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LG’s Media Chair, a recliner chair mounted with an OLED TV. (LG) |
In 2019, LG unveiled its jaw-dropping rollable TV, then followed that up in 2021 with a rollable phone.
In 2022, LG will return to Las Vegas with a rather puzzling piece of innovation called Media Chair, a chimera device that combines a curved OLED TV with a recliner chair.
While the product may not be familiar to those in the West, for those living in Asia, particularly South Koreans, the Media Chair is a revolution.
The Media Chair will be mounted with not just an ordinary recliner chair but with a body massage chair. According to LG, the company is working on a prototype with an unnamed Korean massage chair company.
One of the greatest downsides of a massage chair is that users are kept mostly immobile. During the massage, their arms and legs are half-enveloped inside cushions, so there’s not much to do other than slowly fall asleep.
But with an OLED TV, a massage chair can not only eliminate fatigue but also the boredom of users. The possibility is endless, from streaming Netflix to watching YouTube.
One of the potential partners includes Bodyfriend, a premium massage chair maker based in Seoul. Coincidentally, the company’s CES booth is located right next to LG’s.
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Bodyfriend’s massage chair. (Bodyfriend) |
Buoyed by the pandemic, the size of the Korean massage chair market is expected to surpass the 1 trillion won ($842.4 million) threshold this year. As people in their 20s and 30s have begun to care more about their health amid the outbreak, 1 in 10 households are expected to have a massage chair within this year, according to industry data.
Bodyfriend, the No. 1 player in Korea, saw its sales and operating profit surge 10.7 percent and 76.8 percent to 440.5 billion won and 59.6 billion won, respectively, in the third quarter on-year.
“LG Display, as a business-to-business company, aims to offer various solutions to its clients with OLED TVs,” an LG Display official said.
By Kim Byung-wook (
kbw@heraldcorp.com)
