As the name suggests, a remote control is used to control or operate a machine from a distance or remotely. People might refer to a remote control using phrases such as “remote” or “controller” but colloquially it can also be referred to as a “splat” or a “clicker” and even a “channel changer” (with reference to a TV remote control). The most popular usage of a remote control is to operate a TV or a music system but remote controls are also used for ACs, cars, PCs, doors, toys and almost every other gadget that runs on a battery or on electricity.
Remote controls are normally compact in size, light enough to hold for long periods of time, small enough to fit in the palm of a hand and sophisticated enough to have a range of controls and settings with which an electronic device can be manipulated. A remote control can communicate with and control its parent device using either IR (infrared) or radio frequency. Standard size AAA batteries power most remote controls these days.
Nikola Tesla probably invented the earliest type of a remote control more than a hundred years ago in 1893. A decade later the Telekino robot became the first prototype of a radio-controlled device and almost 3 decades after that, the first model airplane was flown with a remote control. In World War 2, remote controls were used in warfare for the first time and the most notable example of this was the Wasserfall missile.
In the middle of the century, Zenith Radio manufactured the first remote control for a television. Known as the “Lazy Bones”, it was attached to the TV set with a wire. The first wireless remote control for a TV used photoelectric cells that were sensitive to light. Unfortunately, the “Flashmatic” cells could not differentiate between the light emitted by the remote control and other lights emitted by the sun, for example. There were many other types of unsuccessful remote controls versions like the “Zenith Space Control” which used ultrasound.
The birth of the remote control witnessed many changes in viewership patterns and the behaviour of TV viewers as well as TV content. For example, now that viewers had “armed” themselves with the power to switch channels, split screen credits were invented because it was studied that viewers were more prone to switching channels when the credits were rolling. In split screen credits, the final portions of the episode were aired simultaneously with the credits. Commercials began appearing during the middle of the show so that viewers wouldn’t go away after the show ended. Thirty-second ads became eight seconds and less and so on.
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