A century of firsts, and the next one's already in the lab
Zenith didn't just keep up with electronics; it kept inventing the categories. Today, as LG Electronics' U.S. research subsidiary, that same engineering drives the technology behind commercial screens across B2B verticals, from hotels and hospitals to cruise ships, gyms, retail, and transit.
How we made the future
Behind every Zenith milestone is a piece of engineering the rest of the industry spent decades catching up with.
Sound you couldn't hear
The Space Command needed no batteries. Pressing a button drove a tiny hammer into one of four aluminum rods, ringing out a precise ultrasonic tone, too high for human ears, but unmistakable to the receiver inside the set. It ruled living rooms for a quarter century.
Polley and Adler shared a technical Emmy in 1997 for the invention that reshaped the evening. See it on the Heritage page →
Two channels, one signal
How do you send left and right audio over a single FM broadcast, and keep it working for the millions of mono radios already out there? Zenith's pilot-tone multiplex scheme, developed with GE, became the FCC standard in 1961, and it's still the system radios worldwide transmit on today.
It joined a run of firsts: the first portable radio (1924), push-button tuning (1927), subscription TV "PhoneVision" (1947), and the Chromacolor picture tube (1969).
One name, global reach
Zenith merged with LG Electronics in 1999. Today the Zenith R&D Lab in Lincolnshire, Illinois is LG's U.S. research subsidiary, leading work in content security, commercial-display platforms, and connected-room technology across B2B verticals. The lightning bolt now travels with one of the world's largest electronics innovators.
The invisible engineering behind every hotel screen
Zenith-born technologies run the in-room experience at properties across the country, and get it live fast.
Pro:Idiom®
Introduced by Zenith in 2004, Pro:Idiom is a robust, highly secure digital-rights-management system built specifically for the hospitality and healthcare markets, lower cost, less maintenance, world-class encryption. As the creator and exclusive licensor, Zenith protects an installed base of more than three million devices, the reason hotels and hospitals can deliver premium HD content with confidence.
Pro:Idiom details →Pro:Centric
Pro:Centric is LG's hospitality TV platform, built on webOS and protected by Pro:Idiom. Through Pro:Centric Direct and the cloud-based Pro:Centric Stay, properties brand their TVs, push interactive services, room service, weather, local info, OTT streaming and casting, and manage entire fleets from one console. SI partners can provision rooms, monitor status, and update firmware without ever walking the hallway.
Web Management Interface
Zenith's WMI replaces remote-and-menu setup with a browser. Installers provision, brand, and configure commercial displays wirelessly from a phone or tablet, applying channel maps and pushing settings to whole room groups, cutting install and configuration time from hours to minutes.
How it works →Data & Analytics
Every managed display is a sensor. Zenith turns the fleet into insight, content performance, occupancy and dwell time, uptime and health, so operators can act on what the screens actually see.
Four Technical Emmys
Recognized by the National Academy of Television Arts & Sciences: MTS stereo TV sound (1986), the wireless remote control (1997), HDTV via the Digital HDTV Grand Alliance (1997), and flat-tension-mask flat-screen technology (2001).
Energy & Sustainability
Room-aware power management dims, schedules, and sleeps displays based on real occupancy and status, cutting energy use and cost across a property without touching the guest experience.
What's coming next
With LG's global scale behind it, the Zenith lab is building the next generation of hospitality, healthcare, and connected commercial experiences.
Pro:Centric+ & AI Hospitality
Debuted in 2025, Pro:Centric+ turns the in-room TV into a business platform: AI-driven energy management aware of room status, dynamic promotions, location services for asset tracking, Wi-Fi health monitoring, and smartphone-based provisioning, plus AI integrations for smart thermostats, leak detection, and staff-safety alerts.
The Connected Room
The display becomes the room's secure gateway, linking and orchestrating IoT devices, thermostats, lighting, locks, blinds, sensors, and voice, so an operator runs the whole smart room from one platform.
Beyond Hospitality & Healthcare
The same engineering extends across B2B verticals, secure, interactive display systems for cruise, fitness, retail, transit, corporate, and education, each tuned to how that industry actually operates.
Backed by LG R&D
In cooperation with LG's Convergence Lab in Seoul, the Lincolnshire team turns global research into U.S.-ready products, carrying a century-old promise of quality into the technologies of tomorrow.
Practical AI
AI aimed at a business outcome, not a science experiment, content that adapts, fleets that self-report, and operations that get simpler. We measure it in hours saved and problems solved, not novelty.
Rapid Prototyping
Hardware and software, stood up in days. We build rigs and working builds, test them in real conditions, and iterate fast, the art of the possible, made tangible.
The best engineering
feels like magic.
From the lab to the world
A century of firsts, a global partner, and a roadmap that's just getting started. Explore the heritage that built it, and the collection it inspires.