Rain specializes in privacy solutions and also has innovations in the automotive space, which I’ll cover later.
Laptop Privacy Solutions
Rain has been showcasing columnated backlight solutions for laptops in partnership with HP for several years. We profiled this last year at CES and DisplayWeek.
New at CES 2025 are two key improvements:
- Enhanced Share Mode:
- Previously, the share mode had a limited viewing angle.
- Now, it offers a much wider view—up to about 20% light transmission at 45°, compared to just 2% before.
- This is a significant improvement for collaborative use.
- Lower-Cost Privacy Solution:
- This version eliminates the columnated backlight and uses a retarder-based approach.
- All privacy solutions reduce luminance to about 0.5% at a 45° angle in privacy mode.
Rain also demonstrated a logo solution (Display Branding). When the computer is in sleep mode, the HP logo remains visible from certain angles.
Kiosk / Point-of-Sale Display
This display uses a dual-cell LCD approach, adding a second LCD layer to improve privacy.
- Light blocking reaches as low as 0.2% at a 45° angle, offering enhanced privacy for applications like medical check-in.
Automotive Display Demo
Rain showcased a right-hand-drive car display in privacy mode:
- The driver sees the navigation map while the left side of the screen remains dark.
- In share mode, the passenger can watch a soccer game while the driver still sees the map.
Headlight Solution
Rain also demonstrated an advanced headlight system:
- Uses an array of LEDs coupled into a waveguide, leveraging privacy technology.
- Enables steering headlights around curves and selectively blocking glare from oncoming traffic.
These are the key technologies Rain is presenting at CES 2025.