Samsung quick to deny claims that TVs uses less energy during testing

2 Oct 2015

Samsung have responded to claims by a recent research study which claimed that the South Korean company’s TVs are more energy efficient in energy during testing than real life.

The criticism of Samsung was raised by the European Union-funded ComplianTV group who was reported as saying that their study showed that Samsung’s ‘motion lighting’ technology that changes the brightness of the TV in response to what’s on screen was hiding its true energy consumption.

Based off their experiments, the group claimed that the TVs must have a feature built in to their programming which recognises when it is being put under testing conditions set out by the International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC) which is responsible for energy testing.

In a brief statement however, Samsung have responded to the claims made by ComplianTV outright.

“Motion lighting is not a setting that only activates during compliance testing,” the statement said. “On the contrary, it is a default setting which works both in the lab and at home; delivering energy savings and helping us to reduce our environmental impact.”

“Motion lighting was introduced in 2011 across all our TVs as part of a range of features we have developed to help reduce the environmental impact of our TV technology. We are immensely proud of these technologies and look forward to innovating further in this area.”

Continuing their defence, Samsung said that the amount of power one of their TVs consumes is down to the decision of the TV set’s owner: “If the customer chooses to alter their display settings or switch to a different mode then the feature switches off, which gives our customers a simple choice of whether they choose to prioritise power efficiency or performance in their TV.”

Questions of the validity of ComplianTV’s claims have not been helped by the fact that their findings are yet to be published for scrutiny, but the recent revelations surrounding the Volkswagen emissions scandal has thrown the way efficiency tests are run by companies into question.

Samsung TV image via Shutterstock

Colm Gorey was a senior journalist with Silicon Republic

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