To See or Not to See? The Evolution of Whether and How to Hide Television Screens Comes Full Circle

When televisions began taking over our living rooms after World War II, how they looked was as important as the images they broadcast. Manufacturers hid their bulging picture tubes behind the sliding or hinged doors of beautifully crafted cabinets, perhaps with a radio and turntable also inside. But even in the 1950s, television pioneer and RCA head David Sarnoff predicted that one day we’d all have flat TVs hanging on our walls like paintings.

Thanks to LCD technology, flat TVs have indeed become the norm—but with an unforeseen consequence. Their ever-larger screens are dominating black holes wherever we put them. So we find ourselves in the same situation as the postwar cabinet-makers—looking for ways to hide the TV.

One relatively recent innovation is to hide the screen in plain sight. Samsung took Sarnoff’s prediction to heart with its 2017 launch of The Frame, which uses room-light sensors to realistically display famous (or your own) artwork or decor-enhancing backgrounds when not in use. With TV color and contrast recently enhanced via a quantum-dot filter (QLED), the trendsetting wall hanger now comes with more choices of interchangeable physical frames to complement your aesthetic.

The technology behind LG’s Gallery TV, out this year, provides even more interior design options. Using organic light-emitting diodes (OLEDs)—each pixel shines on its own, so there’s no need for the bulky backlight that QLEDs and other LCDs require—The Gallery is less than an inch thick and has a nearly invisible bezel. It hangs flush against the wall, while frames for art displays, appearing solely on screen, can be changed at the touch of a button.

The beauty of OLED, says Rick Kowalski, an analyst with the Consumer Tech Association, is that the "screens are incredibly thin and easy to transport—and now there’s even a rollable screen you can hide away." LG debuted the world’s first rollable TV last year. Not on the market yet, it slides into an elegant base about the size of a soundbar. (A prototype of a new model rolls down from the ceiling.)

"I have yet to meet an interior designer who wants to display the television front and center."

—David VanWert, technology design consultant

In the meantime, a more conventional rollable screen can be paired with an ultra-short-throw projector to turn your living room into a sleek—but temporary—home theater. Unlike most projectors, the small USTs sit only inches away from their target yet deliver a 100-inch or larger image. A motorized screen can roll down from the ceiling on invisible wires and pack back up into the size of a picnic blanket. "Screen and projector technology are getting so good that this can absolutely be a primary television," says technology design consultant David VanWert.

In another new twist, Xiaomi just announced a residential version of a "floating in air" television that displays images on an otherwise see-through, frameless OLED screen, which resembles a pane of glass when not in use. It’s currently available only in China.

Consumer TVs can also now appear when wanted from behind images we look at all the time—ourselves in the mirror. Several makers have introduced full-size living room versions that emphasize picture quality or waterproof models that take up just a part of bathroom mirrors.

A technology with an obvious potential to meld TVs into our interiors, microLEDs have been slow to transition from huge commercial screens to home units, but several companies have products in the works. MicroLEDs use extremely small pixels to create a self-lighted image that matches OLED in quality but without the life span concerns of organic compounds. 

And the "screens"—in reality multiple panels, depending on ultimate size—can be even thinner and completely bezel-less. Mounted on a wall, "they actually become the wall, from one corner to the other, like wallpaper," says Grace Dolan, a VP at Samsung, maker of The Wall TV. Most exciting for designers, though, is the technology’s modular capabilities: The panels eventually should fit into any space or shape desired.

Of course, not everyone wants a hanging TV, no matter how attractive. Isabelle Olsson, lead industrial designer for Google Nest, took a 15-year hiatus from having one at all until Samsung debuted The Serif, in 2016. "It was designed more as a piece of furniture—not this massive black thing in my living space—and gave me the flexibility I wanted," she says. Using shape, color, and fabric to break away from what they called the masculine power vibe of the big black box, Ronan and Erwan Bouroullec designed The Serif with a top surface wide enough to serve as a shelf and a stand resembling an artist’s easel.

Hidden or on all day in ambient mode, weatherproof for outdoor patios or tucked into the ceiling, TV screens aren’t going away. It’s how they fit into our homes that’s shifting. They may be becoming part of the furniture once again—or even part of the wall—only now, that furniture can do so much more.  

Top illustration also by Ellen Weinstein