Garmin’s MicroLED experiment may not be over after all

Garmin left MicroLED out of the Fenix 9 range, which made its brief experiment with the display technology look pretty much finished, but the company that supplied its first MicroLED screen says the story is far from over.

AUO says it is still developing new MicroLED products with customers for the high-end watch market. It has also pushed back directly against reports that MicroLED is no longer being used for watches, calling that idea misleading.

New MicroLED watches are being developed

The comments came during AUO’s third-quarter earnings call on October 29. Chairman Paul Peng said the company continues to work with customers on new watch products and remains actively involved in developing MicroLED solutions for the high-end watch market.

He also said AUO continues to see progress in watches and other portable devices. That is a fairly clear statement that its smartwatch work has not been shelved.

There is another interesting bit of context here. During its first-quarter earnings call earlier this year, AUO said it was making progress towards a “next-generation watch” as well as other wearable applications.

We don’t know whether that next-generation watch has anything to do with Garmin. But put the two comments together and it is clear that AUO still has active MicroLED wearable projects.

To remind, the Fenix 9 series arrived without a MicroLED model. Garmin instead pushed its AMOLED hardware further, with Fenix 9 Pro models reaching up to 3,000 nits, while keeping MIP displays alive on the Solar versions.

Garmin’s first attempt showed both why the technology is interesting and why it is difficult. The Fenix 8 Pro MicroLED could hit an impressive 4,500 nits, but the watch was thicker, considerably more expensive and had much shorter battery life than its AMOLED sibling. Those are awkward compromises for a Fenix.

The economics could look very different by 2027

AUO now seems focused on getting those compromises down to something manufacturers can deal with better. Peng said the company remains on track with its target of reducing MicroLED costs by 50% every two years through better yields, design improvements and newer production processes.

A new Gen 4.5 high-resolution MicroLED production line is expected to be completed during the first half of 2027. AUO says this will give it considerably more capacity for future projects including watches.

That doesn’t mean we should start pencilling a Fenix 10 MicroLED into the calendar. AUO has not named Garmin as one of the customers currently developing a new watch.

But Garmin is an obvious company to watch. It has already done the hard part by putting MicroLED into a commercial smartwatch, something that looked highly ambitious when references to a Garmin MicroLED watch first appeared back in 2024.

The first generation also gave Garmin and AUO plenty of real-world data about what needs fixing. Brightness was never really the problem. Cost, thickness and battery life were. If AUO can materially improve those three things, MicroLED suddenly becomes interesting for Garmin again.