Samsung TVs accused of ‘cheating efficiency tests’

Samsung has denied claims made by The Guardian that its TVs have a special power saving mode which is only used in laboratory testing to give the impression of better energy efficiency.

Samsung has come out fighting after an article in the Guardian claimed that Samsung TVs appear more energy-efficient in labs than in real-life, saying that it “firmly rejects this suggestion”.

In a string of bans, penalties and product recalls that are crippling world industrial giants one by one, an unlikely candidate for energy efficiency forgery, Samsung, has joined the fray after the European Commission has found that its products appear to use less energy during official testing conditions than they do during real world use, raising concerns of tests being set up to meet European ecological standards.

“There is no comparison [between motion lighting and VW defeat devices]”, a Samsung spokesman said.

Samsung has been accused of fixing its TVs to use less energy under official testing conditions, drawing parallels with the recent Volkswagen scandal. I looked at the power consumption of the TV in the state I had last left it in, which was on Standard mode with no LED motion blur reduction switched on.

For its part, a Samsung spokesperson told the paper: “This is not a setting that only activates during compliance testing”. 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. “[It] remains on whenever the customer chooses to watch their TV in Standard viewing mode”.

‘Consistently high energy consumption rates’

. “Not only that, the content used for testing energy consumption has been designed by the global Electrotechnical commission to best model actual average picture level internationally”. Research group ComplianTV found that in real-world situations, the power-reducing features seen in the labs were not activated.

To make it more credible, the company says that “motion lighting” is, in fact, a feature that reduces screen brightness in regard to fast-moving action movies and sports to slow-moving footage like weather reports.

The European Commission says it will investigate any evidence of manufacturers cheating the tests and has said it will tighten energy efficiency regulations to outlaw the use of so-called “defeat devices” on TVs and other consumer products.

ComplianTV said in February: “The laboratories observed different TV behaviours during the measurements and this raised the possibility of the TV’s detecting a test procedure and adapting their power consumption accordingly”.