Samsung had a lot of tech to reveal at this year’s CES event but, the product that stood out to us the most was a TV remote. Yes, that does sound like a strange choice from a company that showed off giant TVs and intelligent projectors but, The Eco Remote is a surprisingly impressive device.

Samsung has been trying to push more environmentally-friendly products for a while and with this remote, they are promising a situation where you never have to charge it again. No more batteries, no more plugging it in. Like Samsung’s previous Eco Remote, this can be charged by solar energy but, it can now also charge by collecting your [1] router’s radio waves and converting them into energy.

Figure 1. Samsung’s new TV remote uses radio waves from your router to stay charger

Figure 1 shows Aside from the new RF harvesting option, the Eco Remote can be charged from both outdoor and indoor light or (for the fastest results) over USB-C. Samsung says it’s introducing a white model of the remote this year, which the company says is meant to better complement its “lifestyle” TVs like The Frame, Serif, and Sero.

As with the original remote, the intention here is to ditch AAA batteries. Samsung has previously estimated that switching to solar-powered remotes could avoid 99 million discarded batteries over the course of seven years. It has also explored other ways of self-charging the internal battery such as “harnessing the kinetic energy that’s created when the remote [2] is shaken” and “using the vibrational energy that’s created when the microphone picks up sounds.”

Samsung's TV remotes have been making some major eco-friendly strides in recent years. Last year the electronics giant added a solar panel to the back so the remote can charge from the sun while sitting in your living room, and now it's taking things a step further. For 2022 the company added a new feature for its controllers: radio frequency harvesting.

Announced alongside Samsung's latest TV updates, the remote will still be able to draw power from the sun during the day but will also pull small amounts of power from radio waves from things like your Wi-Fi router. Samsung says this [3] RF harvesting should allow you to continually keep your remote fully charged whether you're watching TV during the day or at night (or presumably if you keep your TV in an area with little sunlight).

References:

1. https://www.sciencefocus.com/news/future-tech-ces-2022/
2. https://www.theverge.com/2022/1/2/22860390/samsung-eco-remote-2022-solar-rf-harvesting-charging
3. https://www.cnet.com/tech/home-entertainment/samsungs-new-eco-remotes-draw-power-from-radio-waves/

Cite this article:

Thanusri swetha J (2022), Samsung’s new TV remote uses radio waves from your router to stay charged, Anatechmaz, pp. 151