This is how long your OLED TV will last, and what you can do to keep it going

• How long will my OLED TV probably last?
• What can I do to stretch out my OLED TV’s lifespan?

For some home theater enthusiasts, an OLED TV may be not just the best anchor for their system, but something they’ll refuse to do without. It’s easy to understand why — once you’ve got used to the color and contrast of a modern OLED set, it’s hard to go back to an LCD, unless perhaps it’s a mini-LED product. OLED may eventually be supplanted by technologies like RGB mini-LED…but not yet.

There’s one major downside to the format, and that’s longevity. Whereas LCDs will often last a decade or more in good care, OLED TVs can develop picture problems well before that time is up. How long can you expect one to run, in practice? That depends on several factors, above all how you maintain it. You may want to treat an OLED set like you would like a car or PEV.

How long will my OLED TV probably last?

Your mileage will always vary

Unfortunately, there’s no concrete answer to this. The broad range seems to be anywhere between 30,000 and 100,000 hours, which translates to between three and 11 years if you go non-stop. That’s a huge disparity — three is well short of most LCDs, whereas 11 years can actually be better. LCDs do have their own vulnerabilities, I should point out. A single backlight on the fritz can render an LCD useless.

What complicates the math here is the way OLED technology works. Because OLED TVs can illuminate individual pixels, they don’t need any backlights. That reduces the number of parts involved, and enables the superior color and contrast I talked about in my intro. To achieve this, however, they rely on an organic electroluminescent layer — the “O” part of OLED. This material tends to degrade faster than the synthetic content in LCDs, and the process will naturally accelerate under heavy usage.

OLEDs don’t often fail catastrophically. The more immediate threat is partial burn-in, caused by some pixels degrading faster than others. This, in turn, is triggered by static elements being left onscreen for long periods of time, such as the logo for a news channel, or the status bar in a game. The “ghosts” of these elements can eventually become visible in dark scenes or when a TV is off. Needless to say, an OLED isn’t the best choice for a sports bar or a doctor’s waiting room.

Aggressive usage with high brightness, high ambient heat, and/or frequent static content could lead to noticeable burn-in in as little as two to four years.

Astute readers will have picked up on an important point, though, which is that most people don’t leave their TV on all day. If your TV is on for three hours daily, you’ll only rack up 3,285 hours by the end of three years, and 12,045 by the end of 11. So a well-maintained OLED might last as long as you could ever want, if not longer than an LCD, as I mentioned a minute ago. Hypothetically, you could leave an OLED on for eight hours a day and still be fine in 2036.

It’s really a question of how diligent you are about maintenance. Aggressive usage with high brightness, high ambient heat, and/or frequent static content could lead to noticeable burn-in in as little as two to four years. A more conservative approach may stretch longevity into multiple decades, but that’s assuming you don’t encounter fluke breakdowns, and the maximum brightness of an OLED panel will inevitably drop to a point where your TV can’t compensate by increasing power input. You’ll probably want to upgrade within a decade no matter what, given how fast display and processor technology is evolving — a modern 4K HDR TV puts anything from 2016 to shame.

What can I do to stretch out my OLED TV’s lifespan?

A few simple practices

Thankfully, TV makers have already implemented some automatic maintenance measures in the past several years. These include short “pixel refreshes” after a few hours of watching, and longer cycles after a few thousand hours. Some subtler measures include pixel shifting — moving an entire image to nearby pixels to reduce strain — and logo brightness adjustment, which drops the intensity of static objects. Most or all of these should be on by default, but you can typically check and configure these things in your TV’s Settings app. Bear in mind that different brands may use different terms.

On your end, there are a few key steps you need to take, beginning with keeping brightness reasonable. As impressive as it might look, your TV should never be at 100% unless you absolutely need it. Even 80% is probably too high. The sweet spot is around 50 to 60%, which should be fine in most indoor lighting conditions. If you’re having trouble with dark scenes, it’s better to close your blinds or curtains instead, for the simple reason that higher brightness increases heat, accelerating the decay of organic material.

To prevent burn-in, your first goal should be to minimize usage. Don’t rely on screensavers alone — turn your TV off the moment no one’s using it. If you or others have a habit of forgetting, you may be able to find an inactivity timer in your TV’s Settings app. You might also want to connect a sufficiently powerful smart plug, which will let you force a TV off remotely and/or at certain times of day.

You might like the idea of having news on in the background while you work, or marathoning a game, but doing a single thing for a long stretch will increase the chances of burn-in.

Next, pay attention to your viewing and gaming habits. You might like the idea of having news on in the background while you work, or marathoning a game like Hollow Knight or ARC Raiders, but doing a single thing for a long stretch will increase the chances of burn-in, regardless of whether your TV’s lifetime hours end up being very high. Switch things up — after an hour or two of gaming, for instance, put on YouTube or a TV show, or take a break from your TV entirely.

Ambient conditions matter as well. If you can, avoid exposing your TV to direct sunlight. It’s not a vampire, but prolonged sun exposure will amplify heat. In fact, if your TV is in a room with translucent curtains, you may want to upgrade them to something opaque. Be careful with your thermostat too — while you might save some money by letting temperatures climb high when no one’s home, that will affect your TV. Standard room temperature (68 to 72F, or 20 to 22C) is preferable.

Lastly, clean your TV occasionally. Dust might not seem like a big deal, but accumulation on ports, vents, and the screen itself will slowly create an insulating layer. Brush off any dust with a microfiber cloth, then wipe the screen with distilled water to avoid smudges or damage by harsh chemicals. Use another microfiber cloth to dry. You may need to use a compressed air can to get some of the dust behind your TV, but be sure not to tilt the can too far up or down, since that may accidentally spray fluids onto electronics.