Choosing Segment LCDs or Monochrome Display

The Segment LCD Monochrome Display

The Segment LCD display offers one color for the characters and a separate color for the display background. Monochrome displays can sometimes be a good option for businesses that are looking for a simple display that’s cost effective.

These types of displays are used for products like power meters and thermometers. If you’re unsure whether or not to use this type of display then you should be asking yourself: “Does it need graphics and color display features?” If your display doesn’t need all the bells and whistles of graphics and color options then a monochrome display is a sensible choice.

For illustration purposes, a gas station wouldn’t expect a gas pump to do much more than relay price and alphanumeric display messages to consumers. Pump users just want to know where to scan their card, what gas to choose and how much it’s costing them to fill up. No more and no less. While gas pumps don’t have color changing abilities like TFT or OLED displays, its one-color option is what makes it different and more affordable than other displays that offer these features.

There are four (4) types of monochrome display technologies

Static / Segment LCD Display

You will typically find these types of displays on applications that only need to display numbers and a few icons such as a battery indicator, gas pumps, power meters and thermometers.

Segment Monochrome Display Features:

No controller/driver chip
Small processor that converts and displays your information to the LCD, reducing the power consumption
No controller driver chip (This increases the amount of time for the engineer to program the display)
Segment displays contain both icons and segmented numbers
Contains few letters and no graphics

Segment Monochrome Display Advantages:

Lowest cost
Customizable
Lowest power consumption
Small

Segment Monochrome Display Disadvantages:

Displays a few letters
No controller/driver chip
More programming time
Minimum order quantity (MOQ) of 1,000 or more
No backlight

Segment Icon Samples

The customer supplies the icons to be customized to each display.

The seven segment digits can display any number but only a few letters.