NanoAR, The Day Glass Becomes a Screen

Touch-film-based interaction demo. Finger input can move content from the partition window to the side window and operate it. 

What NanoAR showed at Auto China was not a bigger screen, but a moment where the glass itself becomes an interface. As partitions, sunroofs, side windows, and windshields all become display layers, the automotive interior transforms into a media space. The live demo was not flawless - but seeing two simultaneous images coexist on a single transparent surface was genuinely impressive. In the SDV era, in-car UX is no longer about adding screens. It is about redefining surfaces that already exist.

By Sang Min Han _  han@autoelectronics.co.kr
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A Horse at the Booth Entrance

In one corner of the Auto China 2026 exhibition hall, a golden horse was galloping across the top of a blue booth entrance. But the surface the horse ran across was not an opaque panel. The horse's form floated clearly on what looked like transparent glass film, while the exhibition hall behind it remained fully visible. Two images coexisting on one surface. That was the opening scene Photonic Crystal chose to open with at this show.
Three phrases were printed side by side on the booth fascia: "WORLD PREMIERE. FULL-DOMAIN WINDOW. AUTOMOTIVE-GRADE." World first reveal, full-vehicle window coverage, and production-grade readiness. That was the entirety of the message NanoAR (Photonic Crystal) brought to Auto China 2026.
Inside the booth stood a black sedan. Nothing unusual at a glance. But people were lining up to open the rear door and step inside.
"This is not a regular display."

Adele Liu, Global Sales Manager, stood beside the car explaining the technology to visitors. Someone asked the obvious question: "Every car uses displays these days. Is this different?" She answered:
"Yes. This is a transparent display."

Inside the rear cabin, the space was dim. But the dimness made what was visible all the more vivid. Crisp graphics flowed across a large transparent screen covering the entire back of the front seats. The full sunroof glass above displayed a galaxy visualization. The right side window showed the same graphics. Look ahead - a screen. Look up - the galaxy. Look sideways - another display. The entire interior was one display space. And there was no conventional panel anywhere.
"This is a touch film. A nano-optical material applied directly to glass. It captures the projector's light to create an image, while letting light from the other side pass through freely."

Transmittance above 80%, haze below 2%. What those numbers mean is that the view through the window remains visible even while images are displayed. The film is simultaneously a screen and a window.




Look ahead - a screen. Look up - the galaxy. Look sideways - another display. The entire cabin was a single display space.
There was no conventional panel anywhere. 



The Projector Was at the Rear Center Console

One question came to mind: where is the image actually coming from? Looking down, a palm-sized DLP projector sat on the rear center console. A small box. That single device was generating both the partition screen image and the sunroof image simultaneously. Resolution depends on the projector used. Up to 8K is possible.
"With an LG projector, even higher image quality is achievable."

So how would the projector actually be integrated in a production vehicle?
CTO Yongjing Wang explained: "In the current setup, we integrate it inside the center console armrest. But depending on vehicle architecture and OEM packaging constraints, it can be flexibly positioned elsewhere - inside the headliner or under the seat, for example."

The film form factor is what enables that projector placement flexibility.
The implications are significant. Conventional automotive displays require the panel itself to be mounted in the car - often heavy, thick, and design-constraining. In this approach, the panel is just film. Stick it to the glass. The projector can be mounted separately or integrated into the vehicle structure. It can also take either a fixed rigid form or a rollable form that can be stored away.


 

A Finger Pushed the Screen

The demo began. Liu swiped a finger across the large transparent partition screen. Content that had been floating on the screen moved toward the side window.
"See? The two displays are linked. You can push content from the partition to the side, swipe it upward, or the reverse."

This was possible because it is a touch film - not merely a projection surface, but an interactive interface that accepts finger input.
Liu also pulled up a vehicle status screen: battery level, climate control state, temperature settings. A BYD app interface appeared on screen and was operable.
The app response was a bit slow during the demo.
"The app is a little slow right now. It's a smartphone app issue."

Liu, seated on the left, also struggled to reach the climate control panel on the right side window to adjust the temperature - the touch point was simply too far away. "It's a bit out of reach," she said, smiling.
Somehow, the projector sitting there on the console, the sluggish app - these moments made it feel less like a staged performance and more like a real, working prototype.



Touch-film-based interaction demo. Content can be moved with finger input. Interactive UI on the side window allows information browsing.  



