Corning announced two new products that are targeted towards wearables, which are the Corning Gorilla Glass DX and the Gorilla Glass DX+. They were developed primarily to help improve the sunlight reliability of smartwatches, which the company claims is among the most requested features by consumers in the surveys that it had conducted within the last seven years. To improve sunlight readability, Corning designed the two products to reduce glare and enhance the display contrast. More specifically, the Gorilla Glass DX and the Gorilla Glass DX+ improves front surface reflection by as much as 75-percent compared to the ordinary glass while the display contrast ratio is boosted by as much as 50-percent at the same display brightness level. Incorporating these products into the smartwatches may also improve the device’s battery life since consumers no longer need to boost the brightness of the display just to read the content on the screen.
Aside from improved sunlight readability, both the Gorilla Glass DX and Gorilla Glass DX+ offer scratch resistance, although the level of protection against abrasion significantly differs between the two products. The Gorilla Glass DX provides a similar level of scratch resistance as the regular Gorilla Glass products used in smartphones and other mobile devices. On the other hand, Corning claims that the Gorilla Glass DX+ offers better protection against abrasions and potentially damaging impacts. In fact, the company claims that the material provides a similar level of protection compared to the more expensive luxury cover materials used in a number of high-end smartwatches.
This is not the first time that Corning released a product that is targeted towards wearables. Back in 2016, the company unveiled the Gorilla Glass SR+, a material that promised to reduce glare and improve impact resistance at a considerably lower price compared to other protective materials. Meanwhile, Corning also recently launched what it claims to be its most durable glass, the Gorilla Glass 6. The firm states that its latest product is two times better than Gorilla Glass 5 in terms of drop protection, and it also claims that the material can withstand being dropped 15 times from a height of one meter without shattering.