Samsung ends project for new type of remote control

An internal Samsung project to find a new way to interact with and control a television has reportedly come to an end. The project was led by the team at the media center software Boxee, which was acquired by Samsung two years ago.

According to Variety, the project was known internally as Perfect Experience, or PX. The goal of PX was to develop a media tablet that could replace the traditional remote control. The tablet would run software that combines content from live TV broadcasts and streaming services within a program guide. Analogous to Google’s Chromecast, users would select the content on the tablet and then send it to the television. Samsung is said to have planned to ship the tablet with all its high-end TVs in the future, according to sources that Variety has spoken to.

PX was developed by the team behind Boxee, the media center software purchased by Samsung two years ago. It employed 40 people at the time of the takeover, but Samsung is said to have scaled up the team to nearly 100 employees, who operated from its own office in New York. The original plan was to introduce the tablet in early 2015, but difficult negotiations with content partners, among other things, threw a spanner in the works. Samsung wanted to unlock the content directly from its own program guide, while the content providers preferred their own apps, between which you would have to switch.

Opinions about the project would also have been divided within Samsung. Its headquarters in Korea are said to have resisted the project, in part because it was developed entirely in the US, outside its sphere of influence. A large part of the team behind PX would have been fired and former Boxee CEO Avner Ronen would also have left Samsung.