Sharp Hints At Move Into “Smart” Displays

January 25, 2017 by Dave Haynes

It looks like Sharp will join the swelling ranks of big display manufacturers selling professional monitors with System on Chip players built inside.

The systems integrator online publication Installation has an ISE preview interview with Sid Stanley, Sharp’s Europe GM for  Visual Solutions, who says Sharp will be “significantly expanding our signage presence with a range of monitors that feature both System on Chip (SoC) integrated software and the new OPS (Open Pluggable Specification) standard – mini OPS.”

Sharp last fall announced a new PN-R series that have the new Mini Open Pluggable Specification (Mini OPS) design (basically a built-in slot and connectors to slide in a small form factor PC), but this is the first, I think, I have seen of a mention of built-in SoC smarts.

Most of the display majors now have some sort of “smart signage” capability – Samsung with Tizen OS, LG with WebOS, Panasonic and Philips with Android, NEC with Raspberry Pis and Linux, and now, it seems, Sharp. AOpen also has smaller displays running ChromeOS.

I’m heading over to Amsterdam for ISE in less than two weeks, and will get a first-hand look at what’s up.