Samsung's new Eco Remote charges via Wi-Fi — forget AA batteries

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Samsung is introducing a substantial upgrade in its high-end remotes this year

Samsung Eco Remote 2022
(Image credit: Samsung)

No more digging for AA batteries: At CES 2022, Samsung unveiled its brand new Eco Remote, the first remote that can wirelessly charge by using your router.

The company’s first Eco Remote, introduced at CES last year, provided consumers with a cool new solar-powered charging option. But this year’s Eco Remote sports a truly significant upgrade. By harvesting RF energy from your Wi-Fi router, the remote completely removes the need for any type of traditional batteries. 

As a matter of fact, the Eco Remote doesn’t even have a battery of any type within its casing. Instead, it contains a capacitor that is capable of storing small amounts of energy that it gathers from any 2.4-GHz RF signals within 40 meters. That’s quite a solid amount of coverage, meaning that this technology is a step above other wireless charging options regularly used for smart phones and other small devices.

The new Eco Remote also supports the aforementioned solar charging option. This means that, if for some reason your router is off or you’re otherwise unable to pick up the RF signal, the remote can still be charged by placing it face down under a lamp or other major lighting source.

We can’t recall any other consumer device harvesting energy using RF, although concepts have been talked about in the past. Never having to charge your remote or change its batteries may sound like a minor extra convenience, but life is hard enough sometimes, so we’ll take what we can get, right?

Unlike last year’s Eco Remote, which only came in black, Samsung’s new Eco Remote comes in black or white and is created using recycled materials. The remote will ship with all of Samsung's 2022 QLED 4K and 8K TVs.

Be sure to check out all of the latest product news at our CES 2022 live blog, which we're updating with all the latest announcements. 

Billy Givens
Billy Givens

Billy Givens is a journalist with nearly two decades of experience in editing and writing across a wide variety of topics. He focuses particularly on games coverage for Tom's Guide and other sites including From Gamers Magazine, Retroware, Game Rant and TechRaptor. He's also written for self-improvement sites such as Lifehack and produced in-depth analyses on subjects such as health, psychology and entertainment.