1. Home
  2. General Home Automation
  3. A father of home automation "beams up"

A father of home automation "beams up"

Robert Adler, co-inventor of the remote control and a prolific inventor, died Thursday at the age of 93. Along with inventor and fellow engineer Eugene Polley, Adler helped bring the first commercially successful wireless TV remote -- the Zenith Space Command -- to market in 1956.

Adler and Polley's refinement was ingeniously simple. When a viewer pressed the buttons on the Space Command, tiny hammers struck lightweight aluminum rods to produce high-frequency sounds . . .

formatting link

The article also talks about a precursor from Zenith called "Lazy Bones" which performed on/off and channel-changing functions via a cord attached to the set, which apparently soon proved to be a safety hazard. While I distinctly recall the two-button Zenith ultrasonic "Space Command" I confess I don't recall the Lazy Bones. It's pretty hard to even *imagine* a TV remote having only two buttons in this day an age, but that's all there was on the Zenith.

formatting link
and

formatting link

-- Bobby G.

Reply to
Robert Green
Loading thread data ...

I remember the corded remote though I don't recall the name. We had one. There was a power button and a channel knob. The "remote" was actually the front controls of the set. You could operate it on the set or pull it out and take it to your seat. The cord fit into the hole behind the remote while it was affixed to the set. I don't remember if the cord retracted by itself like the old vacuum cleaner power cords or not.

We thought it was great being able to tune between channels 2 and 13 (only 3 of which actually had a picture) from the sofa.

Reply to
Robert L Bass

A neighbor had one of those. Channel up/down was all it did. Big honkin' console TV the size of a credenza. Don't recall if it had the "hi fi" turntable in it or not.

Our house just has the carbon-based remotes. Me and my brother...

Reply to
Bill Kearney

Corded remotes showed up again in the 70s on VCRs. My first one (NEC Beta) had the corded remote connected via a 2 contact mini phone plug. It would pull out safely if someone tripped over it. If you tripped over it at the remote end, the very light weight button set would get flung.

Reply to
B Fuhrmann

I wonder if it was lawyers or IR that caused the extinction of corded remotes?

-- Bobby G.

Reply to
Robert Green

I have no doubts - IR did it. Too bad it wasn't corded remotes that caused the extinction of lawyers 8-^).

Litigiousness wasn't as rampant when the first corded remotes were out and I expect that the first few owners were really careful with them.

The later ones like I had with the plugged cord would disconnect easy enough to not be a hazard.

The IR coding system freed up the remote to transmit many more commands and literally removed the tether to the device.

Reply to
B Fuhrmann

I suppose it's easy to forget that there weren't off-the-shelf IR decoder chips back then and people were doing things for very first time. It's an interesting story how cords went to ultrasound and then went to light and then to IR light and finally RF as remotes evolved.

-- Bobby G.

Reply to
Robert Green

That and if you had enough money to afford a TV with it you probably didn't want to go into court admitting you were too stupid to avoid tripping over a cord. It's unfortunate people haven't kept that sense of shame regarding their own stupidity.

Reply to
Bill Kearney

I recall an ultrasonic remote we had. Every time the dog jingled his tags, the tv changed channels.

Reply to
Frank Schmittroth

Yes - I recall you could change the channels by jingling your housekeys near enough to the TV.

-- Bobby G.

Reply to
Robert Green

Cabling-Design.com Forums website is not affiliated with any of the manufacturers or service providers discussed here. All logos and trade names are the property of their respective owners.