Toss the batteries! Samsung’s amazing new remote uses your Wi-Fi to charge

Samsung’s SolarCell Remote may be the first-ever to wirelessly charge via your router.

The South Korean tech giant took the solar-powered Eco Remote it introduced at last year’s CES and gave it a remarkable upgrade for CES 2022: the ability to harvest RF signals from your router to maintain a charge.

The concept of RF Energy harvesting is not new. The ubiquity of RF signals from Wi-Fi and outdoor cellular systems makes them an attractive, low-power energy solution for systems that can’t necessarily be connected to AC or DC wiring. But this may be the first time the technology has been employed in consumer electronics. Unlike other wireless charging solutions, such as the near-field Qi, the Eco Remote remote control doesn’t have to be very near or in contact with the router (it only works with 2.4GHz RF signals). RF Energy Harvesting can – unobstructed – reach devices up to 40 meters away.

Since the remote doesn’t need a charging base and employs a pair of wireless charging technologies (solar and RF energy harvesting), it can constantly sip energy from your router and, if face down, the solar panel on the back that can charge via your end table lamp. According to Samsung, the remote doesn’t need or even have batteries. There must be some place to store the sipped energy, however. Samsung told us, “There is no lithium-ion battery in the remote.” What it does have, according to Samsung, is a capacitor. A capacitor can store small amounts of energy. Unlike batteries that do it chemically, capacitors do it physically in a form akin to static electricity.