Koreatown Mall In LA Uses Semi-Transparent LED Tower As Visual Landmark And Icon

July 10, 2024 by Dave Haynes

It’s been interesting to watch the evolution and steady improvement of semi-transparent LED mesh displays in the last few years, and this new installation in LA’s Koreatown district is a great example of the current state.

It is a 3.9mm pitch  display from ClearLED, filling three sides of a window-clad structure (the posts that show this mention elevators and clock tower, so not sure which, or maybe/probably both?) in a three-level shopping mall, west of downtown LA. ClearLED’s head office is also in the LA area, though it also has roots in Vancouver.

As this short video from the manufacturer shows, the pitch is sufficiently narrow that the visuals pull together from a distance, and more to the point, the structures that hold all those LEDs are not terribly apparent from the rear, inside that glass structure.

If you have been watching the progress of this tech, you’ll recall the earlier iterations of semi-transparent mesh products were lower resolution and the back-end that people, like shoppers, would see was a very apparent grid system that just didn’t look good.

Here’s another full-on view …

This set-up has more or less 40% transparency and is best seen, the manufacturer says, at greater than 10 feet. Like more conventional products, the finer the pitch, the shorter the rated viewing distance.