Confirmed: Samsung’s Evolution Kit to return in 2015

It wasn’t mentioned during the Samsung CES presser, but older TVs will be upgradeable, as Samsung confirms to us that the Evolution Kits will make an appearance in 2015.

Remember Samsung’s “Evolution Kit” concept, the idea that promised to make TVs sold from 2012 still just as modern as their newer siblings being brought into this world? If you don’t, the idea was basically a hardware patch that you could stick on the back of TVs bought from Samsung’s Series 7, Series 8, and Series 9 televisions, a patch that would essentially include some new hardware and upgrade some of the software to make your old TV work a little like the new TVs being released.

You wouldn’t get a new panel from the gadget, but it could speed up the processing hardware while also delivering a new software experience, making that slightly older TV still feel new, a bit like giving your car a new radio and some of that fresh new car smell we all like so much.

Samsung has included the technology in some of its TVs since 2012, with compatible Full HD TVs supporting Samsung’s “Evolution Kit”, while Ultra HD TVs had their own model called the “One Connect Evolution Kit”, and essentially, if your TV supported the gadget, you could give it a minor update.

But while Samsung talked up the technology back when we were at CES in 2013, even showing the boxes off to the world, we haven’t heard much mentioned about the tech since then, only spotting the 2014 Evolution Kit at a stand during the Samsung Forum in Indonesia. We’re sure it was sold, but we didn’t see much about it.

So this year, we weren’t surprised when the Samsung CES 2015 keynote didn’t have anything to say about the Evolution Kit.

Samsung's Evolution Kit for Full HD TVs has been a small black box. What will it be this year? (Probably more of the same)

Fortunately, we’ve checked with Samsung, and it has said that it will offer both the Evolution Kit and One Connect Evolution Kit in Australia in 2015.

We haven’t seen one yet, and we’re curious to see if Samsung will run Tizen on the Evolution Kit, as that’s the operating system Samsung is going for in its 2015 range of Smart TVs.

We’re also trying to find out which TVs this will be compatible with, specifically to see if this will cut off the now three year old 2012-era TVs.

Still, it’s at least positive news for owners of the older TVs, especially if they were curious to see if Samsung would keep its Evolution Kit upgrade idea around.