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HIGHLIGHTS FROM ISE 2023:TRENDS, TECH & INNOVATIONS

As the doors close on another fantastic ISE event, we reflect on the highlights.

This was the third year for ISE at its new Barcelona home, and what a year it was. With 58,107 unique visitors from 155 countries, including a visit from the King of Spain, attendance was up 33% since last year’s post-COVID return. The vibrancy of Barcelona with its welcoming hospitality, beautiful architecture, and shining sun (even in early February) has undeniably become a fantastic setting for the world’s leading AV and systems integration exhibition.

As the doors close on another fantastic year at ISE, we reflect on the emerging trends, latest tech and most inspiring innovations we witnessed throughout the halls.

It Pays to Go Green

Talk of green signage is not something new in the world of AV however, seeing suppliers and subsequently brands putting such talk into action, is. What was striking from this year’s event was the sheer amount of information, campaigns and product offerings dedicated to sustainability and what it means and what it takes to be green in a notoriously not-so-green industry.

In 2022, Jonathan Wharrad, VP Global Brand Experience, Advanced Solutions Group here at Mood spoke as part of the DSS ISE panel on the topic of sustainability in signage and its accelerating move to becoming a non-negotiable. And as Jonathan expressed, for integrators like Mood Media, it all comes down to collaboration with experienced partners who are taking the subject seriously and creating products which meet the consumer’s ever-evolving demands.

Walking through the halls this year, there was an overwhelming sense that green signage has now become fully rooted as said, non-negotiable. Samsung’s entire facade to their registered attendees-only booth was covered in sustainability pledges, promises and proof of their eco-conscious efforts in tackling product life-cycles and reaching zero-net emissions. LG’s approach focused on the benefits for the consumer, with touchscreens embedded into chipboard covered displays showcasing energy saving dashboards based on energy usage that all LG customers will have access to.

Meanwhile DynaScan’s range of high brightness displays proved that bigger and brighter doesn’t have to equate to less energy efficiency. In fact, when comparing watts per nit, DynaScan high brightness displays consume 45% less power than the industry average through the materials used, thermal control, intelligent brightness adjustment, and proprietary algorithms.

Over at Philips, the highlight was definitely the new e-paper display Philips Tableaux. As the first major manufacturer to bring a digital signage-compatible e-paper solution to market, Philips offers an almost power-free solution. How? The Philips Tableaux consumes almost no electricity when displaying the same content and can run for a very long time without a power supply.

If the content is changed, the screen can be connected to power very briefly in order to continue running for length periods again afterwards. When frequent content changes are necessary, it can remain connected to power and still consume very little power.

Philips sees the Tableaux Displays as being designed in such a way to offer significant power savings to customers with the right needs such as those in restaurant/QSR settings to display menus and or those which require a means of displaying infrequently changing timetables or opening times, as well as making digital signage solutions accessible to establishments without electricity.

Remote Management is the New Content Management

As tech develops, so does the desire for everything to be made quicker, simpler and more efficient, and that is no longer limited to content management. It was clear remote management and performance monitoring would soon become a huge expectation of consumers, and suppliers such as Philips and Powersoft have already made moves to meet such demands.

For Philips, the official launch of PPDS Wave, the brand’s cloud-based management platform, took place at their booth this year. To show that Wave is not simply a monitoring tool but rather has multiple control options including energy saving capabilities, Philips presented two displays, each connected to an electricity meter. Wave optimized the energy consumption on one screen, but not the other. After half a day, the power consumption of the Wave display was already little less than half that of its counterpart.

Similarly, world leader in lightweight, energy-efficient pro-audio power amps Powersoft presented the launch of the Powersoft Cloud, Universo, its own remote management system that will allow for remote monitoring, updates, online project storage and remote access to any Powersoft installations, putting an end to lengthy trips to installation sites to perform simple amplifier updates.

On the subject of improving efficiency and saving time (and costs), our own proprietary CMS platform Mood Harmony recently underwent an upgrade to develop a System-on-Chip (SOC) version that supports Philips Smart TV and Samsung Tizen smart screens, as well as BrightSign OS, thereby eliminating the need for an external media player. This means access to and management of content on screens is now simpler and more cost-effective while improving reliability and reducing deployment costs.

