sharp lcd touch screen alarm clock free sample

In general, I like the features this clock has. I like that it has a large display. I like the charging port. I like that it sits a little high. I am about to return it though. The reason is that it"s very hard to read the time. I don"t know if it"s because the display is blue, but even on the brightest level it is pretty much unreadable during the day. And now I"m reading in the reviews that several people have had segments of the numbers burn out after a couple of months. Now that I have to worry about quality, I think the next clock won"t even be a Sharp brand.

Hello. Were very sorry to hear you were unhappy with the clock. Please remember that all of our clocks come with a 1 year warranty, and in the event that you do notice any issues with your clock (such as segments burning out), we are happy to replace it for you. Please reach out to us at custserv_clocks@mzb.com if you have any questions or wish to discuss warranty claims.

This item was bought as a duplicate to another Sharp item clock, very similar style. However, this one is a knock-off: the plastic is thinner (you can see & feel it), the blue light is a different shade and glares at you (unlike the real Sharp clock), and it’s clunkier in shape.

Still, it basically did the job, so we were willing to cope, although we were annoyed to pay full price for knock-off materials. It is important to note that this clock was for a disabled person too. This wasn’t a casual purchase, it served a purpose and was supposed to save time trying to order it elsewhere. BIG MISTAKE.

A couple of weeks after brand-new Duracell batteries were put in, it stopped working. Tinkering with the item, we got it to work again, only for it to stop working altogether again. This will keep happening. There is some kind of short or poor design in the battery holding area; the bottom does not consistently push hard enough to keep delivering the electricity. Again, this is a NOT AUTHENITC SHARP MERCHANDISE.

This item was bought as a duplicate to another Sharp item clock, very similar style. However, this one is a knock-off: the plastic is thinner (you can see & feel it), the blue light is a different shade and glares at you (unlike the real Sharp clock), and it’s clunkier in shape.

Still, it basically did the job, so we were willing to cope, although we were annoyed to pay full price for knock-off materials. It is important to note that this clock was for a disabled person too. This wasn’t a casual purchase, it served a purpose and was supposed to save time trying to order it elsewhere. BIG MISTAKE.

A couple of weeks after brand-new Duracell batteries were put in, it stopped working. Tinkering with the item, we got it to work again, only for it to stop working altogether again. This will keep happening. There is some kind of short or poor design in the battery holding area; the bottom does not consistently push hard enough to keep delivering the electricity. Again, this is a NOT AUTHENITC SHARP MERCHANDISE.

If you’re sensitive to light or you simply despise waking up to tons of brightness, the best low-light alarm clocks come in an array of unique styles, ranging from super-sleek picks to retro-inspired ones. There are even sunrise options to wake you up gently. Regardless of which product you choose, the best options offer screens or faces that can be adjusted or turned off completely so that you can sleep soundly.

When it comes to low-light alarm clocks, there are a few different types to consider. Some clocks offer different preset brightness levels to choose from, while others feature more customizable dimmers that you adjust using a touch-screen or manual dial. There are also models that only light up if you hold down a particular button.

As you shop, think about any other features you might want in a bedside alarm clock. Look at the range of alarm sounds and volumes, and the ability to schedule alarms at different times on different days or multiple alarms in one day. Innovative features like temperature and humidity sensors, built-in FM radio, and sunrise simulation can add a nice touch, too. Plus, a battery-operated clock, or one with battery-backup functionality, offer extra insurance if you ever experience a power outage.

With over 44,000 ratings and 4.5 stars overall, this digital alarm clock has become a fan favorite thanks to its versatility and sleek design. Users can choose from three adjustable brightness levels, and one reviewer explained, “After a few seconds it goes dark which is perfect if you prefer a dark room to sleep in.” According to the manufacturer, users can also turn off the LED light entirely.

Other highlights include five volume levels, a temperature and humidity sensor, and a weekday alarm mode (which you can set to only ring Monday through Friday). You can also set up three alarms in advance for each day. This clock operates with a USB cord that has to be plugged in, but it also has a backup battery that saves the time if there’s a power outage, according to reviewers. It’s available in several colors, including black (pictured), white, brown, and beige.

Promising Amazon review: “I wanted a bedside clock that would only light up when I wanted to see it, and otherwise keep my room completely dark. This works great. I just tap it with my hand (sometimes it takes a couple taps) and then it lights up for 8 seconds or so, before going out again. It seems to respond to low frequency sounds, so voices won’t activate it. Also, I wouldn’t recommend relying on the thermometer, as mine seems to be about 3 degrees Fahrenheit too low (I’ve confirmed using two separate thermometers). All I wanted it for was the time, so that"s no big deal to me.”

This USCCE digital alarm clock has a dial on the back of the clock that allows users to manually adjust the brightness from 0 to 100. One reviewer raved, “It’s hard to find a clock that is not bright even in the lowest setting. This clock is perfect.” You can set up to two alarms at a time (as well as weekday, weekend, and seven-day alarm schedules), and there’s also the option to use one of five pre-programmed nature sounds or the built-in FM radio feature as your alarm. The alarm volume is adjustable, and the clock displays the temperature, too. Two USB charging ports and a battery backup feature (AAA batteries can be purchased here) round out a very long list of helpful features. The clock is available in black or with a faux-wood exterior.

Promising Amazon review: “I wanted a dimmable alarm clock and this is perfect. Has a dial that goes from blackout to nearly lighting up the room. The sound on the radio is best quality I’ve heard from an alarm clock. And it’s easy to use. Highly recommend this product!”

Clocking in at just 4 inches tall (pun intended!), this twin bell alarm clock is truly adorable. The vintage-look clock doesn’t have an illuminated digital display — instead, there’s a button you manually press to turn on a backlight. The non-ticking hands allow for an uninterrupted slumber, but the loud ringing alarm is sure to get you out of bed when it comes time to wake up. It’s worth noting that while it’s undeniably charming, this clock is quite simple in comparison with others on this list. (For example, it doesn’t have a snooze button or multiple alarm modes.) But it’s available in sleek black and eye-catching pink, red, and green. It only needs one AA battery to work, which means it’ll keep working even if the power goes out.

