"Anti-Fogging with Heat Plate" LG Uplus' 'U+ Slim VR' Wins Red Dot Design Award

[Asia Economy Reporter Eunmo Koo] LG Uplus announced on the 30th that its portable virtual reality (VR) device, ‘U+ Slim VR,’ has won the ‘2021 Red Dot Design Award,’ one of the world’s top three design awards.

The U+ Slim VR is a phone-inserted VR device launched by LG Uplus in November last year, featuring differentiated comfort and portability. Existing VR devices caused condensation on the lenses due to temperature differences inside and outside the lenses caused by phone heat when worn for a long time. However, the U+ Slim VR has a heat sink installed on the upper front to prevent fogging, allowing users to enjoy content for extended periods in a high-quality usage environment.

The device structure was improved to enhance wearing comfort. The U+ Slim VR measures the optimal distance between the eyes, lenses, and phone, minimizing the overall thickness based on this, and the headband was redesigned by adding an additional band on top to distribute the product’s weight, instead of the conventional left-right type.

To improve the comfort of the facial skin contact area, the face cushion was made from fabric material shaped to fit the face instead of rubber. The face cushion blocks external light as much as possible to eliminate factors that interfere with content viewing.

Product storage and portability were also made easier. The U+ Slim VR features a slide structure with a cover on the back that can house accessories such as the face cushion, lenses, and headband. When the face cushion and lenses are exposed externally, there is a risk of damage, and the headband is not fixed, making portability difficult.

Additionally, the band that secures the phone is made of fabric to accommodate smartphones of various sizes, and a groove was created in the center bottom to enhance phone alignment and fixation, compensating for the drawbacks of phone-inserted devices.

The Red Dot Design Award, hosted by the North Rhine-Westphalia Design Center in Germany, is recognized as one of the world’s top three design competitions alongside Germany’s iF Design Award and the United States’ IDEA Design Award. This year, over 6,500 works from 60 countries worldwide competed.

Lee Eun-kyung, head of the Advanced UX Team at LG Uplus and the design lead, explained, “We designed the product prioritizing ‘easy portability’ so that VR content can be enjoyed anytime and ‘comfortable wearing’ so users can fully immerse themselves in the content.”

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.