[CES 2022] LG’s rollable obsession extends to curved TV chair

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.

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)