Promising Amazon review:“This is a very simple product, but it works great even after a year of accidental drops. I’ve never had to fix the time except for DST, and its still accurate. The light works great, the battery life is plenty long, and its still very loud and annoying, perfect for an alarm like this. I am very happy with the look and the use of this clock, very glad I made this purchase.”

Boasting more than 11,000 ratings on Amazon, the Phillips SmartSleep Wake-Up Light is unique on this list because it’s not a traditional alarm clock — instead of a ringing alarm, it simulates the sunrise with slowly increasing light. While the clock does use light to wake you up, its display also automatically dims when the room goes dark. Plus, you can turn off the display completely. If you’d also like to wake up with a sound alarm, you can choose between five nature sounds or you can set it to play the FM radio. Just tap the face of the clock to hit snooze.

Promising Amazon review: “Ever since I got this alarm, I’m still a night owl and the mornings are still hard, but it’s been making waking up easier. It makes a HUGE difference to actually wake up to light and not the dark. It is almost completely blacked out while sleeping so it doesn’t bother me to sleep next to. I also love the night light that I can easily turn on the lamp on and off. I can dim it so low that the light feels natural closer to fire than the light from your phone so it"s better for your health and eyes.”

Glass substrate with ITO electrodes. The shapes of these electrodes will determine the shapes that will appear when the LCD is switched ON. Vertical ridges etched on the surface are smooth.

A liquid-crystal display (LCD) is a flat-panel display or other electronically modulated optical device that uses the light-modulating properties of liquid crystals combined with polarizers. Liquid crystals do not emit light directlybacklight or reflector to produce images in color or monochrome.seven-segment displays, as in a digital clock, are all good examples of devices with these displays. They use the same basic technology, except that arbitrary images are made from a matrix of small pixels, while other displays have larger elements. LCDs can either be normally on (positive) or off (negative), depending on the polarizer arrangement. For example, a character positive LCD with a backlight will have black lettering on a background that is the color of the backlight, and a character negative LCD will have a black background with the letters being of the same color as the backlight. Optical filters are added to white on blue LCDs to give them their characteristic appearance.

LCDs are used in a wide range of applications, including LCD televisions, computer monitors, instrument panels, aircraft cockpit displays, and indoor and outdoor signage. Small LCD screens are common in LCD projectors and portable consumer devices such as digital cameras, watches, digital clocks, calculators, and mobile telephones, including smartphones. LCD screens are also used on consumer electronics products such as DVD players, video game devices and clocks. LCD screens have replaced heavy, bulky cathode-ray tube (CRT) displays in nearly all applications. LCD screens are available in a wider range of screen sizes than CRT and plasma displays, with LCD screens available in sizes ranging from tiny digital watches to very large television receivers. LCDs are slowly being replaced by OLEDs, which can be easily made into different shapes, and have a lower response time, wider color gamut, virtually infinite color contrast and viewing angles, lower weight for a given display size and a slimmer profile (because OLEDs use a single glass or plastic panel whereas LCDs use two glass panels; the thickness of the panels increases with size but the increase is more noticeable on LCDs) and potentially lower power consumption (as the display is only "on" where needed and there is no backlight). OLEDs, however, are more expensive for a given display size due to the very expensive electroluminescent materials or phosphors that they use. Also due to the use of phosphors, OLEDs suffer from screen burn-in and there is currently no way to recycle OLED displays, whereas LCD panels can be recycled, although the technology required to recycle LCDs is not yet widespread. Attempts to maintain the competitiveness of LCDs are quantum dot displays, marketed as SUHD, QLED or Triluminos, which are displays with blue LED backlighting and a Quantum-dot enhancement film (QDEF) that converts part of the blue light into red and green, offering similar performance to an OLED display at a lower price, but the quantum dot layer that gives these displays their characteristics can not yet be recycled.

Since LCD screens do not use phosphors, they rarely suffer image burn-in when a static image is displayed on a screen for a long time, e.g., the table frame for an airline flight schedule on an indoor sign. LCDs are, however, susceptible to image persistence.battery-powered electronic equipment more efficiently than a CRT can be. By 2008, annual sales of televisions with LCD screens exceeded sales of CRT units worldwide, and the CRT became obsolete for most purposes.

Each pixel of an LCD typically consists of a layer of molecules aligned between two transparent electrodes, often made of Indium-Tin oxide (ITO) and two polarizing filters (parallel and perpendicular polarizers), the axes of transmission of which are (in most of the cases) perpendicular to each other. Without the liquid crystal between the polarizing filters, light passing through the first filter would be blocked by the second (crossed) polarizer. Before an electric field is applied, the orientation of the liquid-crystal molecules is determined by the alignment at the surfaces of electrodes. In a twisted nematic (TN) device, the surface alignment directions at the two electrodes are perpendicular to each other, and so the molecules arrange themselves in a helical structure, or twist. This induces the rotation of the polarization of the incident light, and the device appears gray. If the applied voltage is large enough, the liquid crystal molecules in the center of the layer are almost completely untwisted and the polarization of the incident light is not rotated as it passes through the liquid crystal layer. This light will then be mainly polarized perpendicular to the second filter, and thus be blocked and the pixel will appear black. By controlling the voltage applied across the liquid crystal layer in each pixel, light can be allowed to pass through in varying amounts thus constituting different levels of gray.

The chemical formula of the liquid crystals used in LCDs may vary. Formulas may be patented.Sharp Corporation. The patent that covered that specific mixture expired.

Most color LCD systems use the same technique, with color filters used to generate red, green, and blue subpixels. The LCD color filters are made with a photolithography process on large glass sheets that are later glued with other glass sheets containing a TFT array, spacers and liquid crystal, creating several color LCDs that are then cut from one another and laminated with polarizer sheets. Red, green, blue and black photoresists (resists) are used. All resists contain a finely ground powdered pigment, with particles being just 40 nanometers across. The black resist is the first to be applied; this will create a black grid (known in the industry as a black matrix) that will separate red, green and blue subpixels from one another, increasing contrast ratios and preventing light from leaking from one subpixel onto other surrounding subpixels.Super-twisted nematic LCD, where the variable twist between tighter-spaced plates causes a varying double refraction birefringence, thus changing the hue.

