Telekom Slovenije d d : boosts its sustainability activities with the NEO TV platform

Ljubljana,

Tuesday, May 30, 2023

Telekom Slovenije boosts its sustainability activities with the NEO TV platform

​Telekom Slovenije's NEO TV platform has been a hit because of its state-of-the-art voice commands which introduced a completely new TV watching experience more than four years ago, as well as because its award-winning design and sustainable activities. The remotes, which are a joint development between Telekom Slovenije and Ruwido, the leading Austrian company for designing interactive remotes, received the 2019 German Design Award, and this year, with more than 200,000 are already in use, the partners began with a sustainable refurbishment project.

The remotes of the NEO TV platform are made from high-quality materials with a long lifespan and low energy use, and the components are suitable for refurbishing or reusing, as well as for recycling once their life cycle is complete. Just one example of a diligent and sustainable approach are the high-quality electronic circuit boards used, as they draw significantly less energy, thereby also extending battery life, compared to the cheaper and unoptimised circuits. Because of their patented design, careful selection of raw materials, recycling and small number of components, the carbon footprint of NEO remotes is two thirds lower than that of traditional remotes, with regular remotes chalking up 1.9 kg of carbon dioxide, while NEO remotes amount to just 0.5 kg of carbon dioxide.

This year Telekom Slovenije and Ruwido began refurbishing the NEO remotes. Every remote is first inspected, then the operation of the electronic components and keys is tested, and in the end, everything is given an antibacterial cleaning. The used plastic housing is made into granulate, which is used to make new housings, then refurbished electronics are added, and packaged in environmentally-friendly packaging. This means that the material of a used remote is utilised to make a new remote.

"The sustainable approach has been a part of our operations for over two decades; we strive to include the principles of sustainability in all of our operations, products, services and content. Recently we have furthered activities for reusing various materials, which includes refurbishing the remotes of our popular NEO TV platform; with the help of attractive and sustainable remotes users can easily watch and manage their TV content using voice commands. We will continue to upgrade these sustainability activities in the future," said Luca Borzatta, the Product and Service Development director at Telekom Slovenije.

NEO Smartbox is also designed to consume less power than its predecessors - and that in spite of the fact that its capabilities are several times greater. NEO Smartbox has a system default setting to automatically go to sleep after certain idle time, making sure that the TV set and the set-top box switch off when no one is watching. Users have the option to customize this setting, and can make it even shorter.

From 28 November of this year all of Telekom Slovenije's subscribers to TV services will be using the NEO TV platform. After this date the set-top boxes from Netgem, which use older technology, will cease to operate, and Telekom Slovenije has been encouraging users to swap the devices for the NEO Smartbox at no extra charge. Telekom Slovenije will make sure that all of the set-top boxes returned are ecologically deposited and recycled with care.

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