Epishine Solar Cells Power the Google TV Remote

Indoor Organic Solar Cells Just Made the TV Remote Self-Charging

Thirty years ago, Professor Olle Inganäs sat in a research lab in Linköping, Sweden, working on organic solar cells when colleagues considered it professional suicide. Silicon dominated the field. The energy crisis had faded from public memory. Nobody was printing solar cells on flexible plastic film. Nobody, that is, except his group at Linköping University.

On November 18, 2025, that thirty-year bet paid off. Epishine, the LiU spin-off built on Inganäs's research, announced its indoor organic solar cell technology was selected to power the new Google TV G32 remote control through Ohsung Electronics, Google's official reference remote supplier. The remote never needs batteries. It charges itself from the light already in the room.

How Indoor Organic Solar Cell Technology Actually Works

Silicon solar cells need direct sunlight. They belong on rooftops, not living rooms. In contrast, Epishine's cells are optimized to react to the light from indoor lamps, harvesting ambient illumination and converting it into electricity — enough to power small connected devices continuously.

The manufacturing process is what makes it scalable. Metre after metre of thin plastic film rolls through a coating machine. It receives a 100-nanometre layer of light-sensitive material where photons are converted into charge carriers. The result is small, flexible, transparent modules that stay robust despite their thinness. Furthermore, the cells are bifacial — solar panels sit on both sides of the remote. Consequently, the device harvests light whether it's face-up or face-down on a table.

Made with organic materials and printed at industrial scale, the cells capture ambient light already present in every room. They convert it into continuous, maintenance-free power. The remote only runs out of charge if it disappears into a dark sofa cushion for an extended stretch. That's not a design flaw. That's how far the technology has come.

From a Linköping Lab to Millions of Living Rooms

Epishine began production in autumn 2018. The company based its process on decades of organic electronics research, developing everything from lab stage to industrial production. It remains in Linköping, operating within the same university research environment that created the original technology.

Anders Kottenauer, CEO of Epishine, described the milestone simply: the Google collaboration shows how light-power technology can support global companies in their sustainability goals while making everyday electronics cheaper to design and easier to use. Each year, billions of disposable batteries are discarded worldwide. Moreover, most TV remotes spend their entire lives indoors, far from sunlight, making them the perfect first product for indoor organic solar cell technology to replace.

The Google TV G32 remote is therefore the first mass-market proof that this approach can eliminate disposable batteries at scale. The rooftop solar panel gets all the attention. However, the one printed on your remote control may end up doing more for daily sustainability than any panel on any roof.