The Terrace — Samsung’s versatile and durable outdoor TV is featured right at the center of the Postojna Cave Park, Slovenia — the world’s most captivating cave with magnificent formations and diverse fauna. During the unforgettable visit to a fascinating subterranean paradise shaped by tiny droplets over millions of years, more than one million visitors each year will be able to closely observe, through The Terrace, the life of very unique inhabitants of the cave — the olms. Olms have triggered people’s imagination since time immemorial, and legend has it that they are actually baby dragons. They remain something of a mystery even today and are considered the largest cave-dwelling animal that can go without food for up to 10 years and live up to 100 years.

The olms are now gaining greater attention after The Terrace (65-inch) were installed inside the cave. The Terrace provides visitors with an immersive experience by allowing them to closely observe the olms and their habitat. Moreover, The Terrace is the perfect TV to be placed even in the cave, where the humidity is always high and temperatures are constantly low (around 10 degrees Celsius). This outdoor TV has obtained the IP55 certification from the International Electrotechnical Commission for water and dust resistance. It can also withstand different weather conditions, even when the temperate drops as low as minus 31° to 50° Celsius (minus 24° to 122° Fahrenheit).

Postojna Cave Park frequently hosts many diverse events, from gala concerts to spectacular performances by world-renowned artists. The Terrace can also be used to display other types of content. It is especially fitting, because it offers high visibility thanks to its anti-reflection technology, which reduces the reflection of light off of its surface. The AI picture quality optimization technology adjusts the screen’s brightness automatically, based on changing light conditions.

The Terrace will for sure enhance the visitor’s experience of the underworld and its inhabitants. “Samsung The Terrace added to our dedication to showcase the world-renowned attraction and to preserve the olms. Our efforts were recognized by the E.U. Commission, which has placed Postojna Cave among the top finalists of the international competition Natura 2000,” said Katja Dolenc Batagelj, Managing Director of Postojna Cave.

“We are pleased that Samsung can be a part of the Postojna Cave experience which is about preserving the environment and natural wonders for future generations. We hope The Terrace will allow visitors to have a vivid and immersive experience,” said Matija Savnik, the Head of Samsung Slovenia CE Sales team.

Samsung Electronics and the Museo Nacional del Prado have partnered to offer an all-new multimedia experience for the visitors of the Prado Museum, offering crisp and vibrant audiovisual content from the Museum in the Jerónimos Terrace using Samsung’s The Terrace. Visitors to the Museum can now view a selection of the Museum’s stunning audiovisual content while enjoying a break during their visit to the art gallery.

Samsung The Terrace that is specifically designed to bring the full indoor entertainment experience outside has been installed on the terrace of Café Prado—a free access space next to the entrance of the Jerónimos Terrace.

Designed with weather in mind – with an IP55 rating, The Terrace’s display boasts weather-resistant durability against water and dust, and comes fitted for easy installation outdoors across a variety of settings. The Terrace also offers a crystal-clear display to increase visibility in all sorts of outdoor conditions. It provides a brightness level of 2,000 nits, ensuring that users will be able to enjoy content in vivid picture quality, even in broad daylight.

Since 2013, Samsung has been a technological partner of the Prado Museum. Through the partnership, the companies have developed different initiatives and multimedia proposals to bring art to the wider public.

▲ (From left) Kyuseong Lee, Kang-il Chung and Sunwoo Kim, the lifestyle TV product planners at Samsung Electronics’ Visual Display Business

The characteristics of TVs are continuing to evolve in line with the latest trends and lifestyle patterns. Against this backdrop, the role of the television has expanded. Whereas it used to simply be a device for delivering entertainment, the TV has now become a central component of users’ interior design schemes.

To keep up with emerging trends, Samsung Electronics has continued to think outside the box as it explores new possibilities for TVs. Since 2015, the company has been continuously pushing the envelope to develop new looks and features on its televisions, and ensure that consumers can fit their TV to their lifestyle. So, how did Samsung come up with its lifestyle TV line, and what kind of consumer experience is it aiming to provide? To find out, Samsung Newsroom met with the company’s lifestyle TV product planners, who have contributed to solutions ranging from The Serif to The Terrace.

Lifestyle TVs: Becoming More Than Just a Fixture of the Living Room

Vivid picture and a sense of immersion are two fundamental elements that a television must provide, with a well designed product capable of delivering both. Nowadays, lifestyles are shifting, and viewing has moved out of the living room, with people preferring to consume their content in whichever room they are in at the time.

