I'm looking for a display that could stick directly to a window, show a computer image when powered on, and become transparent or translucent when turned off. Ideally it would be flexible rather than a rigid panel. This is for a business application, so I'm wondering whether a commercially available technology can do this or what the closest practical alternative would be.
4 Answers
The most practical solution would probably be a projector aimed at frosted or translucent glass, or a rear-projection film applied to the window. When the projector is off, the surface can remain fairly unobtrusive, although it won’t be perfectly clear and image quality depends heavily on ambient light.
Other alternatives include a motorized display that lowers in front of the window, a panel that folds or swings away, or a heads-up-display-style system. Transparent commercial displays are available in some forms, but they generally aren’t flexible, inexpensive, or designed to function like a regular computer monitor.
Transparent displays and flexible OLED panels do exist, but they’re still uncommon and expensive, especially at monitor sizes. Flexible OLED is mostly found in products like folding phones, while larger transparent panels tend to be specialized commercial installations rather than something you can simply stick to a window.
A normal LCD isn’t transparent by itself in the way you’re describing. It mainly blocks or modulates light, so it needs a backlight behind it to produce a visible image. Without that backlight, it would generally look dark or faint rather than function like clear glass.
That’s why a transparent OLED or a projection-based setup is closer to the intended effect than a conventional LCD monitor.