Skip to main content

Samsung’s Eco Remote is cool, but that’s it

When it comes to electronics — anything with a battery, really — there is but a single thing we need to remember. The less you have to worry about charging it, the better off everyone is going to be. You’re going to be happier with the experience. The device in question is going to work better and longer. (Batteries, after all, are organic devices and will, eventually, die.) And that means the company that produces the product can do so at a slightly lower cost.

Samsung Eco Remote 2022.
Samsung

Enter Samsung’s new Eco Remote, announced this week at CES. Samsung bills the Eco Remote as a way for customers to “take a literal hands-on approach to reducing their eco footprint.” That’s due in part to it using recycled materials, but also because it uses solar power and what’s known as “RF Harvesting” to give what it calls “a battery-free experience.”

Never mind the fact that there certainly is some sort of energy storage device inside — Samsung says as much. What Samsung really means is that this isn’t a remote you’ll have to worry about charging. Which … is fine?

I’ve spent more than my fair share of time poring over remote controls, particularly so many for so long that have been pretty awful. Even the most prevalent of the bunch don’t do a whole lot to inspire. Roku’s remotes work fine. Once a year or so I might have to swap out the batteries. No big deal. Apple TV finally has a remote control that doesn’t make me want to use something (anything!) else, and every now and then it tells me to plug it in to charge, which is simple enough to do. My favorite remote, which is end-of-life at this point, is years old but only on its second battery.

In other words, have we devolved so much as a society that we cannot handle charging a remote control for a half-hour a couple times a year? Or swapping out a couple batteries? It’s just not that hard to do.

We’ll have to wait until we’ve got Samsung’s new Eco Remote on hand for some long-term testing before we know whether this solar power/RF Harvesting thing is worth its weight in press releases and blogger headlines. It might well be. If you never have to worry about charging the remote, that’s certainly a good thing. On the other hand, if you’re constantly worried about whether you’re going to have to charge the remote because it’s using this newfangled technology from the sun combined with the same thing that powers those potentially problematic 5G networks and whether your copper 5G chest protector might get in the way — well, we can’t help you there.

Oh, and it does come in white. So there’s that.

Samsung may well have just made life a tiny bit easier with the new Eco Remote. But it’s just that — a tiny bit easier. We’ll take what we can get, but we’ll try to keep it in context. Even during CES week. Now, Samsung’s upcoming QD-OLED TVs? That’s worth crowing about.

Phil Nickinson
Phil spent the 2000s making newspapers with the Pensacola (Fla.) News Journal, the 2010s with Android Central and then the…
Samsung sneaks a QD-OLED TV into CES 2022
Samsung QD Display lq.

The TV business is a tricky one. The business of a tech journalist covering TVs? It's trickier still. Case in point: In the midst of Samsung's other CES releases, Samsung snuck a brand-new TV technology into CES 2022 right under my nose. I'm supposed to know about this stuff ahead of time.

So what is this new TV? What is QD-OLED? What is QD-Display? And how in the world did Samsung pull a fast one on me? The answer is part tech and part inside baseball -- but all of it is important.

Read more
Why Samsung built an NFT aggregator into its new TVs
Samsung NFT aggregator.

It's easy to read Samsung's CES 2022 press release and scoff. Maybe it's at the images of beautiful TVs you probably can't pay for affixed to designer concrete walls in impeccable homes that you most certainly can't afford. Or perhaps it's the models doing model things in those impeccable (and impeccably lit) homes. Or maybe it's the idea of a remote control without batteries. (Which almost certainly isn't actually how that works, but that's neither here nor there.)

Or, perhaps, it's the idea of an "NFT aggregation platform" being built into the television. It sounds insane -- baking something that most people don't understand, let alone engage in -- into a TV. Most of us can't even describe what a non-fungible token is, let alone tell someone how to go get one. It's a multi-layered process that's far more difficult than taking a screenshot of something you saw on Instagram and then sticking it up on your TV.

Read more
Samsung looks for an ‘Age of Togetherness’ with new Frame, Neo QLED TVs
Samsung Micro LED 2022.

Samsung kicks off CES 2022 doing what Samsung does best -- taking its line of many televisions, already great in their own right, and kicking things up yet another notch. Smarter, brighter, better, easier to use -- all the things that make a TV more than a TV in an era in which we're spending more time in front of the TV than ever.

On the front side of things is a new home screen, "a testament to our vision for the future of TVs." Samsung is paring things down to three main hubs -- a Media Screen, a Gaming Hub, and Ambient Mode. They're mostly self-explanatory. If it's something you're going to watch (via Samsung's built-in apps, anyway), you'll get to it from the Media Screen. The Gaming Hub gets you into your cloud-based gaming services and consoles and works with existing third-party controllers and headsets. And the Ambient Mode makes it easier than ever to have something pleasant on the screen when you're not actively watching or playing something. That includes art, or photos, or even NFTs, because it's 2022 and it's all about non-fungible tokens, apparently.

Read more