All of us at TNW were over the moon when we heard about Samsung’s new remote powered by a Solar panel last year. Saving us the trouble of hunting for AAA batteries is truly the Lord’s work, so thank you Samsung.
This year, the Korean tech giant has upped its remote game by including a new ability: Wi-Fi Charging. Yes, the new remote can literally charge through your routers useless signals that bounce around your house. How cool is that!
If you’re thinking about how this magic happens, the answer is RF harvesting, which collects radio waves from devices like your router and converts them into energy. Samsung says this will help the remote stay fully charged all the time.
Researchers have noted in the past that this technique can only generate a small amount of energy, which is enough for low-power devices like TV remotes. So don’t dream of charging your phone with your router’s radio waves just yet.
Apart from this new charging tech, Samsung has also improved the solar panel on the remote so that it can charge through both indoor and outdoor light. If you think all of this takes too much time, you can always use a USB-C cable to juice up the remote quickly.
Samsung’s new Eco Remote will ship with all of its 2022 TV models. This is a good selling point for people considering getting new TVs (aka me) this year.
If you’re interested in learning more about RF harvesting, you can read thesepapers.