LCD in a Texas Instruments calculator with top polarizer removed from device and placed on top, such that the top and bottom polarizers are perpendicular. As a result, the colors are inverted.

The optical effect of a TN device in the voltage-on state is far less dependent on variations in the device thickness than that in the voltage-off state. Because of this, TN displays with low information content and no backlighting are usually operated between crossed polarizers such that they appear bright with no voltage (the eye is much more sensitive to variations in the dark state than the bright state). As most of 2010-era LCDs are used in television sets, monitors and smartphones, they have high-resolution matrix arrays of pixels to display arbitrary images using backlighting with a dark background. When no image is displayed, different arrangements are used. For this purpose, TN LCDs are operated between parallel polarizers, whereas IPS LCDs feature crossed polarizers. In many applications IPS LCDs have replaced TN LCDs, particularly in smartphones. Both the liquid crystal material and the alignment layer material contain ionic compounds. If an electric field of one particular polarity is applied for a long period of time, this ionic material is attracted to the surfaces and degrades the device performance. This is avoided either by applying an alternating current or by reversing the polarity of the electric field as the device is addressed (the response of the liquid crystal layer is identical, regardless of the polarity of the applied field).

Displays for a small number of individual digits or fixed symbols (as in digital watches and pocket calculators) can be implemented with independent electrodes for each segment.alphanumeric or variable graphics displays are usually implemented with pixels arranged as a matrix consisting of electrically connected rows on one side of the LC layer and columns on the other side, which makes it possible to address each pixel at the intersections. The general method of matrix addressing consists of sequentially addressing one side of the matrix, for example by selecting the rows one-by-one and applying the picture information on the other side at the columns row-by-row. For details on the various matrix addressing schemes see passive-matrix and active-matrix addressed LCDs.

LCDs, along with OLED displays, are manufactured in cleanrooms borrowing techniques from semiconductor manufacturing and using large sheets of glass whose size has increased over time. Several displays are manufactured at the same time, and then cut from the sheet of glass, also known as the mother glass or LCD glass substrate. The increase in size allows more displays or larger displays to be made, just like with increasing wafer sizes in semiconductor manufacturing. The glass sizes are as follows:

Until Gen 8, manufacturers would not agree on a single mother glass size and as a result, different manufacturers would use slightly different glass sizes for the same generation. Some manufacturers have adopted Gen 8.6 mother glass sheets which are only slightly larger than Gen 8.5, allowing for more 50 and 58 inch LCDs to be made per mother glass, specially 58 inch LCDs, in which case 6 can be produced on a Gen 8.6 mother glass vs only 3 on a Gen 8.5 mother glass, significantly reducing waste.AGC Inc., Corning Inc., and Nippon Electric Glass.

In 1922, Georges Friedel described the structure and properties of liquid crystals and classified them in three types (nematics, smectics and cholesterics). In 1927, Vsevolod Frederiks devised the electrically switched light valve, called the Fréedericksz transition, the essential effect of all LCD technology. In 1936, the Marconi Wireless Telegraph company patented the first practical application of the technology, "The Liquid Crystal Light Valve". In 1962, the first major English language publication Molecular Structure and Properties of Liquid Crystals was published by Dr. George W. Gray.RCA found that liquid crystals had some interesting electro-optic characteristics and he realized an electro-optical effect by generating stripe-patterns in a thin layer of liquid crystal material by the application of a voltage. This effect is based on an electro-hydrodynamic instability forming what are now called "Williams domains" inside the liquid crystal.

In the late 1960s, pioneering work on liquid crystals was undertaken by the UK"s Royal Radar Establishment at Malvern, England. The team at RRE supported ongoing work by George William Gray and his team at the University of Hull who ultimately discovered the cyanobiphenyl liquid crystals, which had correct stability and temperature properties for application in LCDs.

The idea of a TFT-based liquid-crystal display (LCD) was conceived by Bernard Lechner of RCA Laboratories in 1968.dynamic scattering mode (DSM) LCD that used standard discrete MOSFETs.

On December 4, 1970, the twisted nematic field effect (TN) in liquid crystals was filed for patent by Hoffmann-LaRoche in Switzerland, (Swiss patent No. 532 261) with Wolfgang Helfrich and Martin Schadt (then working for the Central Research Laboratories) listed as inventors.Brown, Boveri & Cie, its joint venture partner at that time, which produced TN displays for wristwatches and other applications during the 1970s for the international markets including the Japanese electronics industry, which soon produced the first digital quartz wristwatches with TN-LCDs and numerous other products. James Fergason, while working with Sardari Arora and Alfred Saupe at Kent State University Liquid Crystal Institute, filed an identical patent in the United States on April 22, 1971.ILIXCO (now LXD Incorporated), produced LCDs based on the TN-effect, which soon superseded the poor-quality DSM types due to improvements of lower operating voltages and lower power consumption. Tetsuro Hama and Izuhiko Nishimura of Seiko received a US patent dated February 1971, for an electronic wristwatch incorporating a TN-LCD.

In 1972, the concept of the active-matrix thin-film transistor (TFT) liquid-crystal display panel was prototyped in the United States by T. Peter Brody"s team at Westinghouse, in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.Westinghouse Research Laboratories demonstrated the first thin-film-transistor liquid-crystal display (TFT LCD).high-resolution and high-quality electronic visual display devices use TFT-based active matrix displays.active-matrix liquid-crystal display (AM LCD) in 1974, and then Brody coined the term "active matrix" in 1975.

