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Remote controls. Why are they terrible? Why is no one fixing them? Why is it literally impossible to walk into a friend's house and decipher the tangle of re

by tdees40 11y ago

Remote controls. Why are they terrible? Why is no one fixing them? Why is it literally impossible to walk into a friend's house and decipher the tangle of remotes for TV, cable box, XBox, sound system, etc, etc. I'm staying with friends for a few days and literally couldn't watch TV.

aschampion 11y ago
I interned at a digital subscription television receiver manufacturer eons ago. One day I was given several boxes full of random remotes, a microcontroller with an IR receiver, and an oscilloscope. I spent the next month deciphering coding schemes for dozen of remotes, which were usually undocumented or documentation-contradicting. The amazing part was how little standardization even individual vendors had, with few encodings having any real advantage over others. The purpose of all of this was so the receiver could IR blast commands to the rest of the customers' devices. AFAIK the only place this was used was for triggering VCR recording, which was amusing given we were working on early DVRs. The whole time I was thinking how short-sighted this was given we'd certainly be using some standard protocol in a few years since the home media center was going digital. In the early 2000s all the incidental annoyances in digital electronics still seemed like temporary problems that would be swept away by constant disruption as they had been in the 90s, as opposed to the entrenched problems we were stuck with in other technologies.
jewel 11y ago
I believe HDMI CEC is a potential solution to this. It is a way to send keystrokes (remote-strokes?) back up the HDMI cable from the TV to the set-top box. This means that there's no need to have a separate remote. Now, all that needs to happen is the number of buttons per remote need to be reduced as the menus improve, and as some features are automated. It works well with the Nexus Player, for example.
shas3 11y ago
Even Apple didn't bother to put in any thought into their remote control design. They ship the Apple TV with an IR remote (in the era of Bluetooth LE!) which is too painful to operate. Luckily, the Remote App works pretty well.
- perfTerm 11y ago
  Yea I'm pretty conflicted about my opinion of that remote On the one hand it's simple, it's sleek, and it works. On the other hand it's so small it gets lost all the time, typing is awful, and for a while when I was getting used to it I'd hit the arrows when I was trying to click the center button.
cbd1984 11y ago
> Remote controls. Why are they terrible? They're the pinnacle of 1980s consumer electronics technology. Or, well, they're close to the top of the digital electronics we put into analog TVs, anyway. > Why is no one fixing them? Because "TV" manufacturers haven't fully internalized the idea that all screens in a consumer's home are, fundamentally, display devices for various computing equipment, all of which is likely on a WiFi LAN, or should be. Some of that computing equipment includes an ATSC tuner, and is likely built into the display itself, but we have HDMI for a reason.
dublinben 11y ago
Universal remote controls are a solved problem.[0] Don't blame the technology industry, blame your friend for not including the small cost of a proper remote into their home entertainment budget. [0]http://www.logitech.com/en-us/harmony-remotes http://www.logitech.com/en-us/harmony-remotes
- PirateDave 11y ago
  Yes! My Harmony Hub remote is one of the best purchases I've made in the last 5 years. Also, now that you can control the hub remotely, it makes purchasing home automation items more appealing.
- chadgeidel 11y ago
  I have a Harmony remote, and love it, but it is slower to respond for many devices. It is also absolutely inferior when compared to BT devices (my Roku and my PS3 come immediately to mind). I wish the manufacturers would come up with a common standard for remotes - perhaps over BT - and just have one "universal" app for my phone. Ehh.
jstelly 11y ago
The market leader in this space appears to be crestron and personally I find their technology to be terrible in so many ways. It seems like a big opportunity, but the problem is fairly difficult to solve and device manufacturers are working against progress in many cases.

by tdees40 11y ago

aschampion 11y ago

I interned at a digital subscription television receiver manufacturer eons ago. One day I was given several boxes full of random remotes, a microcontroller with an IR receiver, and an oscilloscope. I spent the next month deciphering coding schemes for dozen of remotes, which were usually undocumented or documentation-contradicting. The amazing part was how little standardization even individual vendors had, with few encodings having any real advantage over others. The purpose of all of this was so the receiver could IR blast commands to the rest of the customers' devices. AFAIK the only place this was used was for triggering VCR recording, which was amusing given we were working on early DVRs. The whole time I was thinking how short-sighted this was given we'd certainly be using some standard protocol in a few years since the home media center was going digital. In the early 2000s all the incidental annoyances in digital electronics still seemed like temporary problems that would be swept away by constant disruption as they had been in the 90s, as opposed to the entrenched problems we were stuck with in other technologies.

jewel 11y ago

I believe HDMI CEC is a potential solution to this. It is a way to send keystrokes (remote-strokes?) back up the HDMI cable from the TV to the set-top box. This means that there's no need to have a separate remote. Now, all that needs to happen is the number of buttons per remote need to be reduced as the menus improve, and as some features are automated. It works well with the Nexus Player, for example.

shas3 11y ago

Even Apple didn't bother to put in any thought into their remote control design. They ship the Apple TV with an IR remote (in the era of Bluetooth LE!) which is too painful to operate. Luckily, the Remote App works pretty well.

perfTerm 11y ago
Yea I'm pretty conflicted about my opinion of that remote On the one hand it's simple, it's sleek, and it works. On the other hand it's so small it gets lost all the time, typing is awful, and for a while when I was getting used to it I'd hit the arrows when I was trying to click the center button.

cbd1984 11y ago

> Remote controls. Why are they terrible? They're the pinnacle of 1980s consumer electronics technology. Or, well, they're close to the top of the digital electronics we put into analog TVs, anyway. > Why is no one fixing them? Because "TV" manufacturers haven't fully internalized the idea that all screens in a consumer's home are, fundamentally, display devices for various computing equipment, all of which is likely on a WiFi LAN, or should be. Some of that computing equipment includes an ATSC tuner, and is likely built into the display itself, but we have HDMI for a reason.

dublinben 11y ago

Universal remote controls are a solved problem.[0] Don't blame the technology industry, blame your friend for not including the small cost of a proper remote into their home entertainment budget. [0]http://www.logitech.com/en-us/harmony-remotes http://www.logitech.com/en-us/harmony-remotes

PirateDave 11y ago
Yes! My Harmony Hub remote is one of the best purchases I've made in the last 5 years. Also, now that you can control the hub remotely, it makes purchasing home automation items more appealing.
chadgeidel 11y ago
I have a Harmony remote, and love it, but it is slower to respond for many devices. It is also absolutely inferior when compared to BT devices (my Roku and my PS3 come immediately to mind). I wish the manufacturers would come up with a common standard for remotes - perhaps over BT - and just have one "universal" app for my phone. Ehh.

jstelly 11y ago

The market leader in this space appears to be crestron and personally I find their technology to be terrible in so many ways. It seems like a big opportunity, but the problem is fairly difficult to solve and device manufacturers are working against progress in many cases.