CES 2013: World’s first big-screen OLED TV coming to U.S. in March

Kicking off a day of TV announcements at CES, LG said its 55-inch OLED HD TV, the first big screen set of its kind, will make its way to the U.S. in March for $12,000.

OLED, which stands for organic light-emitting diode, is considered one of the next steps in TV technology as it provides clearer images than other display technologies. OLED technology also allows manufacturers to produce thinner TV sets. The LG model, for example, is 0.16 inches thin.

LG announced its OLED HD TV set earlier this month and began taking preorders for it in South Korea. Until Monday, the company had not announced when the TV would be coming to the U.S. nor how much it would cost.

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Even from across a ballroom floor, the LG OLED TV set provided crystal clear images while running a demo video.

The South Korea company also announced its Ultra HD TV will become available in two more display sizes later this year: 65-inch and 55-inch sets. They join an 84-inch, $20,000 model that launched in 2012.

Ultra HD is another cutting-edge TV display technology. It provides a screen resolution that is four times more than the current full-HD TV sets. Ultra HD is intended to bring higher-quality images to larger TV sets, which tend to have grainier images than their smaller counterparts because of their size.

LG also touted a new projector called the Laser TV, which can display a 100-inch 1080p HD image from less than two feet away. The projector comes with Smart TV features, but LG did not announce specific availability nor pricing details.

Besides televisions, LG also announced a line of smart appliances that can connect and be controlled by users’ smartphones or Smart TVs. The smart appliances include a refrigerator, oven, a vacuum robot and a washer.

Using Near-Field Communication technology, users can tap their smartphones to their appliances and pair them together. From there, users can control the appliances in various ways. For example, users can check what food is in their refrigerator using their smartphone or pause a washing cycle using their Smart TV.

The vacuum robot, formally named the Smart HOM-BOT, also features a camera eye, which consumers can use to view what’s ahead of the HOM-BOT and navigate it using their smartphone.

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