Samsung TVs reportedly use less power in efficiency tests than in real-life situations

SAMSUNG has been pulled into a scandal after it has been alleged the company have been cheating on product inspections.

Samsung accused of cheating on tests

SAMSUNG has been pulled into a scandal after it has been alleged the company have been cheating on product inspections.

An independent group that receives funding from the European Union recently discovered some of Samsung’s televisions used vastly less amounts of energy during testing than they do in the real world.

Lab tests carried out by ComplianTV discovered Samsung’s ‘motion lighting’ feature, which reduces the televisions brightness and power consumption, may have been used to fool energy-consumption tests.

“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. Such phenomenon was not proved within the ComplianTV tests, but some tested TVs gave the impression that they detected a test situation,” the company wrote in a report.

Samsung strongly denies the allegations claiming the setting is used in many real-world scenarios and can be easily controlled by viewers.

“Motion lighting 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,” the company wrote in a blog.

“We are immensely proud of these technologies and look forward to innovating further in this area.”

Despite Samsung’s rebuttal to the claims, The European Commission has said it will investigate the issue further and has promised to tighten energy efficiency regulations to prevent this problem for occurring again in the future.

“The commission is proposing specific text to clarify that [the use of defeat devices] is illegal and that products found to behave differently under test conditions cannot be considered compliant,” a spokesman told The Guardian.

“The commission will investigate whether this practice is used in other product sectors.”