BigShinyThing

The BBC reports that Doctor Robert Adler, inventor of the ultrasonic remote control, has died.

Before Adler’s innovation at Zenith, remote controls were wired, or used flashing lights that were effected by sunlight.

Back then, according to Zenith’s official history of the remote, TV sales people were dead against remotes which needed batteries (how we can learn from the Teachings of the Ancients!) because:

If the battery went dead, the sales staff said, the customer might think something was wrong with the TV. If the remote control didn’t emit light or show any other visible sign of functioning, people would think it was broken once the batteries died.

Respecting this insight, Adler’s remote:

was built around aluminum rods that were light in weight and, when struck at one end, emitted distinctive high-frequency sounds. The first such remote control used four rods, each approximately 2-1/2 inches long: one for channel up, one for channel down, one for sound on and off, and one for on and off.

Bless. Adler went on to win 180 patents in a variety of fields. According to his wife, who survives him, “the remote was not his favourite invention, [...] he rarely watched television and was ‘more of a reader’”.

Robert Adler, we salute you.