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Home / News / Samsung fights accusation of TV energy efficiency test rigging

Samsung fights accusation of TV energy efficiency test rigging

The South Korean tech giant insists that this isn’t Volkswagen 2.0

Samsung has come out with a strong rebuttal against accusations of it gaming energy efficiency tests on its TVs.

The accusations echo the recent Volkswagen scandal, which revealed that millions of the company’s diesel cars were loaded with software to score better marks in emissions tests.

The alleged issue, reported on by The Guardian, states that an EU-funded research group called ComplianTV found consistently higher energy consumption rates for Samsung televisions, compared to the Korean company’s official figures.

Samsung has “firmly rejected” The Guardian’s article however, by stating that its ‘motion lighting feature’ (which reduces power consumption by dimming the screen brightness), is a standard out-of-the-box feature.

Samsung argues that this feature is not just limited to testing scenarios, but that customers can turn it off by swapping from the Standard viewing mode, which will then result in higher energy consumption.

Rudolf Heinz, project manager of ComplianTV’s product lab, told The Guardian that “Samsung is meeting the letter of the law but not the spirit of the law”, implying that while not illegal, there should be greater transparency with the rating’s and specific modes used in future.

More testing is planned to see whether other manufacturer’s TVs have similar mode-dependant consumption rates, so watch this space.

[The Guardian, Samsung]

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Esat has been a gadget fan ever since his tiny four-year-old brain was captivated by a sound-activated dancing sunflower. From there it was a natural progression to a Sega Mega Drive, a brief obsession with hedgehogs, and a love for all things tech. After 7 years as a writer and deputy editor for Stuff, Esat ventured out into the corporate world, spending three years as Editor of Microsoft's European News Centre. Now a freelance writer, his appetite for shiny gadgets has no bounds. Oh, and like all good human beings, he's very fond of cats.