A new report published today by The Guardian claims that ComplianTV, an EU-funded organization, has found that Samsung’s TV are cheating on energy efficiency tests. Basically what this means is that Samsung TVs are believed to show lower energy consumption during tests as opposed to real-world situations, Samsung has strongly denied any wrongdoing and reiterates that its TVs are fully compliant with energy efficiency standards.
It didn’t take too long after this news broke for comparisons to be made between Samsung and Volkswagen. The German carmaker was recently found to have used software to fool diesel emissions tests for more than ten million cars all of which will now be refitted.
Samsung is accused of using a feature called motion lighting, apparently using this feature raises the possibility of the TV detecting that a test procedure is being run so it automatically reduces power consumption.
The company explains in a blog post that the motion lighting feature doesn’t just activate during compliance testing, rather it’s a default settings that works both in the lab and at the home to deliver “energy savings and helping us to reduce our environmental impact.”
Samsung does agree that not all users will watch TV with the motion lighting feature turn on, it says that the feature gives users full control over whether or not they want to prioritize power efficiency or the performance of their TV.
ComplianTV doesn’t see it that way though, project manager for the organization’s product lab tells The Guardian that “Samsung is meeting the letter of the law but not the spirit of the law.”