These vibrating LG Display panels turn car dashboards and headrests into speakers

by Shivendra Singh · November 21, 2022

A woman in a car, holding LG Display’s Thin Actuator Sound Solution panel. The panel is a slim, black slab of plastic-looking material.

LG Display’s Thin Actuator Sound Solution is just 30 percent of the weight and 10 percent of the thickness of a conventional car speaker. | Image: LG Display

LG Display has developed a new “invisible” speaker technology for vehicles that uses a passport-sized vibrating panel to generate sound. It was developed with an unnamed “global audio company” and is expected to be ready for car interiors next year for installation in places like the dashboard and headliner.

The south-Korean tech giant’s Thin Actuator Sound Solution is being promoted as a replacement for traditional speaker systems within cars and other vehicles. Unlike current in-car speaker systems that use heavy components like voice coils, cones, and magnets, the Thin Actuator Sound Solution uses LG Display’s film-type exciter technology to generate sound by vibrating off display panels and various materials within the vehicle, which…