Top > Entertainment > 2007 > February > 2007-02-23

Inventor of the Remote Control Dies

Robert Adler, a US inventor best known for the invention of the TV remote control, has died at the age of 93. Adler also made substantial contributions to the field of military communication equipment during World War II, and is considered one of the pioneers in surface acoustic wave technology, which has become essential for modern-day TV and computer screens. He received an Emmy award in 1997 with fellow engineer Eugene Polley for the invention of the remote control.

In 1956 Robert Adler developed the "Zenith Space Command", a wireless remote. It was mechanical and used ultrasound to change the channel and volume. When the user pushed a button on the remote control it clicked and struck a bar, hence the term "clicker". Each bar emitted a different frequency and circuits in the television detected this noise. The invention of the transistor made possible cheaper electronic remotes that contained a piezoelectric crystal that was fed by an oscillating electric current at a frequency near or above the upper threshold of human hearing, though still audible to dogs.

His widow Ingrid said that the remote control wasn`t her husband`s favorite invention, and that he rarely watched television at all, stating that he was "more of a reader." She described him as "a man who would dream in the night and wake up and say: `I just solved a problem,`" lovingly adding "He was always thinking science." During his 58-year career Adler earned more than 180 US patents.