Remote control without batteries
A friend send me a pointer to this page: The 50 Greatest Gadgets of the Past 50 Years.
On place 21 (right on top of the page this link should take you to) is the "Zenith Space Command" form 1956, the first remote control. Of course the first (wireless) remote control is a totally cool gadget. But there is something that I found especially amazing about this piece: it doesn't need batteries!!
The way this is done (according to that page) is through sound. The space command has 4 buttons and each makes a small hammer strike a piece of metal which causes some ultra sound which the TV then picks up. Simple, elegant. You probably don't even have to point the remote at the TV for it to work. And it doesn't need friggin' batteries!
I'm an environmentally conscious person and I think we are way too battery happy these days. In fact you seemingly cannot buy almost anything (except maybe a hammer) that doesn't require some kind of battery. And I ask: is this really necessary? Even modern batteries are a hazard in the waste, and a battery is really a lot of valuable resources simply discarded after getting very little energy for a lot of money. Can't we finally find a better solution? Couldn't we build systems that are less reliable on batteries? (in another, forthcoming post I'll talk about batteries again)
As the space command shows it clearly is possible to build - for instance - a wireless remote without batteries. Yes it had only 4 functions and we probably don't want to have a brick with 50 different hammers in it to make a modern remote. But electronics has made so much progress since then, I cannot believe there isn't an alternative to batteries for many applications.
Maybe I'm totally day-dreaming now, but maybe the energy you get from pressing a piezo-electric button might be enough to power an IR LED, or there is some other effect that doesn't require a stong power source such as a battery? I'm not an electronics expert so somebody else will have to figure this out. But let's start thinking about alternative solutions and maybe we can come up with something and reduce the number of batteries we have to buy and eventually throw away (because I assume most batteries never see a recycling plant anyway, at least not in the US).
On place 21 (right on top of the page this link should take you to) is the "Zenith Space Command" form 1956, the first remote control. Of course the first (wireless) remote control is a totally cool gadget. But there is something that I found especially amazing about this piece: it doesn't need batteries!!
The way this is done (according to that page) is through sound. The space command has 4 buttons and each makes a small hammer strike a piece of metal which causes some ultra sound which the TV then picks up. Simple, elegant. You probably don't even have to point the remote at the TV for it to work. And it doesn't need friggin' batteries!
I'm an environmentally conscious person and I think we are way too battery happy these days. In fact you seemingly cannot buy almost anything (except maybe a hammer) that doesn't require some kind of battery. And I ask: is this really necessary? Even modern batteries are a hazard in the waste, and a battery is really a lot of valuable resources simply discarded after getting very little energy for a lot of money. Can't we finally find a better solution? Couldn't we build systems that are less reliable on batteries? (in another, forthcoming post I'll talk about batteries again)
As the space command shows it clearly is possible to build - for instance - a wireless remote without batteries. Yes it had only 4 functions and we probably don't want to have a brick with 50 different hammers in it to make a modern remote. But electronics has made so much progress since then, I cannot believe there isn't an alternative to batteries for many applications.
Maybe I'm totally day-dreaming now, but maybe the energy you get from pressing a piezo-electric button might be enough to power an IR LED, or there is some other effect that doesn't require a stong power source such as a battery? I'm not an electronics expert so somebody else will have to figure this out. But let's start thinking about alternative solutions and maybe we can come up with something and reduce the number of batteries we have to buy and eventually throw away (because I assume most batteries never see a recycling plant anyway, at least not in the US).
posted by Andreas at
3:54 PM
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