In 1972 North American Rockwell Microelectronics Corp introduced the use of DSM LCDs for calculators for marketing by Lloyds Electronics Inc, though these required an internal light source for illumination.Sharp Corporation followed with DSM LCDs for pocket-sized calculators in 1973Seiko and its first 6-digit TN-LCD quartz wristwatch, and Casio"s "Casiotron". Color LCDs based on Guest-Host interaction were invented by a team at RCA in 1968.TFT LCDs similar to the prototypes developed by a Westinghouse team in 1972 were patented in 1976 by a team at Sharp consisting of Fumiaki Funada, Masataka Matsuura, and Tomio Wada,

In 1983, researchers at Brown, Boveri & Cie (BBC) Research Center, Switzerland, invented the passive matrix-addressed LCDs. H. Amstutz et al. were listed as inventors in the corresponding patent applications filed in Switzerland on July 7, 1983, and October 28, 1983. Patents were granted in Switzerland CH 665491, Europe EP 0131216,

The first color LCD televisions were developed as handheld televisions in Japan. In 1980, Hattori Seiko"s R&D group began development on color LCD pocket televisions.Seiko Epson released the first LCD television, the Epson TV Watch, a wristwatch equipped with a small active-matrix LCD television.dot matrix TN-LCD in 1983.Citizen Watch,TFT LCD.computer monitors and LCD televisions.3LCD projection technology in the 1980s, and licensed it for use in projectors in 1988.compact, full-color LCD projector.

In 1990, under different titles, inventors conceived electro optical effects as alternatives to twisted nematic field effect LCDs (TN- and STN- LCDs). One approach was to use interdigital electrodes on one glass substrate only to produce an electric field essentially parallel to the glass substrates.Germany by Guenter Baur et al. and patented in various countries.Hitachi work out various practical details of the IPS technology to interconnect the thin-film transistor array as a matrix and to avoid undesirable stray fields in between pixels.

Hitachi also improved the viewing angle dependence further by optimizing the shape of the electrodes (Super IPS). NEC and Hitachi become early manufacturers of active-matrix addressed LCDs based on the IPS technology. This is a milestone for implementing large-screen LCDs having acceptable visual performance for flat-panel computer monitors and television screens. In 1996, Samsung developed the optical patterning technique that enables multi-domain LCD. Multi-domain and In Plane Switching subsequently remain the dominant LCD designs through 2006.South Korea and Taiwan,

In 2007 the image quality of LCD televisions surpassed the image quality of cathode-ray-tube-based (CRT) TVs.LCD TVs were projected to account 50% of the 200 million TVs to be shipped globally in 2006, according to Displaybank.Toshiba announced 2560 × 1600 pixels on a 6.1-inch (155 mm) LCD panel, suitable for use in a tablet computer,transparent and flexible, but they cannot emit light without a backlight like OLED and microLED, which are other technologies that can also be made flexible and transparent.

In 2016, Panasonic developed IPS LCDs with a contrast ratio of 1,000,000:1, rivaling OLEDs. This technology was later put into mass production as dual layer, dual panel or LMCL (Light Modulating Cell Layer) LCDs. The technology uses 2 liquid crystal layers instead of one, and may be used along with a mini-LED backlight and quantum dot sheets.

Since LCDs produce no light of their own, they require external light to produce a visible image.backlight. Active-matrix LCDs are almost always backlit.Transflective LCDs combine the features of a backlit transmissive display and a reflective display.

CCFL: The LCD panel is lit either by two cold cathode fluorescent lamps placed at opposite edges of the display or an array of parallel CCFLs behind larger displays. A diffuser (made of PMMA acrylic plastic, also known as a wave or light guide/guiding plateinverter to convert whatever DC voltage the device uses (usually 5 or 12 V) to ≈1000 V needed to light a CCFL.

EL-WLED: The LCD panel is lit by a row of white LEDs placed at one or more edges of the screen. A light diffuser (light guide plate, LGP) is then used to spread the light evenly across the whole display, similarly to edge-lit CCFL LCD backlights. The diffuser is made out of either PMMA plastic or special glass, PMMA is used in most cases because it is rugged, while special glass is used when the thickness of the LCD is of primary concern, because it doesn"t expand as much when heated or exposed to moisture, which allows LCDs to be just 5mm thick. Quantum dots may be placed on top of the diffuser as a quantum dot enhancement film (QDEF, in which case they need a layer to be protected from heat and humidity) or on the color filter of the LCD, replacing the resists that are normally used.

WLED array: The LCD panel is lit by a full array of white LEDs placed behind a diffuser behind the panel. LCDs that use this implementation will usually have the ability to dim or completely turn off the LEDs in the dark areas of the image being displayed, effectively increasing the contrast ratio of the display. The precision with which this can be done will depend on the number of dimming zones of the display. The more dimming zones, the more precise the dimming, with less obvious blooming artifacts which are visible as dark grey patches surrounded by the unlit areas of the LCD. As of 2012, this design gets most of its use from upscale, larger-screen LCD televisions.

RGB-LED array: Similar to the WLED array, except the panel is lit by a full array of RGB LEDs. While displays lit with white LEDs usually have a poorer color gamut than CCFL lit displays, panels lit with RGB LEDs have very wide color gamuts. This implementation is most popular on professional graphics editing LCDs. As of 2012, LCDs in this category usually cost more than $1000. As of 2016 the cost of this category has drastically reduced and such LCD televisions obtained same price levels as the former 28" (71 cm) CRT based categories.

Monochrome LEDs: such as red, green, yellow or blue LEDs are used in the small passive monochrome LCDs typically used in clocks, watches and small appliances.

Today, most LCD screens are being designed with an LED backlight instead of the traditional CCFL backlight, while that backlight is dynamically controlled with the video information (dynamic backlight control). The combination with the dynamic backlight control, invented by Philips researchers Douglas Stanton, Martinus Stroomer and Adrianus de Vaan, simultaneously increases the dynamic range of the display system (also marketed as HDR, high dynamic range television or FLAD, full-area local area dimming).

