Samsung Announces Solar-Powered Remotes
Samsung made a lot of announcements at this year’s virtual CES. One of the more exciting, or at least interesting, announcements was the inclusion of solar-powered remotes with some of their new televisions. It appears that just the new Neo-QLED models will come with this new remote. There is no indication from Samsung that they will include them with other displays. Let’s take a look.
Over the average lifespan of a display (which Samsung averages at seven years), the consumer will have to switch out the batteries a number of times. 20 million according to Samsung’s estimations. That’s a lot of batteries. Samsung’s new solar-powered remotes can be powered by indoor lights and can last up to two years on a full charge.
The new remotes have a solar cell on the back and a USB port on the bottom. If you leave the remote face down, it will absorb whatever light you have in the room. If you have a dedicated home theater that is normally dark, once every two years or so you can plug it in via its USB port to charge it.
Controls
The solar-powered remote itself is reminiscent of the older iPods with a circular control on the front with a number of dedicated control buttons. We are not sure if the circular control is touch-sensitive like the iPods or just a stylized directional pad. Most interestingly, there seems to be a button for voice control. This suggests that the new TVs will have some sort of assistant function. While most of the buttons are pretty standard, there are controls at the bottom that seems counterintuitive. It appears as if there is a button for changing channels and another for volume control. Though it appears that you would need to hit the volume or channel button to access the function and then manipulate the change with the circular control? We’re not exactly sure.
When we get our hands on this remote, we’ll give you a more thorough report. For now, we’re just excited that we may never need to change the batteries in our remotes ever again!
