Since 2023, the competition in the projector industry for technological advancement has become increasingly fierce. Including light valves, light sources, lenses, screens and product accessories functional design, they are increasingly pursuing "independent brand discourse" and "differentiated market consumption supply". This determines the competitive trend of the projector market in the future, especially the trend of smart projection based on household consumption, which is increasingly developing towards "high complexity". How to balance technological progress, cost performance and comprehensive experience will also determine "who can rise".
1.The signs of the new system of the light valve and the high tricks of the old players
The light valve is the core of digital projection display technology, and it is also the key to dividing the brand camp. At least half of the brands in the industry "never make a projector product with a certain light valve technology". In 2023, in terms of light valve technology, not only new technologies will "move";Old technology has emerged as a new way to play.
First of all, Epson, the leading brand of 3LCD light valve, has launched a laser smart projector with a price of 3000 yuan. Up to 40% lower than its predecessor**. This means that 3LCD technology has officially joined the competitive sequence of "low-end and low-end price" laser intelligent projection. At the same time, the DLP light valve camp is at 0The "preferential level" on the 33 light valve reached a peak in the third quarter of 2023 and continues to trend down**.
In 2023, several new spring models of DLP camp projector products will see a decrease of nearly 20% throughout the year. Its first interval is characterized by a decrease from more than 3,000 yuan at the beginning of the year to less than 3,000 yuan at the end of the year. More products with higher brightness and performance have entered the market below 3,000 yuan, which is one of the core "volume strategies" of the DLP camp. Among them, the light valve product has entered the price reduction channel, which is an important factor.
The decline of traditional 3LCD and DLP light valves is mainly due to the "poor total amount" of smart projection consumption at mid-to-high-end pricesLow-end market 1LCD products upgraded to 2000+ prices;The global market continues to shrink the demand for traditional projection in business education, and the demand for DLP and 3LCD light valves is decreasing, etc., forming market competition pressure. At the same time, in 2023, the pattern of tight semiconductor manufacturing process capacity faced by DLP optical valves in 2020-2021 is "gone", and the supply is in a relaxed stateIn the automotive market, especially in the automotive headlamp market, the development of micro LED direct display headlights has also brought potential market pressure to the application of DLP light valves - these factors have promoted the enthusiasm of DLP light valves to maintain sales and occupy the market initiative in the smart projection market.
Second, in 2023, emerging light valve technology is gaining momentum. Among them, the accelerated rise of 1LCD is an important variable. 1The main change in LCD is that the launch of ** models with a brightness of 1000 lumens has also penetrated into the 2500 yuan market;The launch of a new model of 4K technology is expected to pull the 4K intelligent projection display ** to the range of 3000-4000 yuan, and has the possibility of further downward pressure.
The upgrade and change of 1LCD not only opens up its own "broader growth space with a higher experience";It also enhances its "competitive intensity" with traditional projector technology. Especially in the price range of 2000-3000 yuan, the "battle" between the 1LCD and DLP camps is very anxious. In this ** range, 1LCD has found a new growth point, and DLP technology is facing the defense of the "largest sales range".
In addition to 1LCD, LCOS technology is also often mentioned in the industry. As a type of optical valve display that has mastered the manufacturing technology of local enterprises, LCOS was once placed on the huge expectation of "localization of intelligent projection core optical valves". However, compared with the development in the three years from 2020 to 2022, the development of the LCOS market of local enterprises "seems to be decreasing".
In this regard, industry analysis believes that 1,3LCOS and 3LCD ratio, 1LCOS and 1LCD ratio are all cost disadvantages of "increasing silicon-based CMOS". 2.For terminal brand enterprises, the introduction of new technology lines is very risky, not only with new technology quality, consumer recognition, chain stability concerns, but also the original light valve manufacturers have a strong opposition to the worries.
In addition, for LCOS manufacturers, entering the consumer market necessarily requires a certain manufacturing scale to achieve an acceptable cost;And LCOS basic technologies such as liquid crystal and silicon-based also have the characteristics of "production line must have large-scale production capacity",This makes the projection industry to open up this industrial chain more threshold:After all, eat 100,000 pieces of new light valve in one go,It is a major technical market adjustment for projection terminal enterprises。
The difficulties do not come from the technology, but from the business operations." Industry insiders pointed out that after DLP light valves bid farewell to the tight supply stage, the prospects of local LCOS projection light valves have become more uncertain.
However, another new light valve technology – also known as a new projection system technology – Micro LED projection is emerging. On the one hand, the "14th Five-Year Plan" National Key R&D Program "New Display and Strategic Electronic Materials" led by Changhong was officially launchedOn the other hand, in the second half of 2023, Digital Light Core announced that it had successfully debugged and lit China's first Micro LED silicon-based drive automotive pixel headlight chip, with more than 160,000 pixels, and Nationstar Optoelectronics announced the completion of 7The 5 micron pixel pitch micro display micro LED screen is lit, which has the characteristics of excellent resolution and lower power consumption, and can be used for micro projection display technology.
