Engineering TV

just brilliant, a step toward cleaner consumer products.

New? Hardly. We had these back in the 1960s.

this will never work for lazy Americans.

Sorry to say but this is NOT the first batteryless remote control.  Robert Adler did it in 1956 with the Zenith Space Command.

www.washingtonpost.com/.../AR2007021602102.html

They need to check back to the ultrasonic remotes that we used to have. Those didn't have batteries either!

Maybe the claim should be changed to 'batteryless electronic remote'

(Is batteryless a real word? or should it be battery less?)

Whoopie doo.

Been there done that fifty years ago.

www.washingtonpost.com/.../AR2007021602102.html

Why don't we use the same tech that those shake flashlights use? I bet most consumer remotes could make use of this.

I'm usually smacking my remotes around to make them work anyway.

Percussive Maintenance FTW!

Actually TV sets did have a battery less remote before although it worked differently. It used tuning bars that were struck at higher frequency than humans can hear when you pressed the buttons. The TV had a sound sensor that could hear these sounds and change channels. It was around in the 60's or 70's like Bill said.

back in the 60's

i invented the "stick"

forked at the end

to turn the dial

...........................damn I'm old

Like Bill said, we had these in the 1960s. Nothing to see here folks, move along.

Very Cool, and about time.

There were remote controls for Televisions 50 years ago that didn't use batteries.  They used push buttons that operated little tuning forks that produced tones that the control circuits in the television responded to.  

The older ones had an internal tuning fork that required a bit of force,  My mom would tell my dad,  'Hand me the clunker'.

Unimpressed.

Zenith had a no battery remote donkeys years ago, not sure of the the technology but it wasn't IR.

don't you people ever watch INSTRUCTABLES??? geek hackers have been making PIEZOELECTRIC powered remotes for years. true only ON/OFF and channel up down but still way ahead of these con artists ( probably where they git it from ) and ya BILL is correct. the VERY FIRST remote controls were batteryless.... DUHHHH!

Oh yea, that was really difficult to figure out.  Heck I need to be an engineer I guess.  They took a barbuque spark lighter and hooked it up to a condenser to store the charge long enough to activate the controller.  I don't want one.

why not just have solar powered ones how easy?

In the 60s my father had a bateryless remote, ME! LOL

I hate to bust your bubble guys, but in the mid 60's my best friends parents had a TV with remote that used no batteries.  The buttons were spring loaded like a grill lighter button, only the recoil produced a particular sound that the TV picked up and turned the TV on and off.  The channel button made a different tone and sound adjustment was another tone.  

I remember my parents having a set that had a clicker remote. Dad said it worked from the sound differences in the channel vs volume buttons. Being a four year old, I took the remote apart-No batteries! It never worked again tho, lol. Shortly after that, I attempted to charge D cell batteries with a jumper wire and the empty socket of a night light. Thank God for fuses

our zenith space command would go ding, and the tv would go whop, whop, whop (changing channels).  To this day our family refers to the tv remote as the "dingy-whopper

"

Was thinking, did these guys just reverse engineer a clapper-clap on/clap off-the clapper

Solar will work as long as we continue to use INCANDESCENT lamps.  CFLs and LEDs can't charge them, and most people are not going to lay their remote in direct sunlight.  Low-E windows will cut solar efficiency too.

Besides the Zenith system, there was also the Maggotbox -- oops Magnavox system, this remote consisted of a bellows beneath each key, blew air through an ultrasonic whistle. Worked pretty good, too. No batteries, just thumb power required.

Maybe a old idea. Maybe it will double as a lighter, but so many batteries in the landfill doesn't help either.