The LCD backlight systems are made highly efficient by applying optical films such as prismatic structure (prism sheet) to gain the light into the desired viewer directions and reflective polarizing films that recycle the polarized light that was formerly absorbed by the first polarizer of the LCD (invented by Philips researchers Adrianus de Vaan and Paulus Schaareman),

Due to the LCD layer that generates the desired high resolution images at flashing video speeds using very low power electronics in combination with LED based backlight technologies, LCD technology has become the dominant display technology for products such as televisions, desktop monitors, notebooks, tablets, smartphones and mobile phones. Although competing OLED technology is pushed to the market, such OLED displays do not feature the HDR capabilities like LCDs in combination with 2D LED backlight technologies have, reason why the annual market of such LCD-based products is still growing faster (in volume) than OLED-based products while the efficiency of LCDs (and products like portable computers, mobile phones and televisions) may even be further improved by preventing the light to be absorbed in the colour filters of the LCD.

A pink elastomeric connector mating an LCD panel to circuit board traces, shown next to a centimeter-scale ruler. The conductive and insulating layers in the black stripe are very small.

A standard television receiver screen, a modern LCD panel, has over six million pixels, and they are all individually powered by a wire network embedded in the screen. The fine wires, or pathways, form a grid with vertical wires across the whole screen on one side of the screen and horizontal wires across the whole screen on the other side of the screen. To this grid each pixel has a positive connection on one side and a negative connection on the other side. So the total amount of wires needed for a 1080p display is 3 x 1920 going vertically and 1080 going horizontally for a total of 6840 wires horizontally and vertically. That"s three for red, green and blue and 1920 columns of pixels for each color for a total of 5760 wires going vertically and 1080 rows of wires going horizontally. For a panel that is 28.8 inches (73 centimeters) wide, that means a wire density of 200 wires per inch along the horizontal edge.

The LCD panel is powered by LCD drivers that are carefully matched up with the edge of the LCD panel at the factory level. The drivers may be installed using several methods, the most common of which are COG (Chip-On-Glass) and TAB (Tape-automated bonding) These same principles apply also for smartphone screens that are much smaller than TV screens.anisotropic conductive film or, for lower densities, elastomeric connectors.

Monochrome and later color passive-matrix LCDs were standard in most early laptops (although a few used plasma displaysGame Boyactive-matrix became standard on all laptops. The commercially unsuccessful Macintosh Portable (released in 1989) was one of the first to use an active-matrix display (though still monochrome). Passive-matrix LCDs are still used in the 2010s for applications less demanding than laptop computers and TVs, such as inexpensive calculators. In particular, these are used on portable devices where less information content needs to be displayed, lowest power consumption (no backlight) and low cost are desired or readability in direct sunlight is needed.

A comparison between a blank passive-matrix display (top) and a blank active-matrix display (bottom). A passive-matrix display can be identified when the blank background is more grey in appearance than the crisper active-matrix display, fog appears on all edges of the screen, and while pictures appear to be fading on the screen.

STN LCDs have to be continuously refreshed by alternating pulsed voltages of one polarity during one frame and pulses of opposite polarity during the next frame. Individual pixels are addressed by the corresponding row and column circuits. This type of display is called response times and poor contrast are typical of passive-matrix addressed LCDs with too many pixels and driven according to the "Alt & Pleshko" drive scheme. Welzen and de Vaan also invented a non RMS drive scheme enabling to drive STN displays with video rates and enabling to show smooth moving video images on an STN display.

Bistable LCDs do not require continuous refreshing. Rewriting is only required for picture information changes. In 1984 HA van Sprang and AJSM de Vaan invented an STN type display that could be operated in a bistable mode, enabling extremely high resolution images up to 4000 lines or more using only low voltages.

High-resolution color displays, such as modern LCD computer monitors and televisions, use an active-matrix structure. A matrix of thin-film transistors (TFTs) is added to the electrodes in contact with the LC layer. Each pixel has its own dedicated transistor, allowing each column line to access one pixel. When a row line is selected, all of the column lines are connected to a row of pixels and voltages corresponding to the picture information are driven onto all of the column lines. The row line is then deactivated and the next row line is selected. All of the row lines are selected in sequence during a refresh operation. Active-matrix addressed displays look brighter and sharper than passive-matrix addressed displays of the same size, and generally have quicker response times, producing much better images. Sharp produces bistable reflective LCDs with a 1-bit SRAM cell per pixel that only requires small amounts of power to maintain an image.

Segment LCDs can also have color by using Field Sequential Color (FSC LCD). This kind of displays have a high speed passive segment LCD panel with an RGB backlight. The backlight quickly changes color, making it appear white to the naked eye. The LCD panel is synchronized with the backlight. For example, to make a segment appear red, the segment is only turned ON when the backlight is red, and to make a segment appear magenta, the segment is turned ON when the backlight is blue, and it continues to be ON while the backlight becomes red, and it turns OFF when the backlight becomes green. To make a segment appear black, the segment is always turned ON. An FSC LCD divides a color image into 3 images (one Red, one Green and one Blue) and it displays them in order. Due to persistence of vision, the 3 monochromatic images appear as one color image. An FSC LCD needs an LCD panel with a refresh rate of 180 Hz, and the response time is reduced to just 5 milliseconds when compared with normal STN LCD panels which have a response time of 16 milliseconds.

Samsung introduced UFB (Ultra Fine & Bright) displays back in 2002, utilized the super-birefringent effect. It has the luminance, color gamut, and most of the contrast of a TFT-LCD, but only consumes as much power as an STN display, according to Samsung. It was being used in a variety of Samsung cellular-telephone models produced until late 2006, when Samsung stopped producing UFB displays. UFB displays were also used in certain models of LG mobile phones.

