying consideration, and anecdotal information indicated that actual usage was not high. We decided to drop 3D support for 2017 in order to focus our efforts on new capabilities such as HDR, which has much more universal appeal,” LG’s Tim Alessi told CNET.
Other factors included the rise of second-screen watching on mobile devices, something that’s impossible to do when your eyes are buried in 3D glasses.
My take? The next big push in home CE will be wireless speakers and 4K which will run parallel to advancements in VR and AR. VR will develop in the same way gaming PCs developed – specialized hardware at first, then more general interest and finally mass adoption – while 4K and 8K will be the way TV manufacturers upsell us every few years as we miss out on new content. Then, after about a decade, VR and TV will merge and then things will get really weird.
Anyway, be sure to put your Samsung 3D glasses into a display case for the benefit of future generations. You want them to look amazing when your descendants whip them out on Antiques Roadshow 2116.