Your Phone’s Screen May Soon Heal Itself

Five years from now, scratches on your beloved smartphone screen may not incite panic–because screens could have nano coatings that react with air to fill in the scratch. 

That’s what CCS Insight analysts expect. The latest roundup of tech predictions from the company highlights “self-healing” smartphone displays with advanced nanotechnology. The concept isn’t new: LG released the G Flex in 2013, which had a “self-healing” back cover. The World Economic Forum also promoted self-healing materials ten years ago, but the feature isn’t found in many mainstream smartphones today. 

CCS Insight predicts that self-healing tech will achieve commercial success within the next five years, but foresees a challenge in marketing the phones on a wide enough scale while making sure customers don’t expect too much of the technology. 

CCS Insight chief analyst Ben Wood clarified that self-healing tech would only work with shallow damage. 

“We’re not talking about smashed screens miraculously coming back. This is all just little cosmetic scratches,” Wood told CNBC. The point isn’t to take a knife to a phone to test whether it will repair itself, Wood explained, but to have technology that can automatically make small surface repairs. 

Consumers may have moved away from self-healing phones because glass alternatives looked and felt better, and even though Apple patents from the past few years have conceptualized self-healing displays, they’ve been limited to foldables. 

CCS Insight also predicted that VR headset maker HTC could leave the market by 2026, and that Apple could focus more on the second-hand smartphone market in the coming years.