This is an updated version of a piece I shared in August of 2018
Remote Control – a simple tool
Why does everything we own that has any electronics in it come with a different remote control? Your TV, Blu-ray disk player, sound system, and cable box have their own remotes. With smartphones now, you can use as many apps that do the same things to control things.
This always created a problem for me early on. I would watch a certain program and play sound through speakers, but the program was on the VCR, and the sound came from somewhere else (usually the TV). The Cable box had to be on to play the video I wanted, for it was channeled from the VCR to the Cable Box. Then, of course, the TV had to be on. And if you had to change to live TV, it required reconfiguring each remote. Very frustrating.
Then, someone created a multi-(Universal)-remote. This allowed you to program all your other remotes on this new remote so that now all you needed was one remote. Of course, a degree in engineering in remote design was needed to program each component of this new remote, but we managed. I should say – I managed. Others in my household just accepted that this new remote worked and pushed whatever button I said would do what they wanted it to do.
Of course, eventually, a TV breaks, and you need a new TV. Now, you must find the multi-function remote and remember how you configured it the first time so it will work with this new TV. Yes, it was an endless process.
And what do you do with all of the other remotes? Keep them in a box and hope that someday, when you give away a device, you remember which remote went along with it. Pretty much that’s what we did. The picture at the start of this story shows all the remotes I owned at the time of the original writing of this piece in 2018.
My favorite remote was the TV remote my child, at a very early age, dropped and broke. Since I could no longer use it, I replaced it with a new multi-function one. The new one never did all the things that the original one did. But then again, the old one could not do anything now.
Instead of throwing away the broken remote, I kept it. I was not planning on foisting it on any person we might give the 13” TV it was supposed to come with. I just felt that maybe someday I could either fix it or use the parts to fix something else.
It became a very important remote as my child grew older and had trouble sleeping, both fearing and having bad dreams. I gave them the remote, which
they had no memory of breaking, and told them it was to be used for sleeping problems. If they woke up having a bad dream, all they had to do was pick up the remote and change channels, and they would find a different, more pleasant dream to have. It must have worked because we had fewer sleep issues.
Even though my child is grown up and no longer living with us, I still have the remote in case they need it. However, they are more likely to pull up a video game controller or whatever app is on their phone to reset whatever is troubling them.
Personally, I’m waiting for that magic remote myself. Wouldn’t we all like to change the channel of some of the bad dreams we all are living/having?
