Corning is primarily known as a manufacturer and supplier of hardened glass products for essentially every major smartphone brand in the world. But following yesterday’s introduction of the Gorilla Glass 6, billed as the company’s most durable cover glass yet, we’re now reminded Corning also designs market-leading glass composites for wearable devices. Your next smartwatch, be it a Wear OS or Tizen-powered product, is likely to use either Corning Gorilla Glass DX or Gorilla Glass DX+ protection. Since wearables are more often used in the great outdoors than smartphones, it shouldn’t come as a surprise that the focus here is on display readability.

With the new composites, Corning takes a special interest in eliminating screen reflections (as much as possible), improving the contrast ratio (while maintaining brightness), and even helping prolong battery life thanks to major optical clarity advancements. But that doesn't mean the "legendary toughness and touch sensitivity" of the Gorilla Glass family are disregarded.

In fact, you’re promised "best-in-class scratch resistance", as well as "inherent toughness." As far as differences are concerned, Gorilla Glass DX+ boasts superior durability (duh), thus being likely to protect the next wave of luxury Wear OS smartwatches. The regular Gorilla Glass DX solution is the one we expect mainstream wearable devices to adopt, although intriguingly enough, Corning says there are plans to adapt these two new products to "larger form-factor devices." Wait, does that mean even more smartphones, including perhaps ultra-low-cost models, will soon jump on the Gorilla Glass bandwagon? Or what if Corning is exploring different avenues and markets, like dedicated cameras? Wouldn't that be... interesting?

PRESS RELEASE