In-plane switching is an LCD technology that aligns the liquid crystals in a plane parallel to the glass substrates. In this method, the electrical field is applied through opposite electrodes on the same glass substrate, so that the liquid crystals can be reoriented (switched) essentially in the same plane, although fringe fields inhibit a homogeneous reorientation. This requires two transistors for each pixel instead of the single transistor needed for a standard thin-film transistor (TFT) display. The IPS technology is used in everything from televisions, computer monitors, and even wearable devices, especially almost all LCD smartphone panels are IPS/FFS mode. IPS displays belong to the LCD panel family screen types. The other two types are VA and TN. Before LG Enhanced IPS was introduced in 2001 by Hitachi as 17" monitor in Market, the additional transistors resulted in blocking more transmission area, thus requiring a brighter backlight and consuming more power, making this type of display less desirable for notebook computers. Panasonic Himeji G8.5 was using an enhanced version of IPS, also LGD in Korea, then currently the world biggest LCD panel manufacture BOE in China is also IPS/FFS mode TV panel.

In 2011, LG claimed the smartphone LG Optimus Black (IPS LCD (LCD NOVA)) has the brightness up to 700 nits, while the competitor has only IPS LCD with 518 nits and double an active-matrix OLED (AMOLED) display with 305 nits. LG also claimed the NOVA display to be 50 percent more efficient than regular LCDs and to consume only 50 percent of the power of AMOLED displays when producing white on screen.

This pixel-layout is found in S-IPS LCDs. A chevron shape is used to widen the viewing cone (range of viewing directions with good contrast and low color shift).

Vertical-alignment displays are a form of LCDs in which the liquid crystals naturally align vertically to the glass substrates. When no voltage is applied, the liquid crystals remain perpendicular to the substrate, creating a black display between crossed polarizers. When voltage is applied, the liquid crystals shift to a tilted position, allowing light to pass through and create a gray-scale display depending on the amount of tilt generated by the electric field. It has a deeper-black background, a higher contrast ratio, a wider viewing angle, and better image quality at extreme temperatures than traditional twisted-nematic displays.

Blue phase mode LCDs have been shown as engineering samples early in 2008, but they are not in mass-production. The physics of blue phase mode LCDs suggest that very short switching times (≈1 ms) can be achieved, so time sequential color control can possibly be realized and expensive color filters would be obsolete.

Some LCD panels have defective transistors, causing permanently lit or unlit pixels which are commonly referred to as stuck pixels or dead pixels respectively. Unlike integrated circuits (ICs), LCD panels with a few defective transistors are usually still usable. Manufacturers" policies for the acceptable number of defective pixels vary greatly. At one point, Samsung held a zero-tolerance policy for LCD monitors sold in Korea.ISO 13406-2 standard.

Dead pixel policies are often hotly debated between manufacturers and customers. To regulate the acceptability of defects and to protect the end user, ISO released the ISO 13406-2 standard,ISO 9241, specifically ISO-9241-302, 303, 305, 307:2008 pixel defects. However, not every LCD manufacturer conforms to the ISO standard and the ISO standard is quite often interpreted in different ways. LCD panels are more likely to have defects than most ICs due to their larger size. For example, a 300 mm SVGA LCD has 8 defects and a 150 mm wafer has only 3 defects. However, 134 of the 137 dies on the wafer will be acceptable, whereas rejection of the whole LCD panel would be a 0% yield. In recent years, quality control has been improved. An SVGA LCD panel with 4 defective pixels is usually considered defective and customers can request an exchange for a new one.

Some manufacturers, notably in South Korea where some of the largest LCD panel manufacturers, such as LG, are located, now have a zero-defective-pixel guarantee, which is an extra screening process which can then determine "A"- and "B"-grade panels.clouding (or less commonly mura), which describes the uneven patches of changes in luminance. It is most visible in dark or black areas of displayed scenes.

The zenithal bistable device (ZBD), developed by Qinetiq (formerly DERA), can retain an image without power. The crystals may exist in one of two stable orientations ("black" and "white") and power is only required to change the image. ZBD Displays is a spin-off company from QinetiQ who manufactured both grayscale and color ZBD devices. Kent Displays has also developed a "no-power" display that uses polymer stabilized cholesteric liquid crystal (ChLCD). In 2009 Kent demonstrated the use of a ChLCD to cover the entire surface of a mobile phone, allowing it to change colors, and keep that color even when power is removed.

In 2004, researchers at the University of Oxford demonstrated two new types of zero-power bistable LCDs based on Zenithal bistable techniques.e.g., BiNem technology, are based mainly on the surface properties and need specific weak anchoring materials.

Resolution The resolution of an LCD is expressed by the number of columns and rows of pixels (e.g., 1024×768). Each pixel is usually composed 3 sub-pixels, a red, a green, and a blue one. This had been one of the few features of LCD performance that remained uniform among different designs. However, there are newer designs that share sub-pixels among pixels and add Quattron which attempt to efficiently increase the perceived resolution of a display without increasing the actual resolution, to mixed results.

Spatial performance: For a computer monitor or some other display that is being viewed from a very close distance, resolution is often expressed in terms of dot pitch or pixels per inch, which is consistent with the printing industry. Display density varies per application, with televisions generally having a low density for long-distance viewing and portable devices having a high density for close-range detail. The Viewing Angle of an LCD may be important depending on the display and its usage, the limitations of certain display technologies mean the display only displays accurately at certain angles.

Temporal performance: the temporal resolution of an LCD is how well it can display changing images, or the accuracy and the number of times per second the display draws the data it is being given. LCD pixels do not flash on/off between frames, so LCD monitors exhibit no refresh-induced flicker no matter how low the refresh rate.

Color performance: There are multiple terms to describe different aspects of color performance of a display. Color gamut is the range of colors that can be displayed, and color depth, which is the fineness with which the color range is divided. Color gamut is a relatively straight forward feature, but it is rarely discussed in marketing materials except at the professional level. Having a color range that exceeds the content being shown on the screen has no benefits, so displays are only made to perform within or below the range of a certain specification.white point and gamma correction, which describe what color white is and how the other colors are displayed relative to white.

Brightness and contrast ratio: Contrast ratio is the ratio of the brightness of a full-on pixel to a full-off pixel. The LCD itself is only a light valve and does not generate light; the light comes from a backlight that is either fluorescent or a set of LEDs. Brightness is usually stated as the maximum light output of the LCD, which can vary greatly based on the transparency of the LCD and the brightness of the backlight. Brighter backlight allows stronger contrast and higher dynamic range (HDR displays are graded in peak luminance), but there is always a trade-off between brightness and power consumption.