“Our goal was to allow consumers to have a range of different screens for the various spaces in their house,” said group leader Kang-il Chung. “This would allow them to enjoy whatever content they wanted, wherever they were, based on Samsung’s ‘Screens Everywhere’ philosophy.” Chung’s work involves analyzing tech trends and usage patterns, which allowed him to start determining which new features users want from their television.

“In order to establish concepts for new TV products and functions, we look at things like how televisions are being used, interior decoration trends and the overall cultural and lifestyle preferences of our users,” explained product planner Kyuseong Lee. During the planning stage, the product planners focus on connecting the desired user experience to the essence of the product. By doing this, the team seeks to make it easier for the user to comprehend both the product’s story and the distinct experience it offers. Added Lee, “Rather than simply adding lots of different functions, we work to clearly define the main concept of the product, then make it different. In this way, we look to realize all aspects of the core experience to perfection.”

The Serif and The Frame: Bringing Classy Décor to Your Other Rooms

Since the time of its invention, the television has been considered a staple of the living room. But now, with a growing number of users also putting TVs in rooms like their bedrooms and studies, this is changing. In line with this trend, Samsung has expanded what it deems the ‘TV space’ from the living room to a range of other rooms. Along with this, the company has started to develop televisions that not only suit the interior aesthetics of those other rooms, but include features that match the needs and lifestyles of the people using the rooms.

In September of 2015, Samsung introduced its first lifestyle TV, The Serif, which was designed to contribute to users’ interior design schemes. The Serif’s iconic I-shaped design was created by the internationally renowned Bouroullec Brothers, and is an ideal choice for those who want an aesthetically pleasing television that goes well in any space. “We pursued a meaningful design that emphasized people and space, and tried to get away from the usual ‘TV look’,” said Chung. “A lot of consumers claim that The Serif looks more like a lifestyle product than a TV.”

The product planning team’s ongoing efforts to develop new models that blend well with their surrounding environments also contributed to the development of The Frame. Looking like a modern picture frame, this television can be matched to any home décor style and features an ‘Art Mode’ that allows viewers to enjoy artistic masterpieces from the comfort of their homes. The TV’s sensors are also capable of automatically detecting illumination intensity and movement. “Samsung is collaborating with world-renowned curators, renowned art galleries, museums and artists to deliver a broad collection of art through the Art Store,” related Sunwoo Kim. “We will keep working hard to ensure that we are able to display an increasingly broad range of great artworks in stunning resolution.”

Thinking Outside the Box: The Sero for Millennials

And Samsung’s ‘think outside the box’ development philosophy goes beyond considerations of space and expands to form. Whereas a typical television has a horizontal, 16:9-aspect-ratio screen, modern viewers’ increasing use of mobile devices means that watching content on vertical screens is becoming more and more common. The Millennial generation’s tendency to watch things on their smartphones, in particular, has contributed to the increased prominence of vertically displayed content. Thus, The Sero was developed as an answer to the question, ‘what if we could make the TV screen rotatable so that it could better match the lifestyles of Millennial users?’

The Sero is the result of this bold idea. “Developing the Sero with a rotating screen was a long and challenging journey, as it was like we were exploring unchartered territory,” said the product planners. The team had to consider a broad range of factors, such as whether the user would rotate the screen manually or whether it would rotate automatically. The project brought many different teams together as they set out to create a whole new consumer experience, with their efforts eventually culminating in ‘The Sero’. “We are witnessing an increasing amount of consumption of vertical, short-form content on social networking sites,” remarked Chung. “And The Sero allows viewers to use screen mirroring to watch this content in a full screen, immersive format.”

Expanding to Other Spaces: The Premiere and The Terrace

Over time, the focus of Samsung’s Lifestyle TVs has shifted again. Due to the pandemic, many people prefer watching movies at home to going to the theater these days. The Premiere is specifically designed for those who want to create a theater-like environment in their homes. This easy-to-install model boasts a large, theater-like screen with very sharp picture quality. “With The Premiere, you can enjoy your favorite content on an ultra-large screen from the comfort of your home,” related Kim. “With a premium fabric finish, The Premiere also serves as an excellent complement to your interior décor.”

