DecoChrom is an EU Horizon 2020 funded R+D consortium focused on commercializing color-changing electrochromic materials for a variety of applications. Electrochromics are a printed electronics technology, which opens up opportunity to use these low-fidelity but ultra-low-power displays across applications where traditional digital displays are not feasible due to cost or power consumption.

I’m adding this to Lucept because it seems like another technology that could be useful for large format architectural applications, particularly for ambient communications. It follows earlier technologies such as e-ink or electroluminescent technologies. But it never seems like any of these low-fidelity technologies ever catch on for architectural scale applications. LED screens seem to be charging ahead, despite their cost and huge power consumption.

It seems like the lead company for commercializing such tech is Portuguese/German startup ynvisible, which is focused on using electrochromics in a variety of IoT tagging and personal monitoring applications.

According to the DecoChrom site:

The DecoChrom project elevates printed graphics products to the age of interactivity, and empowers the creative industries with the tools and innovative advanced material sets to design and build aesthetically pleasing practical human interfaces to smart consumer goods and environments. The DecoChrom consortium develops printed electrochromics (EC) as the mass producible, print industry compatible, ultra low-power interactive graphics solution for ambient intelligence. DecoChrom will scale-up the production of advanced composite materials into innovative ink EC colours, manufacturing process on different materials, wide dissemination and creation of EC toolkits to introduce electrochromics to designers, makers and the printing industry, and finally the co-creation of several creative industry lead end-user prototypes and pilots for architecture, interior design, lifestyle and sports. The DecoChrom project brings together a strong interdisciplinary consortium of 15 partners, industry and research balanced, with state-of-the-art backgrounds in design, chemistry, printing, coatings and laminates, electronics system integration, and complete electrochromics solutions.

https://decochrom.com/