The futuristic, transparent OLED TV wowing the internet is made by a Chinese electronics company

Beijing-based tech company Xiaomi became the first manufacturer to mass-produce a transparent OLED TV available to the public, albeit for a steep price.

Priced at 49,999 yuan (approximately $7,417) on release, the Mi TV Lux Transparent Edition went on sale in China on Aug. 16, 2020. The TV comes with a 55-inch, 5.7-millimeters thick transparent OLED panel with a 120Hz (hertz) refresh rate and a 1 ms (millisecond) pixel response time. The Mi TV Lux also has a static contrast ratio of 150,000:1, 10-bit color and 93% coverage of DCI-P3.

Under the hood — or, in this case, a circular base — the Mi TV Lux Transparent Edition comes equipped with a custom MediaTek 9650 chipset alongside Xiaomi’s AI Master Smart Engine image processing, which boasts over 20 optimization algorithms and dedicated optimization for five major use scenarios.

More on the software side, the transparent TV runs on Xiaomi’s custom-made MIUI, which has been tweaked for its super-thin screen feature. The futuristic Dolby Atmos-supported TV also has AI Master for Audio, a feature that automatically changes the audio mode depending on the type of content being played on the TV.

The Xiaomi Mi TV Lux Transparent Edition became the world’s first mass-produced transparent smart TV when the Chinese company released it in August 2020.

Though the technology may be the first commercially available, many transparent TV concepts had already been floating around even before the big Xiaomi reveal, like LG’s prototype signage in 2019. The South Korean brand plans to release its own 55-inch transparent OLED TV for consumers by 2023.

A video of the Xiaomi TV on display recently went viral on the subreddit r/BeAmazed, amassing over 1 million views, 14,900 upvotes and more than 294 comments since its posting on Monday.

The 13-second video highlights the features of the thin TV, especially how the images and videos played on the screen can be viewed from the front but becomes transparent glass when viewed from behind.

While the TV may be enticing for some people, it does come with some caveats. According to NextPit’s review, the Mi TV Lux Transparent Edition’s round base may look bulky on TV furniture stands and “somehow out of place.” Display-wise, the screen only works best under low lighting conditions as the Mi TV Lux has a strong reflective display. Plus, the resolution is maxed out at full HD (1080p).

Featured Image via Xiaomi

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