In a market where 3D is failing because it’s way too expensive, Samsung has introduced a more expensive 3D option.
Set to become standard with the company’s newest line of 3D TVs this year, Samsung has improved the technology used for 3D glasses to communicate with the TV set. Instead of infrared, the new glasses and TVs use a Bluetooth signal.
This means viewers won’t need to be directly facing the TV, and chances of the 3D signal being disrupted are almost completely eliminated.
Samsung, along with every other manufacturer that introduced a 3D TV in the US last year, relied on IR technology because it’s cheaper, and most people will only use the glasses when looking straight ahead at the TV, or at slight angles which still allow the IR technology to work.
Nevertheless, one of the biggest complaints about the performance of these TV sets is the potential for dropped 3D signals. Samsung, which is the runaway leader in 3D TV market share, has now answered that criticism.
While the company didn’t announce pricing of the new Bluetooth 3D glasses, or the TVs they’ll work with, they will almost unquestionably be more expensive than their IR counterparts.
Other manufacturers, meanwhile, are looking for cheaper options. Vizio, for example, has begun shipping 3D TVs that don’t use infrared or Bluetooth. They use the same technology as movie theaters – which substantially undercuts their performance but strips virtually all the technology away from the glasses, making them extremely cheaper.
At the same time, Toshiba is working on 3D TVs that don’t require glasses at all, but this is a technology that has yet to be tested on large displays in the consumer market and is more costly than any other alternative.
In other words, is it any wonder consumers are confused about 3D?