Micro LED projection is a technology that integrates light valve and light source, and uses high-density pixelated high-brightness Micro LED arrays to achieve the integration of "lighting display". At present, there are more mature application scenarios and products on vehicle headlights, which also compete with DLP digital headlights, and become one of the future display technology routes of AR glasses. For projection displays, Micro LEDs need to maintain current brightness levels to achieve higher pixel integration, colorization, and more friendly cost control.
Some companies, including Changhong, believe that micro LED projection technology is worth studying, and may replace DLP and 1LCD in the future, and it is one of the future technical routes with great potential in the smart home investment and conventional brightness business and education projection market. It has the advantages of high light efficiency, more concise structure, local enterprise technology chain, and completely independent and controllable chain.
Overall, the projector light valve market in 2023 is characterized by loose supply and fierce competitionTraditional DLP and 3LCD valves** downward, 1LCD valves up in performance, and local high-quality valves are still in the "path exploration" stage - LCOS is cold, and Micro LED is heating up.
2.The high-end value of lens zoom, ultra-short throw is not easy to land
The large screen of projection display technology relies on the magnification effect of the optical lens on the picture. Therefore,The lens is the core component of the projection display,The upgrade of lens products has created a new category of "laser TV"。 However, compared with other electronic technical components, the maturity of the optical industry chain also determines that "it is difficult to qualitatively change the projection lens".
The surprise in the projection lens market in 2023 is only in the launch of a new product in October: the Nut O2 Ultra. The product is compressed to 0New short throw lens at 18:1 off the wall 168cm can be used to cast a 100-inch screen. This is that Epson 0After the 16:1 projection ratio product, another one broke through 020:1 ratio reflective ultra-short throw product.
Possess 020:1The projection ratio below can realize the color TV display on the real TV cabinet: the width of the general TV cabinet is 45 60cm, and the width of the nut O2 Ultra fuselage is only 29cm, and its farthest point from the wall is only 458cm, you can really realize easy large-screen projection on a standard TV stand.
For 018:1New lens application,Nuts have two products:O2 Ultra 4K has 2800CVIA brightness、98%Speckle elimination rate of three-color laser,Price9999element,Create a new era"Laser TV economy"。 At the same time, nut O2 also has 018:1 projection ratio, 750CVIA lumen three-color laser light source, priced at 3499 yuan. - that is, compared with similar products on the market or old nuts, 0The new 18:1 footage does not have a "premium" effect.
In fact, in recent years, with the shrinking of the commercial and educational projection market, laser TV has suffered from the market squeeze of large-size LCD TVs, the ultra-short throw lens industry chain has faced tremendous pressure:1It's the demand for traditional products that has come down;2.It is a traditional technology and performance index, which is not too sufficient in the household market. With nuts 0With the advent of 18:1 products, the market and application value of ultra-short throw may be redefined.
In addition to the progress of ultra-short throw lenses, medium and long photo zoom lenses in 2023, as an ancient and mainstream choice in the traditional projection market, are also being selected by more and more intelligent projections. The smart projection market is mainly aimed at household needs, and consumers are more sensitive to economy, which leads to the use of shorter focal length fixed focus technology to reduce costs.
However, the cost of fixed-focus projection is low, but it also sacrifices the "flexibility" of zoom projection. After 2021, the high-end smart projection market of more than 5,000 yuan will accelerate its development. The market share has continued to double in three years. In 2023, the proportion of the high-end smart projection market will increase to about 10% of the overall smart projection. These high-end products have ample cost space and flexible and efficient requirements on the demand side, and are equipped with medium telephoto zoom lenses. Judging from the market development in 2023, medium and telephoto zoom lenses may become one of the mainstream of high-end smart projection in the future.
In addition, ultra-short-throw reflex lenses can also be zoomed. However, considering that the product target of ultra-short throw lens is wall application, the value of extremely short throw disappears after zooming. Therefore, zoom ultra-short-throw reflex lenses are necessarily just a few alternatives. The technical direction of more ultra-short throw lenses is inevitably to "reduce the cost of fixed focus and technical difficulty" and "shorten the focal length to improve the value of wall mounting".
cheaper, more flexible, and shorter focus", these are the three main technical directions of lens products in projection applications. In 2023, with the intensification of the industry's first-class war, the competitive pressure of innovation + low cost will escalate, and the "attention" of industry enterprises to the lens will be strengthened. The competition of lens skills will also become one of the focuses of differentiated products and mid-to-high-end markets in the future.
3.The light source is upgraded, the light mixing is hot, and the laser is greatly increased
If you say that the most lively technical event in the projection industry in 2023, of course, is the "light source saliva" war between nuts and XGIMI at the beginning of the year. It is also this war that makes the choice of light source the "top priority" in the projection market, and even has the general trend of manufacturers Laban standing in line.