Usually no refresh-rate flicker, because the LCD pixels hold their state between refreshes (which are usually done at 200 Hz or faster, regardless of the input refresh rate).

No theoretical resolution limit. When multiple LCD panels are used together to create a single canvas, each additional panel increases the total resolution of the display, which is commonly called stacked resolution.

As an inherently digital device, the LCD can natively display digital data from a DVI or HDMI connection without requiring conversion to analog. Some LCD panels have native fiber optic inputs in addition to DVI and HDMI.

As of 2012, most implementations of LCD backlighting use pulse-width modulation (PWM) to dim the display,CRT monitor at 85 Hz refresh rate would (this is because the entire screen is strobing on and off rather than a CRT"s phosphor sustained dot which continually scans across the display, leaving some part of the display always lit), causing severe eye-strain for some people.LED-backlit monitors, because the LEDs switch on and off faster than a CCFL lamp.

Only one native resolution. Displaying any other resolution either requires a video scaler, causing blurriness and jagged edges, or running the display at native resolution using 1:1 pixel mapping, causing the image either not to fill the screen (letterboxed display), or to run off the lower or right edges of the screen.

Fixed bit depth (also called color depth). Many cheaper LCDs are only able to display 262144 (218) colors. 8-bit S-IPS panels can display 16 million (224) colors and have significantly better black level, but are expensive and have slower response time.

Input lag, because the LCD"s A/D converter waits for each frame to be completely been output before drawing it to the LCD panel. Many LCD monitors do post-processing before displaying the image in an attempt to compensate for poor color fidelity, which adds an additional lag. Further, a video scaler must be used when displaying non-native resolutions, which adds yet more time lag. Scaling and post processing are usually done in a single chip on modern monitors, but each function that chip performs adds some delay. Some displays have a video gaming mode which disables all or most processing to reduce perceivable input lag.

Dead or stuck pixels may occur during manufacturing or after a period of use. A stuck pixel will glow with color even on an all-black screen, while a dead one will always remain black.

In a constant-on situation, thermalization may occur in case of bad thermal management, in which part of the screen has overheated and looks discolored compared to the rest of the screen.

Loss of brightness and much slower response times in low temperature environments. In sub-zero environments, LCD screens may cease to function without the use of supplemental heating.

The production of LCD screens uses nitrogen trifluoride (NF3) as an etching fluid during the production of the thin-film components. NF3 is a potent greenhouse gas, and its relatively long half-life may make it a potentially harmful contributor to global warming. A report in Geophysical Research Letters suggested that its effects were theoretically much greater than better-known sources of greenhouse gasses like carbon dioxide. As NF3 was not in widespread use at the time, it was not made part of the Kyoto Protocols and has been deemed "the missing greenhouse gas".

Kawamoto, H. (2012). "The Inventors of TFT Active-Matrix LCD Receive the 2011 IEEE Nishizawa Medal". Journal of Display Technology. 8 (1): 3–4. Bibcode:2012JDisT...8....3K. doi:10.1109/JDT.2011.2177740. ISSN 1551-319X.

Explanation of CCFL backlighting details, "Design News — Features — How to Backlight an LCD" Archived January 2, 2014, at the Wayback Machine, Randy Frank, Retrieved January 2013.

Energy Efficiency Success Story: TV Energy Consumption Shrinks as Screen Size and Performance Grow, Finds New CTA Study; Consumer Technology Association; press release 12 July 2017; https://cta.tech/News/Press-Releases/2017/July/Energy-Efficiency-Success-Story-TV-Energy-Consump.aspx Archived November 4, 2017, at the Wayback Machine

LCD Television Power Draw Trends from 2003 to 2015; B. Urban and K. Roth; Fraunhofer USA Center for Sustainable Energy Systems; Final Report to the Consumer Technology Association; May 2017; http://www.cta.tech/cta/media/policyImages/policyPDFs/Fraunhofer-LCD-TV-Power-Draw-Trends-FINAL.pdf Archived August 1, 2017, at the Wayback Machine

New Cholesteric Colour Filters for Reflective LCDs; C. Doornkamp; R. T. Wegh; J. Lub; SID Symposium Digest of Technical Papers; Volume 32, Issue 1 June 2001; Pages 456–459; http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1889/1.1831895/full

K. H. Lee; H. Y. Kim; K. H. Park; S. J. Jang; I. C. Park & J. Y. Lee (June 2006). "A Novel Outdoor Readability of Portable TFT-LCD with AFFS Technology". SID Symposium Digest of Technical Papers. 37 (1): 1079–1082. doi:10.1889/1.2433159. S2CID 129569963.

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I"ve always used a clock app, but this one is far and away THE BEST! The display is clean and sharp, and the settings are intuitive and fast to personalize the view you prefer. The numbers are also large for viewing without glasses, which is exactly when I use it most.

Thankyou for your purchase of this quality clock. The utmost care has gone into the design and manufacture of your clock. Please read these instructions and store them in a safe place for future reference.

Slide the ALARM 1/2/DUAL slide switch to ALARM 1/2 position, then press and hold the ALARM button to activate alarm 1/2 setting. The ALARM 1/2 Indicator will light when the alarm 1/2 setting is activated.

While the ALARM 1/2/DUAL slide switch is on the ALARM 1/2 position and holding down the ALARM button, press the HOUR button to advance to the correct hour. The PM Indicator will light when the hour is advanced into the PM time.

While the ALARM 1/2/DUAL slide switch is on the ALARM 1/2 position and holding down the ALARM button, press, the MINUTE button to advance to the correct minute.

Slide the ALARM ON/OFF switch to the ON position, then slide the ALARM 1/2/DUAL slide switch to choose using alarm 1, alarm 2, or dual alarm. The ALARM 1 indicator dot and ALARM2 Indicator dot will be lit according to your choice. The alarm will sound at the preset time.

