Garmin’s New Solar Tech Patent

Source: USPTO via TechRadar

Garmin has recently filed a new patent that seeks to add Solar charging to a touch-enabled OLED screen. This tech might see the light of day as soon as the Garmin Epix Gen 3 in 2023.

The current situation with Garmin’s Power Glass is that it is only available as an option on their lower-resolution MIP screen as found on the Fenix 7 series we saw last month.

Must Read: Garmin Fenix 7 Review

The gist of the new technology is that it is dispersed between two layers rather than as a single layer. The latter is currently the case with Garmin’s Solar Charging tech (Power Glass) and even the patents admit that the current Solar cell layer reduces the image quality on the MIP screen we see today.

…solar cell overlay degrades visibility of the display module. “Patent Application”

Moreover this could represent the next-gen Solar charging tech for Garmin that is used across many screen types that we’ve not yet seen from Garmin.

[0015] In various embodiments, the watch 10 includes a viewing area 104. The viewing area 104 may include a liquid crystal display (LCD), organic light-emitting diode (OLED), a thin film transistor (TFT), a light-emitting diode (LED), a micro light-emitting diode, a light-emitting polymer (LEP), and/or a polymer light-emitting diode (PLED). However, embodiments are not so limited. In various embodiments,: “Patent Application”