Hi there community!
Theo, the community reporter is back with another piece of news! With this topic, I would like to present another quick update on ES07D02 (Spectrum 280Hz matte). We are happy to share more news on the development. In this topic, you are going to see what is happening right now, what will happen, and what we had discovered along the way.
The progress so far
Taking over from our previous update, we have finally finished the design validation testing (DVT) and now entered the next phase, production validation testing (PVT). We have prepared a PVT build to continue with its quality and reliability engineering test. Things are moving forward!
At the same time, we still have safety and feature certifications along with backlight strobing tuning by Blur Busters. Both are still in progress ever since the last update and will go on parallel with the main development stages.
Interesting find
During DVT, there is one finding that we would like to share with you guys. One of our engineers found a small error in our DVT build that can be seen only at a certain angle. You can see it below:
Two small strips of light appear on both sides of the LED light. They are in the same proximity relative to the LED and do not look like an assembly error.
Upon investigation, it turns out that it was caused by a slightly different physical shape of the liquid crystal module (LCM) for our QHD 280Hz panel.
ES07D02 LCM fitted with its black box containing the mainboard. Indentation is present in the middle.
ES07D03 LCM. Notice the lack of indentation.
Since we are using the same external frame for ES07D02 as ES07D03, this extra indentation created a small gap where light can seep through. To prevent the light from getting out, we need to somehow cover the gap. Initially, we came up with two different materials to do the job:
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Foam tape
3M foam attached to the bottom part of ES07D02 LCM. -
Insulated black tape
Black tape placed on the bottom of ES07D02 LCM.
To make sure the material stays after normal usage, we conducted a heat test. Two units were fitted with two different materials to see how well they last under various heat profiles and humidity levels. After the test, we found that both materials performed quite well, but we decided to go with tape instead because it is much more solid and has less chance of fraying in the long term.
Compatibility test
Next on the menu for ES07D02’s development is the compatibility test. The main purpose of this test is to ensure Spectrum is capable of running and displaying input from a wide array of devices, from all possible connecting port combinations. To pass this test, Spectrum must be able to display all the common resolutions supported by both devices without any flickering, shaking, black screen, etc.
There are more than 50 devices that were tested with the Spectrum for this compatibility test. It ranged from consoles, laptops, Apple macOS devices, and custom PCs of varying specs and operating systems. Even cell phones are part of the test! 
Depending on the device category, there are criteria for passing the compatibility test. They roughly follow the same rule, with slight variations:
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Gaming consoles
There are 7 consoles for this test: PS3, PS4, PS4 Pro, PS5, Xbox One S, Xbox Series X, and Nintendo Switch.
For each console, we have about 5 games to be tested, mostly AAA titles. To do the test, Spectrum must be able to display and support at least 30 minutes of uninterrupted gameplay for each game. So with roughly a total of 35 games to play, testing Spectrum’s compatibility with consoles took a lot of time. By the way, testing also includes playing in different video modes supported by the console, so it can take about a week just to test this category. -
Windows-based PCs
Things are getting even more serious when PCs are involved since there are millions of possible hardware combinations. We have to admit, that it is simply impossible to test every single one of them. So instead we have more than 20 PCs that represent the global specification. When picking which PC we will use, we mainly base the decision on what processor is used, which graphic card, and what OS version is it running.
For this test, we have included PCs with older Nvidia GTX 780, all the way to the most recent Nvidia RTX 3090. Onboard graphics were also included. Laptops and tablet computers also part of this category, either with dedicated graphics or without.
The methodology of the testing is similar to consoles, but gaming is not required for devices that cannot run the game well. For devices that lack a dedicated graphics card, we have prepared a video to play. We have also prepared an HDR recording for devices that support it to check Spectrum’s stability when displaying HDR content. -
macOS devices
Here we test Spectrum with devices that run macOS, then we have representatives from each model. For example, we have an Intel-based Mac mini, an Intel-based Macbook, Macbook with M1, and a Mac mini with M1.
Gaming capability is fully excluded here, rather we focus on overall stability with viewing media content for an extended period of time with varying video modes. -
Mobile devices
Included in this category are mostly cellphones. We have representatives from Android OS, iOS devices, and the long-gone but not forgotten, Windows Phone!
Out of all other device categories, this category is the simplest to test because of the port and video mode limitations. The number of representing devices is also minuscule compared to other categories, but still important for Spectrum to be able to display input from these devices.
This concludes the update for this week on ES07D02. Thank you guys for reading and see you guys again soon! Please drop a comment below and tell us what you think 
