The best changes in technology are usually not major leaps in innovation. However, when it comes to consumer products, where product cycles are year-long, attempts at this type of sweeping innovation are as likely to falter as they are to have a meaningful impact.

Iterative fine-tuning, on the other hand, can bring about small but lasting change. It is usually in smaller tweaks that products are fine-tuned and progress from "good" to "great" in a few tweaks at a time. And my favorite of the smaller changes so far in 2021 is Samsung's Solar Cell Remote, a solar-powered remote control that will be bundled with the new Samsung Neo QLED TVs. Not only is this my favorite of Samsung's 2021 TV lineup, but it may be the smartest TV change of the year.

Indeed, I spend a lot of time thinking about the details of TV design and interaction. As a reviewer, I deal with many TV remotes and have an opinion on all of them. However, the remote control is always something of an inconvenience. The remote control has to learn a new interface, it is another device that is easy to lose, and it is another product that needs batteries

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However, the last weakness could be solved. To improve the sustainability of its TV products, Samsung has revamped the packaging, eliminating the use of petroleum-based inks and using more recycled plastic in manufacturing. (Its new remote controls are also 24% recycled plastic.) The best move, however, was the addition of rechargeable batteries and solar cells on the back of the TV remote controls.

In terms of environmental impact, this is a pretty big change. When our Kate Kozuch interviewed Mike Kadish, Samsung's director of product marketing, he briefly described it as follows:" Each remote comes with two triple-A batteries, and if we can keep two triple-A batteries out of landfills, multiply that by all the millions of TVs we sell and our scale is not worth talking about. In fact, Samsung estimates that the seven-year life of a single solar remote control rechargeable battery would prevent 99 million batteries from being used and discarded.

A side effect of this change, however, is that you will no longer be stuck in that awkward moment when you open Netflix but can't choose a movie because the battery just ran out. A small solar battery on the back of the remote control can draw enough power from indoor lighting to sustain the rechargeable battery for up to two years before it needs to be plugged into the remote control (via the USB-C port) to recharge.

And this is innovation at its best, solving multiple problems at once. This is not a new technology, but rather an application of the solar technology from the pocket calculators of the 80's to a TV remote control. Thanks to this change, your life will be a little easier and the world a little better.

It is also a change that many manufacturers are not willing to make. It is a small convenience, and 99% of the time, users will not even notice it. It takes time and budget that could have been used to develop more impressive features, it complicates the manufacturing process, and no one will buy a $1,000+ TV because of the remote control design.

Not all of my complaints about TV remotes have been addressed. I would like to see programmable buttons for my favorite apps instead of dedicated buttons which is basically a paid promotion. Having a button on the TV that beeps the remote would make finding the remote much easier (I don't know how many times my toddler has found a new place to hide the remote or put it in the trash). Backlit buttons or glow-in-the-dark paint would make the controls much easier to see when watching movies in a dark room.

However, I would not have to search through a junk drawer, and I would be able to watch movies with the peace of mind of a new AAA battery. That would be one less thing to worry about. Isn't that what we really want from technology?