Pressing the SNOOZE/DIMMER button when the wake-up alarm is sounding will cause the alarm to stop and the alarm will sound again in nine minutes. This will happen each time when the SNOOZE/DIMMER button is pressed.

While the alarm is not sounding, press the SNOOZE/DIMMER button to change the HIGH or LOW seting to control the brightness of the clock display. Note: The default is HIGH setting.

Turn the clock over and insert a 9V battery as indicated to provide battery back up. The battery will hold the ALARM and TIME settings until power is restored. There will be no display under battery power and the ALARM will sound at the correct time. If there is no battery and the power is interrupted, the display will flash 12:00 and the ALARM and the TIME will need to be reset.

Replace the back up battery annually, or store the clock without a battery when not in use. A soft cloth or a paper towel may be used to clean your clock. Do not use any corrosive cleaner or chemical solutions on the clock. Keep the clock clean and dry to avoid any problems.

M.Z. Berger & Company warrants the original consumer purchaser of this product that it shall be free of defects in materials and workmanship for one year from the purchase date of this product. Defects caused by tampering, improper use, unauthorized modifications or repairs, immersion in water or abuse are not covered by this warranty. If a defect covered by this warranty occurs during the warranty period, wrap your clock carefully and send it to the following address:

You must include a Proof of Purchase, either the original receipt or a photocopy and a check or money order for USD $3.00 to cover the cost of handling. Also include your return address inside the package. M.Z. Berger will repair or replace the clock and return it to you. M.Z. Berger will not be liable for any loss or damage, including incidental or consequential damages of any kind; from any breach of warranty either expressed or implied relatihg to the product. Since some states do not allow the exclusion or limitation of incidental or consequential damages, this limitation may not apply to you.

In this project I will show you how you can make an Arduino Touch Screen MP3 Music Player and Alarm Clock. You can watch the following video or read the written tutorial below.

If we enter the Music Player we can start playing the music by pressing the big “Play” button in the middle of the screen. Right beside it, there are two more buttons, for playing the previous or the next song.

Above these buttons there is the song progress bar, and at the bottom of the screen we have a volume bar and two buttons for decreasing and increasing the volume. In the upper right corner there is a clock and on the left side is the “Menu” button which brings us back to the home screen.

Now let’s take a look how this device works. It uses an Arduino Mega board and a 3.2” TFT touch screen with a suitable shield for connecting the screen with the Arduino Board. For playing the music, it uses the BY8001 MP3 Player module and for the alarm clock it uses the DS3231 Real Time Clock module.

Once we connect everything together we can proceed with programing the Arduino. However, before we continue I would to suggest you to check my previous detailed tutorials for the TFT touch screen and theDS3231 Real Time Clock module. And as for the MP3 Player module I will give it a quick explanation here in this article.

Now we are ready to take a look at the code of this Arduino Touch Screen MP3 Screen Music Player and Alarm Clock. As the code is a bit longer, for better understanding, I will post the source code of the program in sections with description for each section. And at the end of this article I will post the complete source code.

So, first we need to include the libraries for the TFT touch screen, the BY8001-16P MP3 Player and the DS3231 Real Time Clock module, as well as, the library for the serial communication. Then we have to create the appropriate objects and define some variables needed for the program.

In the setup section after initializing the objects, we call drawHomeScreen() custom function which draws all the graphics of the home screen. Also here we set the initial values of some of the variables, like the playStatus, currentTemp and Date, the initial value of the volume and so on.

Next is the loop section. The first if statement is true as we have set the currentPage variable to be 0 which indicates that we are on the home screen. Here with the next if statement we check whether we have a change in the clock and this happens each second. Now as we are using the seven segment font of the TFT libraries, which doesn’t support any character except numbers, we have to extract only the numbers from the string that is coming with the getTimeStr() function for reading the clock from the DS3231 RTC module.

Next, using the myTouch.dataAvailable() function we check whether we have touched the screen and also check whether it’s the Music Player or the Alarm button. So if that’s the Music Player button, first we call the drawFrame() custom function which draws a red circle around the button indicating that the button has been pressed. Also this custom function has a while loop which hold the program stacked until we release the button. Right after that, we set the currentPage variable to 1, clear the screen and call the drawMusicPlayerScreen() custom function which draws all the graphics of the Music Player screen. Similar, if we press the Alarm button we, we set the currentPage variable to 2 and clear the screen.

Next, let’s see what happens in the Music Player screen. Here we are constantly checking whether we have touched the screen. If we touch the Play button and the current playStatus variable is 0, we will call the mp3.playTrackFromFolder() function which will start playing the first song from the MicroSD card. At the same time, we call the drawPauseButton() custom function which draws the Pause button and set the playStatus variable to 2. Using the next two if statements, depending on the playStatues variable, we toggle between playing and pausing the song.

In similar way, for each pressed button we call the appropriate functions for playing the previous or the next track, decrease or increase the volume, as well as the “Menu” button which brings us back to the home screen.

So if the music is playing we call the trackPlayTime() custom function which using some of the Music Player library functions, like the mp3.getElapsedTrackPlaybackTime(), calculates and prints the elapsed and remained time as well as the track progress bar graphics. Using the printClock() custom function we print the clock in the upper right corner.

Next is the Alarm Clock screen. Here first we draw all the graphics, the clock, the text and the buttons and also set the variable alarmNotSet to be true so that we can enter the next while loop. Here using the two buttons, H and M, we set the alarm and once we click the “Set” button the value of the alarm is stored into the alarmString variable.

Note here that we need to adjust this string to have the same form as the string that we get from the getTimeString() function. In this way we will be able to compare them and activate the alarm when the clock will reach that same value or time.

If we press the clear button we will clear the alarmString and if we press the menu button it will get us out of the while loop and send back to the home screen.

For activating the alarm, we check whether the alarm has been set and if the alarm matches with the clock, the first song on the MicroSD card will start playing at a higher volume. Also we will draw all the graphics together with the “Dismiss” button and set the alarmOn variable to true. This will get us into the next while loop which will enable to song to keep playing until we press the “Dismiss” button.