In the current climate, more people are also making use of private outdoor spaces such as balconies. In line with such consumer lifestyle changes, Samsung has introduced its first outdoor TV model, The Terrace. With superior water and dust resistance, The Terrace delivers an outstanding viewing experience regardless of rain, heat or other adverse weather events. Said Lee, “Going forward, the outdoor TV market is expected to grow exponentially. The Terrace provides an optimal outdoor viewing experience, delivering exceptionally vivid and detailed images in both the sunlight and the shade.”

As our TVs become increasingly important parts of our lives, some argue that the evolution of the product is nearing its conclusion. But Chung thinks differently, claiming that, “There is still an unending range of possibilities for what our televisions might become in the future.” He expressed hope that himself and his team will be able to keep introducing new and varied lifestyle TV models to keep providing fresh experiences to consumers.

Samsung’s lifestyle TV product planners believe that TVs need to keep evolving in order to keep up with continuously changing lifestyles. “We want to develop TVs that people want to own, and that they’ll want to show off,” Kim stressed. “Our dream is to build a so-called ‘lifestyle universe’ where each space is equipped with a lifestyle TV that suits the function of the space.”

Samsung Electronics lberia has announced that Samsung Neo QLED, QLED 8K and 4K, Crystal UHD, The Frame, The Serif, The Sero, The Terrace and The Premiere have all received ATECH certification from the ONCE Foundation accrediting their accessibility for people with disabilities in Spain.

These seals’ award was revealed at an event held at the ONCE Foundation headquarters, also announcing the new ATECH distinction. In attendance were Jesús Hernández, Director of Accessibility and Innovation and the ONCE Foundation; and Alfonso Fernández, Director of Institutional Relations and the Digital Transformation at Samsung Electronics Iberia, who explained the characteristics of this seal proving the accessibility of these devices.

This new ONCE Foundation seal accredits the accessibility of electronic products and services such as Smart TVs, laptop computers, household appliances and videogames consoles for people with disabilities. All of Samsung’s certified products meet the accessibility requirements for technologies with closed functionality, as per European standard EN 301 549.

Alfonso Fernández, Director of Institutional Relations and the Digital Transformation at Samsung Electronics Iberia said, “Obtaining the ATECH seal for various TV models is a significant achievement for the company and encourages us to keep on working to guarantee all of our products may be accessible for everyone.”

Jesús Hernández, Director of Universal Accessibility and Innovation at the ONCE Foundation, underlined the fact that “it is important for manufacturers to take into account the needs of people with disabilities in order to achieve equal opportunities and non-discrimination as well as offer such information clearly and transparently and that is our goal.”

The Samsung TVs were certified by the ONCE Foundation because they have the proper features for people who are completely blind, have limited eyesight or are color blind as well as for those who are completely or partially deaf, have moderate or severe difficulties using their hands, cannot speak or have limited cognitive capacity.

The devices are equipped with different functionalities that foster use by people with disabilities such as a very complete and easy-to-use accessibility menu. They come with the option of activating some features when being turned on for the first time so that the affected person may set everything up without needing any assistance from anyone else. Televisions certified with the ATECH seal include features such as an operation mode requiring no vision, audio descriptions and accessibility subtitles.

Samsung Electronics today announced that all models¹ of The Terrace TV, the premium product line designed for outdoor lifestyles, have become the first in the TV industry to be verified for outdoor visibility performance.

This verification comes from U.S.-based Underwriters Laboratories (UL), a global independent safety science organization with over a century of experience in driving safety solution innovation.

In normal outdoor settings, consumers must find means to block sunlight to gain appropriate visibility, which has been a major issue across relevant product categories. To receive this verification, a product must undergo several rounds of rigorous testing, in which peak brightness of over 3,000 ~ 4,000 nits,² a higher contrast ratio of over 1,000:1, and color volume greater than 80 percent should be altogether achieved under over 10,000 LUX condition. The Terrace TV has displayed outstanding performance in these three key areas so viewers can enjoy clear, vivid images even in bright outdoors.

It also features Samsung’s premium QLED display, anti-reflection technology which reduces light reflection from its surface, as well as AI picture quality optimization technology for automatic brightness adjustment.

In addition to Samsung’s OH55A, an outdoor signage product which uses the same outdoor visibility technologies as The Terrace, also received visibility verification.

Samsung also recognizes the importance of weather resistance against rain and dust for outdoor TV set models. The company obtained IP55 water and dust resistance standard certification from International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC), which together with the latest UL verification will play a pivotal role in fortifying Samsung’s efforts to provide an optimal viewing experience in various outdoor conditions.

