This depends a LOT on both how, and how much the display in question is used.

You can make an OLED visibly burn in within a couple months if you max the brightness, cover it in static content and then leave it running constantly.

Or it can last a decade if used lightly, on lower brightness, with good burn-in compensation software, with few to no static images.

A decade is still a really short lifespan for a TV

Is it though?

2004 is the first year I remember watching a HD widescreen TV show (Lost). There were a handful of test clips and the like earlier, but they were a rare thing. E.g.: there's a HD video taken of the aftermath of 9/11 because the operator was just learning to use this (at the time) brand new technology.

That lasted about a decade, and then 4K become a thing around the 2013-2014 timeframe. I got a Sony 4K TV in late 2013 and a Dell 4K monitor in 2014.

However, both of those were standard dynamic range, albeit with a fairly "wide" colour gamut.

I got my first OLED HDR display in 2021, and an OLED HDR TV in 2022.

In other words, every "generation" of television technologies has lasted about a decade before being superseded by something significantly newer and better.

Display technology still has some ways to go. No current consumer panel reproduces 100% of the Rec.2020 colour gamut. Similarly, there are no consumer panels that can reproduce the full HDR10 or Dolby Vision brightness range of up to 10,000 nits. There are 8K displays that are close to that target spec, but they're either one-off experimental models or more expensive than a luxury car.

A decade from now, around 2033 mark, I full expect something like VR technology to have replaced TVs for many people. Apple's new headset (available next year!) will set a new quality bar that no traditional TV can ever hope to match, such as an extremely wide field of view, stereo, and very bright HDR in combination. Sure, they're expensive now, but after a decade of further development? They'll be amazing and cheap.

In your future, do households with more than one person exist? Because no matter what the tech is that'll never happen. We have a family, and after dinner if we want to watch a sitcom and laugh, we ... what .... go put on our own individual headsets and lay in bed? What happens on Sunday and it's icy outside, and we want to put a james bond movie on with the booming sound, have a glass of wine while the kids make hot chocolate, how do we do that? If I'm a single dude with disposable income I can see the vr headset with insane quality being pretty awesome, but for ANY kind of household with a family or roommates, I just can't fathom that kind of dystopian nightmare.

Teenage kids will likely want to play video games or watch their own thing.

Many young people live by themselves and can't afford a "huge" TV. Meanwhile VR will give them a virtual TV as big as they like.

Another potential future technology that might obsolete the current 55-85 inch typical TV sizes is "OLED wallpaper", or something similar that would allow wall-sized televisions.

Even before the 2030s I expect something like quantum nanorods to replace OLED panels, potentially allowing up to 10,000 nits in an affordable panel that doesn't suffer from burn-in.

On another front, I've noticed a lot more people watching something like TikTok, YouTube, or Netflix on their hand-held devices instead of traditional TV. I can picture a future super-thin, super-light Apple iPad with an OLED HDR display becoming very popular, especially for people on a budget that can't afford a huge TV.

The comment you replied to wisely stated 'for many people', and not 'for all people'.

You are likely right about your specific use cases. Though you might also want to see how early on some people predicted that TV would never take off, because families just didn't have the time for it.

We don't have a TV at home, and we would just do different activities in the situations you described. (But, yes, those activities in these situations would likely not include hanging out with headsets on.)

We're outlier in the TV market. 95% of buyer don't care Rec.2020 and continue using TV until it broken (maybe 80%?). OLED isn't for who use it for a decade.

...it is? I buy a new TV every two to three years as notably better tech comes out.

We probably have different definitions of "notably better"

I definitely think notably better is fairly subjective here.

I have a 4K OLED from 2018. Since then, I think the only notable improvement in the models from the same manufacturer is maybe enhanced-ARC? That is a neat feature, but not sufficient imo. Maybe a 120Hz refresh rate, but very little content even uses 60, let along 120 - at least in the cinema and TV space.

Anecdotally, My cheap old TCL dumb LED tv light burned out after about six years which is about average from what I’m seeing online but maybe I can fix it. But I did use it as suggested with a mi box.

> Well, an OLED will be pretty much dead after six years anyways.

Why is that?

They get dimmer as they age and might also develop "burn-in".

This really isn't an issue these days if you research your screen. Rtings.com has a good series on their website and YouTube testing OLED burn-in, and there are many TVs where this is not an issue. Also check out Wulff Den on youtube and his videos testing the OLED Nintendo Switch. He does get some bad burn in after a year, but that's also because it's on a still image at max brightness and never turns off. I don't mean a year of standard usage. I mean 8,765 hours of it displaying the same image.

Screensavers became necessary again?

For OLED computer monitors: yep!

They were never necessary to begin with: automatically turning the screens off (or at least to 'black') is never worse.

Not just that. OLED TVs nowadays have a screensaver that kicks in when it detects stationary image for more than a few minutes.

They also shift the image around by a few pixels to prevent logos and tickers from permanently marking the screen.

And when turned off, they also try to level the brightness of individual pixels by displaying different patterns - again to combat "burn-in".

> Well, an OLED will be pretty much dead after six years anyways.

How much TV are you people watching such that this statement becomes even remotely accurate? My 2017 LG OLED display says it has 6400 power-on hours and it looks as good as new.

The average American watches five hours of television every day, or just shy of 11,000 hours over six years.

https://www.marketingcharts.com/television/tv-audiences-and-...

Lots of people leave their television sets on for almost the entire day, even when not watching. Never understood that.

SO does that. She'll put the show on pause, go do shopping, come back and resume. All while leaving the TV on.

I've tried to get her to change oh so many times, all in vain...

No rational explanation either. Just... that's how she rolls I guess.

enable energy savings and turn off the tv after 2 hours. problem solved! Most tv's show a popup when they are about to shut off because of power savings, and with a button on the remote you can reset the timer.

This is extremely passive aggressive, tell me you’re single without telling me you’re single. People’s preferences being different than yours is not a technical problem to be worked around.

I’m not the one complaining here. My wife turns off everything before she leaves the place. Even if its just a quick walk with the dog :)

I had a girlfriend who would flush the toilet before using it. She said "it's cleaner this way". I tried to get her to stop, but it was a futile effort.

Before and after, I'd hope. :)

That doesn't kill LG OLEDs thought, that results in a nearly black screensaver (just a small slow "firework" effect). Wastes a touch more energy than turning the tv into sleep mode (since nothing actually turns off anymore), but hard to believe that would shorten life much.

Gives a feeling of having other people around and staves off loneliness.

That explains a few things.

Still, the objective tests from RTINGS seem to suggest that it's the LCD sets that look all fucked up after a few years, while almost all the OLED ones look perfect. And they OLED sets aren't showing a downtrend in overall brightness over time.

https://www.rtings.com/tv/learn/longevity-results-after-10-m...

That's insane to me. I can't stand watching TV. I feel my life being sucked away.

That actuality sounds pretty standard. That would be from 5pm-10pm. Evening news, game shows, then like two 1 hour long shows and it’s already been five hours.

Many people leave the TV running in the background while they do other things, like eat dinner.

For the lifespan of the screen, it doesn't matter if anyone actually directs their eyes at it.

Try sitting down.

Yeah, that's a wild claim to me too. My 2018 LG C8 has about 5800 hours on it and it is indistinguishable from new. (Though I've never run it at max brightness because it would be blinding.)

Confusingly, the contrast control has a higher effect on image brightness (in the ordinary English language use) than the brightness control does.