Samsung OCB – One Connect Box and one clear cable

Cable clutter behind a TV wall mount installation has long been an issue both for the installer and the client.  Who would have thought you could combine it all into one.
Samsung has released their One Connect Box, or OCB for short.  Utilizing Samsungs propriety “One Clear Cable” which carries all the required TV signals, power and HDMI signals with one thin slim wire.

You might be left with a lot of unanswered questions about this new technology, such as

– What is the one connect box?
– How does the one clear cable work?
– Conduit size required for the One Clear Cable

What is the Samsung One Connect Box?

The Samsung One Connect Box (OCB) is a central receptacle for all the required signals and cables that normally need to be directly connected to the TV.
This device receives data, power and signals from all the devices normally connected to a TV, and transmits it through one small cable to your Samsung TV.
The inputs vary depending on which year model your OCB box is, however generally available is 240v power input, 4 HDMI inputs, two USB ports, TV antenna RF input,
and digital audio optical input (SPDIF).

What is the Samsung One Clear Cable?

The extremely thin One Clear Cable has a chipset inside each head, one end modulates all the signals from the OCB  into a data stream that is transmitted
within a fiber optic cable, an astounding capacity of upto 75 gigabits.  The same cable also carries power to the TV most likely via two separate cores.  The voltage used is unknown.
The cable is white in colour which allows it to blend into surrounding walls with a minimum visual impact on TV wall mounting installs

Conduit size required for the One Clear Cable

When doing many TV Wall Mounting jobs in Perth, I have found that the Samsung One Clear Cable often fails to fit through many conduits even after salesman or electricians have guaranteed the customer fitment during the sale of their build or consultation when buying their new TV.  Let’s take a look at the width of the cable head, its about 25mm in diameter.  The conduit we were presented with in this house was a 32mm conduit.  Keep in mind this refers to the outside diameter of the tube.  With the 2mm wall thickness on each side, gives an inside diameter of 28mm.

Given our measurements, a 25mm plug head should be expected to fit inside a 28mm internal diameter of the conduit.  It manages to go in leaving no gaps, then gets stuck.
The problem being is that the head has a thickness of about 13mm.  As the conduit internal diameter is only 28mm as it’s widest, and thinner away from the centre line, causing the edges of the plug housing to get stuck

We notice this cable head has a plastic housing, which with a precision flat head screwdriver were able to gently pop open and remove, exposing the metal shielding that houses the internal chipset.  The removal of the plastic housing makes the cable head much smaller allowing it to now fit into the conduit with ease.  This conduit did have a corrugated bend, which should not be used unless absolutely necessary as the cable head can get stuck in the corrugations on tight bends.

We would recommend a 32mm conduit at absolute minimum for One Clear Cables, ideally a 40mm conduit for 100% for guaranteed fitment and no need to remove the cover housings of the plug heads

With a replacement cost of $299 from retailers such as Harvey Norman, this is not a cheap cable and all precaution must be taken not to damage it during wall mounting your TV.  The Samsung one clear cable and one connect box provide a great solution for neater installs and less cabling and solve many traditional problems presented when wall mounting a TV