New Ways of Working

Another major focus at ISE 2023 was of course the hybrid work experience. There’s no denying the impact the pandemic has had on all aspects of daily life, but especially on the way in which we work. Traditional 9-5 office life is a thing of the past for most with the term ‘hybrid working’ forging its path into the everyday person’s vernacular. But with that comes its challenges; namely unreliable tech, haphazard wi-fi connections and terrible audiovisual quality. What was clear at ISE was that suppliers are not only wanting to save the day from a technological aspect, but also ensure the hybrid work experience becomes a community, rather than a simple workspace, that is inclusive of all the different people involved wherever they are.

Sharp/NEC dedicated the majority of their booth to recreating huddle, board and conference rooms to showcase their latest signage and system integrations (with the likes of Cisco and Microsoft) made to make hybrid working easier no matter the room size or location of conference call participants, more efficient and hiccup free.

BIAMP solutions were also worthy to note. After presenting the BIAMP Parlé All-In-One Conferencing Bar at last year’s show, at ISE 2023 the company announced their new partnership with Lenovo to deliver the ThinkSmart Core and Controller Kit-based solutions configured for Microsoft Teams Rooms or Zoom Rooms, firmly positioning themselves as a complete solutions provider in the world of corporate IT and AV systems. New amplifiers were also on display at the booth. These smaller form amps have been born from consumer demand for more energy efficient products and the ability to install amplifiers in more places than just a rack.

Experience First

Although few, some of the more theatrical innovations on display did prove there is still a place for experiential focused solutions in the industry today. Epson’s EB-PU2220B, the world’s smallest 20,000 lumens laser projector impressed viewers with its immersive visitor attraction aimed at venues such as galleries, museums and theme parks, whilst directly opposite, Panasonic boasted its own digital meets art offering.

LG took to turning large scale glass screens into works of media art with their impressive range of integrated solutions. Outside the booth, visitors were greeted by 272 inches of magnificent visuals thanks to LG Magnit. The Micro LED technology implemented with 0.78 Pixel Pitch boasts 8K ultra-high definition and offers accurate colors, black immersion and vivid detail for any kind of artistic digital content.
Just around the corner, LG’s iconic Transparent OLED Signage made sure all eyes gravitated towards its 56 units of 55” OLED attached end-to-end, displaying stunning visuals encapsulating LG’s theme of the show ‘Life, Be Bloomed’.
Finally the floating CUBE LED media art sculpture, located central to the booth, drew attention to its presence through its use of powerful anamorphic content, giving the illusion of defying gravity and also the edges of the screen! The LG LED displays can be installed in a 90 degree corner design essentially making it cornerless.

Over in Hall 6, Spanish startup Newtonlab Space put on a real show with The Shop Window, an impressive holographic device that can be used in settings such as shop windows or educational institutions to take the viewer experience to a whole new level.

But in terms of improving the customer experience at a more granular and everyday use level of digital signage, Nexmosphere were among the brighter stars of the show. Their simple yet innovative booth showed a range of interactive solutions perfect for settings such as retail, real estate, and even healthcare. Motion Triggered Sensors, Stock Count notifications via Proximity Sensors and Lift and Learn RFiD Technology were all presented, but new to this year’s ISE were the Hand Gesture Sensors. Camera based sensors that work through glass respond to hand movements such as swipe up, swipe down and even a thumbs up where CTAs can be displayed such as QR codes or wishlists.

Of all the buzzwords floating around the halls at ISE 2023, sustainability was definitely the most recurrent and we imagine will be for the next shows to come. Whilst sustainable practices applied to digital signage products were vital to show, the financial benefits of green signage seemed to be the key point to prove, as leading suppliers took on the challenge of assuring consumers that it really does pay to go green in the long run.

Exciting innovations were present, if not the focal point. Just like last year, this year’s most innovative advancements were in the details, those seemingly small but crucial improvements that make technology smarter, more sustainable, and more data-driven. When viewed in totality, the evolution on display was quite impressive.

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