The smartest TV tech of the year? Samsung's new solar remote
The smartest Boob tube tech of the yr? Samsung's new solar remote
The all-time changes to tech commonly aren't large, innovative leaps. In that location are big, dramatic changes to tech, just when you lot're looking at consumer products with a yearly product cycle, those sorts of attempts at major innovation are but as likely to fizzle every bit they are to make a meaningful impact.
Iterative tweaks, on the over hand, tin yield small, only lasting changes. It's usually in smaller adjustments that a product gets fine-tuned, progressing from "skilful" to "great" a few tweaks at a time. And my favorite minor change so far in 2021 has to exist Samsung'due south Solar Cell Remote, the solar-powered remote control that will be included with the new Samsung Neo QLED TVs. It'due south non just my favorite thing from Samsung'due south 2021 TV lineup, it might be the smartest change to TVs all twelvemonth.
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Granted, I spend a lot of time thinking near the details of TV design and interaction. I've handled a lot of TV remotes every bit a reviewer, and I've got opinions about all of them. Only the remote has e'er been something of an inconvenience. Information technology'due south a new interface to learn, information technology'southward another device to lose, and it's withal another product that needs batteries.
That terminal weakness might simply be solved, though. Samsung has made a large push to improve the sustainability of its Tv set products, revamping the packaging to use no oil-based inks and using more than recycled plastics in manufacturing. (The new remotes are too 24% recycled plastic.) But the best movement is the addition of a rechargeable battery and solar cell on the back of the Telly remote.
In terms of environmental impact, it'south actually a pretty big modify. When our ain Kate Kozuch interviewed Mike Kadish, manager of product marketing for Samsung, he laid information technology out just: "Each remote comes with two triple-A batteries, and if we're able to proceed two triple-A batteries out of a landfill, multiply that by all the millions of TVs we sell, we're talking scale, and that's a ton of batteries we're able to go on out of the landfills by your house and mine." In fact, over the vii-yr life of one of these solar remote rechargeable batteries, Samsung estimates that information technology will keep 99 1000000 batteries from being used and discarded.
Simply the secondary consequence of this alter is that you'll never observe yourself stuck in that bad-mannered moment when you've opened Netflix, just can't select a moving-picture show considering your batteries but died. That little solar cell on the back of the remote can pull enough ability from indoor lighting to go on the rechargeable battery topped up for up to two years before it needs to be plugged in and charged (via USB-C port), and the battery itself is rated for seven years of use, roughly the usable life of the TV it comes with.
And that's the best kind of innovation, because it solves more than i problem at a time. It'southward not a new engineering science – it's the solar tech of an fourscore's pocket calculator applied to the TV remote, it could have been done pretty much anytime in the last 40 years – but it'south a smart idea. Your life is a petty easier thank you to the change, and the earth is a little ameliorate off because of it.
It's likewise the sort of change that a lot of manufacturers might not want to do. Information technology's a small convenience that will go unnoticed past the user 99% of the time. At that place are plenty of reasons that a business would choose non to pursue this sort of change – it took time and budget that could take been used developing some more impressive feature, it adds complexity to the manufacturing procedure, and nobody is probable to purchase a $1,000+ TV based on the design of the remote.
It doesn't solve all of my gripes with TV remote controls. I'd love to have programmable buttons for favorite apps instead of dedicated buttons that are basically paid promotion. A push button on the Tv that made the remote beep would make them enormously easier to find (I can't tell you how many times my toddler has plant new places to hide the remote or just put it in the garbage can). Backlit buttons or a bit of glow in the dark pigment would make the controls more readable when watching movies in a dark room.
But if I never again have to dig through the junk drawer, hoping that we have a pair of fresh AAA batteries and then that I can just sentry a prove in peace? Well, that's one less matter I'll take to worry about. And isn't that what nosotros actually want our engineering to do?
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Source: https://www.tomsguide.com/news/the-smartest-tv-tech-of-the-year-samsungs-new-remote
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