Gaming Up Front, the Universe Above

An Angry Birds game screen appeared on the partition display. The game - popular over a decade ago - was playable by direct touch. Next came a music video featuring K-pop group Girls' Generation. Seated in the rear, a performer filled the full front screen.
Liu explained the core scenario this use case represents:
"You watch a movie while charging. And when you need the space back, you can clear it again."

Converting EV charging time into a media experience. It is the "third space" concept that keeps reappearing in the Chinese automotive market.
On a board inside the booth, the technology's direction was distilled into one sentence: "Glass as display, windows as interfaces, the cabin as a cinema." The goal: make the car a third space. NanoAR's name for this technology is the Full-Vehicle Transparent Interactive Display Solution.



Select a mode, launch the app, pull back the Angry Birds slingshot, and send it flying. A game demo running on the transparent partition screen.



The View from Outside

The scene from outside the car is equally striking. Looking at the windshield, you can see through to the exhibition hall beyond - and simultaneously see images overlaid on the glass surface itself. Inside and outside, both alive. The windshield is not blocked. It is itself a display.
NanoAR's AR-HUD is an attempt to use the entire windshield as a transparent HUD. The approach addresses limitations of conventional AR-HUD systems - restricted vehicle compatibility due to narrow field of view (FOV) and large unit volume - using nano-optical film technology. The target: FOV above 13 degrees, volume under 1 liter, roughly one-tenth the size of existing solutions.
Also on display was a Panoramic HUD - technically similar in principle to AR-HUD, but expanding the display area across the full lower windshield. Like what BMW has shown, it stretches horizontally in a pillar-to-pillar format.

Asked whether the display works in bright environments, Wang answered:
"Our display brightness exceeds 10,000 nits, so even in direct sunlight coming through the sunroof or side windows, the image remains clearly visible."
He was also candid about the trade-offs:
"Increasing transmittance improves see-through performance, but image contrast in bright conditions is influenced by projector output and film gain. Tuning that balance for each deployment environment is our job."



How Far to Production?

'Make Every Window a Display.' That is Photonic Crystal's slogan for its NanoAR technology brand.
Photonic Crystal is a photonic crystal display technology company founded in 2017, with bases in Santa Clara, USA, and Shenzhen, China. NanoAR is the company's core brand, with patents in China, the United States, and Japan, and with automotive-grade certification cleared. The company is collaborating with multiple automotive glass manufacturers, including Fuyao Glass America.
Liu and Wang described concrete production projects already underway.
One major OEM is applying this technology to the sunroof area of a new vehicle, with launch expected in 2027. A proof-of-concept collaboration is also progressing with a prominent Asian OEM. A German company co-developed a concept car using the technology, and a European premium OEM has received showroom visits and sample materials. At CES 2025, Photonic Crystal revealed rollable transparent display technology for the first time. At this Auto China, they presented an integrated solution covering the entire vehicle interior - their most comprehensive showcase yet.



With CTO Yongjing Wang. A Transformers film is playing on the rear windshield behind him.



It Is Not the Screen That Changes - It Is the Space

Step out of the car, and the golden horse is still galloping across the transparent surface at the booth entrance.
Automotive interior displays have long been a competition over how large a screen you can fit. Center displays grew. Clusters went panoramic. HUDs got wider. But those screens have always been objects embedded somewhere inside the car. The window has always been just a window.
What Photonic Crystal proposed at this show points in a different direction. Not making screens larger, but converting the entire surface of existing glass into a display layer. The partition. The sunroof. The side windows. The windshield. If every piece of glass in a car becomes a screen with one film, it is not the interior that changes - it is the fundamental logic of how the interior is constructed.
The demo was not perfect. But the partition screen genuinely lit up, the galaxy genuinely spread across the ceiling, and the exhibition hall was genuinely visible through the glass. Two images coexisting on a single pane of glass told you, at minimum, that this technology is not a rendering.
A car with this technology in its sunroof launches in 2027. Glass manufacturers are already testing this film. If this still reads as distant news to some OEMs and Tier 1s, others may find the distance considerably shorter than expected. It is a signal that glass will no longer remain a passive surface. Part of the in-car UX competition is already shifting - from the size of the screen, to how intelligently you can transform a surface that was always already there.

AEM(오토모티브일렉트로닉스매거진)

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