Introduction/The Human Dependency On Remote Controls
Just pause for a second and think about the number of remote controls you own. Yup. That many. And according to reports, "that many" is equivalent to three remotes per coffee table, or 600 million remote controls shipped this past year alone, with an annual growth rate of 7% till 2010. Traditionally a product perceived to be more of a bundled accessory, remote controls are starting to play a bigger role in consumer electronics because of converging trends towards a digital living room. That is not to say that remote controls are not already deeply entrenched in our daily lives today; the average American household spends eight hours each day watching television. That equates to at least 300 button presses of the remote per week.
Media convergence into the living room has taken significant steps, with digital TVs (DTVs) becoming more affordable and further fueled by the increase in popularity of digital/personal video recorders (DVRs/PVRs) like TiVo and ON DEMAND video streaming services. And with both Microsoft and Apple fielding home entertainment products into the market, it seems that the advent of a high-tech family room is becoming more imminent. Because of this paradigm shift, remotes are now expected to take on more than simply controlling just one piece of equipment.
Infrared & Its Limitations
Although remote controls were first introduced to the world in the 1950s, it wasn't until the use of infrared (IR) signals as the communication medium in the early 1980s that started the revolutionary adoption of remote controls in consumer electronics. IR gave manufacturers a simple yet low-cost way of uniquely mapping buttons to specific tasks, controlling a seemingly infinite assortment of brands, models and types of equipment. Universal Electronics and Universal Remote Control are two testimonies of IR's staying power after 20-some-odd years, as a portion of their revenue stream comes solely from the licensing libraries of remote control commands, or "codes".
However, there are several drawbacks to IR " the most obvious one being its reliance on line-of-sight in order to be operational. Left for many years without a reasonable alternative, consumers have adapted, albeit begrudgingly. One first needs to figure out where the tiny IR receiver window is on the equipment being controlled to point the remote at. Then after some getting used to, muscle memory subconsciously stretches the hand out at the correct angle to aim and fire. To further complicate matters, interior design and furniture is taking more of a Zen-like simplistic form, tucking components in recessed walls and behind oak cabinets, out of infrared's reach.
And how often do you find yourself hitting the same button multiple times to make sure the signal gets through? Though chipset manufacturers like Vishay and Panasonic are known for designing quality receivers, the infrared link is unidirectional and is not set up to have error detection/correction capabilities. Some of the energy radiated from plasma TVs is in the infrared range of the electromagnetic spectrum and hence can be a source of interference and impair the communication between a remote control and its host " a legitimate concern since DTV sales this year are expected to be on par with regular TVs. Compact fluorescent lights, or CFLs, are also another source of infrared interference and may prove to have more of an impact in the not-too-distant future. Within the last three months, Canada and Australia announced the banning of incandescent light bulbs, with the European Union and seven states in America soon to follow suit. And even though newer remote controls and receivers may have filters that lessen the impact of noise generated by these surrounding components, the link is just not robust enough. Simply put, infrared does not provide a reliable connection.
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