One of the earliest examples of remote
control was developed in 1893 by
Nikola Tesla, and described in
his patent,
U.S. Patent 613809 ,
named Method of and Apparatus for Controlling Mechanism of
Moving Vehicle or Vehicles.In
1903,
Leonardo Torres Quevedo presented the Telekino at the Paris
Academy of Science, accompanied by a brief, and making an
experimental demonstration. In the same year, he obtained a
patent in France, Spain, Great Britain, and the
United States. The Telekino consisted of a
robot
that executed commands transmitted by electromagnetic waves. It
constituted the world's first apparatus for radio control and
was a pioneer in the field of remote control. In
1906,
in the presence of the king and before a great crowd, Torres
successfully demonstrated the invention in the
port of Bilbao, guiding a boat from the shore. Later, he
would try to apply the Telekino to projectiles and torpedoes,
but had to abandon the project for lack of financing.
The first remote-controlled model
aeroplane flew in 1932, and the use of remote control technology
for military purposes was worked intensively during the Second
World War, one result of this being the German
Wasserfall missile.
The first remote intended to control a
television was developed by
Zenith Radio Corporation in the early 1950s. The remote —
unofficially called "Lazy Bones" was connected to the
television set by a wire. To improve the cumbersome setup, a
wireless remote control called "Flashmatic" was developed
in
1955 which worked by shining a beam of light onto a
photoelectric cell. Unfortunately, the cells did not distinguish
between light from the remote and light from other sources and
the Flashmatic also required that the remote control be pointed
very accurately at the receiver.
|
The Zenith Space
Command remote control
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In 1956
Robert Adler developed "Zenith Space Command", a wireless
remote. It was mechanical and used ultrasound to change the
channel and volume. When the user pushed a button on the remote
control it clicked and struck a bar, hence the term "clicker".
Each bar emitted a different frequency and circuits in the
television detected this noise. The invention of the transistor
made possible cheaper electronic remotes that contained a
piezoelectric crystal that was fed by an oscillating
electric current at a
frequency near or above the upper threshold of human
hearing, though still audible to
dogs.
The receiver contained a microphone attached to a circuit that
was tuned to the same frequency. Some problems with this method
were that the receiver could be triggered accidentally by
naturally occurring noises, and some people, especially young
women, could hear the piercing ultrasonic signals. There was
even a noted incident in which a toy xylophone changed the
channels on these types of TVs since some of the overtones from
the xylophone matched the remote's ultrasonic frequency.
The impetus for a more complex type of
television remote control came in the late 1970s with the
development of the
Ceefax
teletext service by the
BBC.
Most commercial remote controls at that time had a limited
number of functions, sometimes only four: next station, previous
station, increase or decrease volume. This type of control did
not meet the needs of teletext sets where pages were identified
with three-digit numbers. A remote control to select teletext
pages would need buttons for each number from zero to nine, as
well as other control functions, such as switching from text to
picture, and the normal television controls of volume, station,
brightness, colour intensity and so on. Early teletext sets used
wired remote controls to select pages but the continuous use of
the remote control required for teletext quickly indicated the
need for a wireless device. So BBC engineers began talks with
one or two television manufacturers which led to early
prototypes in around 1977-78 that could control a much larger
number of functions.
ITT
was one of the companies and later gave its name to the
ITT protocol of infrared communication.
[1]
In the 80’s Steve Wozniak of Apple,
started a company named CL9. The purpose of this company was to
create a remote control which could operate multiple electronic
devices. The CORE unit as it was named (Controller Of Remote
Equipment) was introduced in the fall of 1987. The advantage to
this remote controller was that it could “learn” remote signals
from other different devices. It also had the ability to perform
specific or multiple functions at various times with its built
in clock. It was also the first remote control which could be
linked to a computer and loaded with updated software code as
needed. The CORE unit never made a huge impact of the market. It
was much too cumbersome for the average user to program, but it
received rave reviews from those who could figure out how to
program it. These obstacles eventually lead to the demise of
CL9, but one of its employees continued the business under the
name Celadon. This was one of the first computer controlled
learning remote controls on the market.
[2]
By the early 2000s, the number of consumer
electronic devices in most homes greatly increased. According to
the
Consumer Electronics Association, an average American home
has four remotes. To operate a
home theater as many as five or six remotes may be required,
including one for cable or satellite receiver,
VCR
or
digital video recorder, DVD player,
TV and audio amplifier. Several of these remotes may need to
be used sequentially, but, as there are no accepted interface
guidelines, the process is increasingly cumbersome. Many
specialists, including
Jakob Nielsen
[3], a renowned usability specialist and
Robert Adler, the inventor of the modern remote, note how
confusing, unwieldy and frustrating the multiplying remotes have
become.