On the one hand, light mixing is supported by many brands. Including XGIMI, Seemele, Guangfeng, etc., have launched their own hybrid light source solutions at the end of 2022. Solve the problem of laser speckle with the wide spectrum of LEDs and bring economic benefitsUse the pure spectrum of the laser to improve the color and color accuracy performance of the product. "Take all the strongest points of laser and LED light sources", industry insiders said that light mixing is a "clever idea" and "mature system".
On the other hand, nuts, Hisense, Changhong, etc. have become "pure laser pies". These brands believe that the three-color laser should rely on technical improvement to solve the problem of speckle, and then achieve "perfect" image quality in one step. Some analysts believe that the essence of light mixing is that many products and companies start from the bottleneck of LED and ask for "space" for lasers. In this way, the ultimate end point of progress must be pure laser.
Of course, judging from the existing technology and products, light mixing and pure laser are still on the road to progress, and they are not perfect. And more companies are "having products" in LED, laser, mixed light, three-color laser, etc., and even in the development of micro LED, a new projection system technology that does not require additional light sources. Today's light source war is more like a big show of "market education", not the "ultimate battle". In the future, the continuous progress of light sources, and even the disruption of projection technology, will inevitably lead to better products.
If it is implemented from a practical point of view, most of the products in the current intelligent projection industry chain are still LED light sources. Because of the low cost of this technology, it also solves the brightness requirement of 2000+ lumens. On the other hand, monochromatic lasers are the mainstream in the business, education and engineering markets because their brightness is high enough and inexpensive.
As for light mixing and three-color lasers, they still belong to the "high-end category" in every circle of business education, engineering, and household use. Further solving the cost problem is the "most important thing for new light source innovation" in the future.
Aside from the technical system, and only looking at the core performance index of the light source "brightness", in 2023, the industry will continue to make progress in the direction of continuous "high brightness": on the one hand, monochrome laser and LED light sources are continuing to increase the brightness score. In particular, monochrome laser products are rapidly increasing their market share due to the advancement of next-generation blue lasers and their outstanding performance in miniaturization and brightness. On the other hand, three-color laser and mixed light, because of the use of more light-emitting devices, its overall brightness is "very low", obviously these new technologies will inevitably promote the "bright" upgrade of the light source industry.
The bottleneck of the continuous brightening of LED light sources is also considered to be the reason why "a larger proportion of lasers must replace LEDs" in the future - whether the answer is monochromatic laser, mixed light, or trichromatic laser. Some industry insiders said that the preferred laser light source for projectors above 2000 lumens will become a very certain "big trend" in the industry.
In 2023, in the war of new light sources, the status of traditional mercury lamp products will be even more "precarious". For example, in the third quarter of 2022, Epson launched a batch of mercury lamp smart home investment products in a high-brightness and low-price manner, and its market performance was very average. This year, Epson's new products at the same price were replaced by laser intelligent projection: although the brightness index has been reduced, the market is better.
More importantly, the main application area of mercury lamp products is the retail business market, which is more competition from large-size LCD interactive flat panels and liquid crystal displays. With the decline of 75 85-inch liquid crystal, the advantages of mercury lamp business projection cannot make up for its visual disadvantages, and the market is still in a "period of rapid contraction". This further compresses the "consumption space" of mercury lamp projections.
In 2023, mercury lamp projectors have lost their basic disks!"Not only is the traditional demand market under pressure from competing products, but more importantly, the cost of LED and laser light sources at 2000+ brightness is increasingly approaching mercury lamp technology - there is no significant cost advantage, and mercury lamp sources with a shorter life are only the "last step" away from bidding farewell to the market.
To sum up, because of a war of words, the progress of the new light source in 2023 has achieved "unprecedented market education results". Industry insiders believe that although none of the technologies for the war will be developed or released in 2023, 2023 will establish the "core impression of these new technologies among users". 2023 is definitely a year for light source technology to accelerate the formation of a transformative force on the market side. In the future, with the continuous decline in the cost of new technologies, the application pattern of projection light sources will inevitably be updated day by day.
4.The screen anti-light looks forward to "hardening the future".
In the traditional projector application market, the core parameter that determines the product effect experience has always been "brightness". However, if the brightness is sufficient, then what is the need for further image quality improvement?The answer is "screen"!In 2023, the "new screen" of the projection market, that is, the upgrade of traditional screens to "optical anti-light screens", will enter a new stage - a more tangled stage:
There is two better news: the first is that local optical screens and anti-light curtain technology continue to improve. In terms of product cost, localization level, ultra-thin development, and curlability, certain developments and breakthroughs have been made. The second is,From the application side、Especially the projection host enterprise side,The importance of the screen is increasing。 For example, Dongfang Zhongyuan launched the "laser projection electronic blackboard technology", which is a solution for applying ultra-short throw projection and anti-light curtain to be embedded in the classroom blackboard to form a better experience.