“UL’s outdoor visibility verification for The Terrace will enable consumers across the globe to further add values to their viewing experiences,” said Yong Hoon Choi, Executive Vice President of Visual Display Business at Samsung Electronics. “As a leader in the TV industry, Samsung will continue to drive innovative technologies that are optimized for new and emerging lifestyles.”

¹ LST9 65- and 75-inch, LST7 55-, 65- and 75-inch

² Brightness of LTS7: 4,000 nits, Brightness of LTS9: 3,000nits.

Starting with the release of The Serif in 2016, Samsung Electronics has been delivering televisions that closely reflect the lifestyles of its users. In May of 2020, Samsung’s first outdoor TV, The Terrace, was launched in the North American market (alongside The Terrace Soundbar) as part of the company’s expanding lifestyle TV portfolio.

According to market research publisher QY Research, the global numbers for outdoor TV sales – which stood at around 170,000 units in 2018 – are expected to hit 440,000 units by 2024.

But exactly how different is an outdoor TV from a regular television? Read on for Newsroom’s deep dive into the features and benefits of Samsung’s new The Terrace and The Terrace Soundbar offerings.

Clean, Sharp Picture Quality in a Range of Conditions

Walking the streets, it is not uncommon to see people shading their phones from the sunlight and struggling to make out what is on their screens. This happens when the brightness of the phone’s display is not high enough to counter the glare caused by the external light source, and is also an issue that affects outdoor TVs.

However, with The Terrace delivering an average brightness level of 2,000 nits (and a peak brightness level of 4,000 nits), users can comfortably view content even in broad daylight. With its QLED display, anti-reflection technology that eases glare and Adaptive Picture feature that automatically optimizes the display’s brightness according to the surrounding lighting conditions, both visibility and top-tier picture quality are ensured.

The Terrace is powered by Tizen, an open-source platform that allows content from Netflix, YouTube, Amazon Prime Video and Disney+ to be streamed with vivid picture quality, regardless of which operating system is being used. This service additionally supports the Apple TV app¹ and AirPlay 2.² With built-in Wi-Fi and LAN, The Terrace can be used simply and conveniently without the need for additional purchases or connections.

There are a host of ways for users to enjoy mobile content on a large screen with The Terrace as well. For instance, Tap View feature allows what is displayed on the user’s Galaxy smartphone to be mirrored on their TV screen with a single tap. What’s more, Multi View feature allows the TV screen to play media from multiple sources, allowing users to watch TV on part of the screen while mirroring their phone screen on another part.

When it comes to a TV that is intended for use outdoors, resistance to rain, wind and dust is of high importance. The Terrace carries an IP55 certification from the International Electrotechnical Commission, meaning that it delivers reliable water and dust resistance, and ensures peace of mind for users whose televisions are subjected to adverse conditions. The IP Code rates the level of protection a product carries against the ingress of dust, water or contaminants, with IP55 meaning that the product is highly protected against dust and will work without fault in the rain.

Experience Deep, Rich Sound With The Terrace Soundbar

A TV designed for use outdoors must, by necessity, deliver sound differently from those that are used indoors. The Terrace Soundbar was built to accompany The Terrace television and provide rich sound to complete the premium viewing experience. Distortion Cancelling was applied to The Terrace Soundbar to enable it to deliver deep, powerful low-register output without the need for an accompanying subwoofer. A total of four woofers in The Terrace Soundbar create 210 watts of sound to enhance the sense of immersion for the viewer.

To add convenience to the viewing experience, both The Terrace and The Terrace Soundbar can be controlled by a single remote, which also features support for Wi-Fi and Bluetooth^®. What’s more, the Tap Sound feature allows users to enjoy music or sounds from their Galaxy smartphone on The Terrace soundbar with a single tap too. The Terrace Soundbar likewise carries IP55 dust and water protection to allow users to enjoy premium television audio in a broad range of conditions, worry-free.

According to its vision of ‘Screens Everywhere’, Samsung Electronics has been expanding into areas such as ultra-high definition, new form factors and new viewing spaces, and in the process charting new waters as far as the television viewing experience. We expect to see The Terrace make a mark as it stretches the home entertainment experience into the outdoor environment.

¹ Apple’s new video content streaming service, launched in the first half of 2019, which provides access to a range of content including movies and TV series

² A feature that allows music, videos, and images stored on an Apple device to be streamed or viewed on external devices