There are also two bad news:The first is,The laser TV market is not developing well。 The low price of large-size LCD TVs has quickly seized the traditional large screen C position of laser TVs in the living room. The value of laser TV has entered the "adjustment stage" - further low price and large size in the future, and the development to 100+ is the general trend. Laser TV is the "core pillar" of the early market of anti-light curtain products. The downturn in the laser TV market is "a blow" to the light curtain.
The second is that cost reduction is not ideal. After the rapid** decline process of anti-light curtain products in 2020-2021, the volatility of costs and market selling prices has narrowed significantly. Especially in 2023, in the trough of overall market demand, the willingness to decline is not strong - because, the projection market is sluggish, and the proportion of low-end products of smart projection continues to rise, the potential incremental market of anti-light curtains is limited, and the lower ** is considered to have little contribution to the driving force of consumption, and the industry has temporarily lost the interest of "competing for the market at low prices".
However, in addition to these short-term variables, the industry is still optimistic about the future market value of the "anti-light curtain". Industry experts believe that the anti-light curtain is not an independent category of products, and its popularity is highly dependent on: 1Medium and high-end projection consumer demand, 2The market size and technical level of high-end ultra-short throw, 3Medium and high brightness models, as well as the cost of ultra-short throw technology projectionanti-light curtain itself cost** and other factors.
Many of these factors are "dependent on the projection host". Therefore, only the real pattern change of the host consumer market can promote the development of the high-quality curtain market such as anti-light curtains. Although, the development of high-quality screens will further help the "high-quality" growth of projection consumption;But the "centrality" of the console is unshakable – anti-light curtains and projectors, just like monitors and PCs: while the former is also important, the latter is more decisive, especially when budgets are limited, and the latter is at the heart of the consumer market.
Therefore, in 2023, the anti-light curtain market can see many market inhibitory factors, but there are also "very favorable good news in the long run" such as further breakthroughs in ultra-short throw, continuous decline in high-brightness models**, and vigorous development of high-end smart projections above 5000 yuan. "The mid-to-high-end curtain market such as anti-light curtains will not have explosive development in the short term, but in the long run, it will be a sunrise category with a steady flow of water and a gradual upward trend."
5.The functional design of product accessories has been upgraded, and the comprehensive experience is increasingly pursued
In 2023, smart projection and other household products in the projection industry, in addition to core technological advances such as light valves, light sources, lenses, and screens, will also be further upgraded in auxiliary applications. Among them, in addition to a certain improvement in the accuracy speed of intelligent autofocus, keystone correction, etc., in addition to the continuous improvement in the AI voice function, the upgrade in the "stand" is also obvious.
Smart projectors, especially micro-projectors, inevitably need "brackets" when they are applied. In addition to the regular upright tripod, a tabletop stand is required in many cases. That is, netizens often say that "to play micro-casting, you need a few books" - use pad books to adjust the height and angle of the projection picture of the product.
One of the problems can be solved by equipping the projector product with a bracket and gimbal. For example, Xiao Ming's 2023 ** product V1 is intimately equipped with an integrated thin and light bracket as standard, accurately grasping the pain points of consumer product applications. For another example, Nut O2 Ultra 4K has a built-in electric micro gimbal device, which can make the picture height freely adjustable by 0-35cm without losing image quality.
It comes with a stand or gimbal, which has been extended to the 1LCD projection and laser TV product line. This is a new achievement in the development of the convenience of home investment products in 2023. It also represents a further popularity of the concept of "application-friendly design of products represented by accessories".
Industry experts point out that projector applications are highly "programmatic" in their own right. It can be said that the details outside of the host are equally important. Manufacturers can design reasonable additions for products, including screens, brackets, etc., which can greatly reduce the trouble of consumer purchase, and solve certain installation and furnishing problems, so as to achieve a more "easy" landing experience for products.
In addition to the core technology, the upgrade of the peripheral experience is also a highlight of future product innovation. "The stand and gimbal are one breakthrough, and the matching screen is another. Industry insiders emphasize that these components can be standard, optional, or a combination of multi-functional and multi-schemes. In particular, in the future, it is not excluded that the screen and gimbal bracket can be designed with electric and intelligent linkage with the projector to further enhance the "comprehensive experience of system solutions".
To sum up, in 2023, although the projector industry will temporarily slow down in "increasing quantity", it will increasingly have a higher sense of urgency in "improving quality". In every aspect of innovation, manufacturers are "painstakingly" to promote the formation of a new competition model of "quality-price ratio" of "quality upgrading" and "expanding the market with quality upgrading" from the dimensions of higher experience, better use, and lower quality.