Misplacing the TV remote is a frustrating – if minor – occurrence of modern life. If only your remote control could take on different shapes and sizes as needed, or simply attach itself to less-mobile items like tables or lamps to avoid getting lost in the living room clutter. That’s the idea design student Cleo Jacquet came up with for a design lab called Lazy Bytes. The name of the lab is a reference to Lazy Bones, the title of the world’s first remote control – the lab itself was an exercise in rethinking the design of the ubiquitous remote control.

Jacquet’s design is called Freehand, and it is little more than a pair of buttons that attach to other objects with a small suction cup. The device itself is tiny and likely to get lost immediately, but stick it onto something bigger – a beverage glass, perhaps, or a big vase – and it becomes much harder to lose. Clearly the design would need to be expanded and refined quite a bit before becoming a viable retail item (because who has a two-button remote control these days?), but it is a great example of how designers are moving the world toward more and more customizable objects all the time.

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There is plenty to be angry about when you’re watching TV: commercials, louder-than-necessary theme songs, and more commercials. The Smash Mute is a gigantic button that lets you shut up the television while taking out some of your aggression on an inanimate object.

The giant button is essentially a remote control with just one function: mute. When you smash the big red button with your fist, it turns the TV sound off until you smash that button again. You can avoid all of the worst parts of prime time without fumbling around for the appropriate button on your regular remote.

So maybe it’s not a Nobel Prize-winning concept, but it would make for a funny gift for someone who is always reaching for the “mute” button to silence those wicked marketing messages that interrupt TV time.

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Maybe it makes us sound kind of old (or kind of like kids – what do we know?), but we still think it’s pretty amazing that we can turn on that crazy box in the corner and pictures come on to amuse us. Apparently other people feel that way too, and that’s why the totally awesome Kymera Magic Wand exists. It’s a universal remote made to look exactly like a magic wand so that you can feel like a wizard every time you change the channel.

The Magic Wand is a universal remote that learns from your other remotes. It can store up to 13 functions after you “train” it, and thereafter you can change the channel with a flick of the wand or adjust the volume with a simple twist. Although we’re stuck on TV (how do those tiny people get in there?), you can do much more with the wand. In fact, you can control just about anything that operates on an infrared signal.

According to the company that makes it, this magic wand is the world’s first buttonless, gesture-based remote control. The wand is undeniably awesome, but almost as impressive is the gorgeous website that goes along with it.

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Tired of losing the TV remote between the couch cushions? Getting a little fed up with the stacks of remotes accumulating on the coffee table? This cushion remote is a novel solution to those problems: it’s a plush little cushion that fits right in with the other pillows on your sofa, but it also happens to double as a universal remote control.

Big enough that it’s almost imporrible to lose but attractive enough that you won’t be embarrassed to leave it out all the time, the pillow remote has codes for controlling more than 500 gadgets. It can be programmed to handle six devices, so your collection of home theater remotes can be condensed into one cuddly little package.

The remote is something of a tongue-in-cheek way to deal with a real-world problem. And as far as goofy gadgets go, it’s far more presentable than that singing fish you’ve still got hanging on your wall.

The post Cuddly Control: The Fuzzy, Huggable Pillow Remote Control first appeared on Gajitz.

Today it’s hard to imagine life without remote controls. We use them to manipulate everything from TVs and stereos to window coverings and ceiling fans. But a mere 55 or so years ago, the remote was little more than a theoretical futuristic product and channel surfers had to get up off of the couch once in a while. The first practical, usable TV remote control was created in 1956 by Zenith. Dubbed the Space Commander, it had only two buttons and a peculiar weakness.

The Space Commander wasn’t Zenith’s first try at a remote control. The Lazy Bones and Flashmatic came before, with the former being a cumbersome wired model and the latter working with a beam of light that was, to the receiver on the television set, indistinguishable from any other light source that happened to shine on it. Neither of these models panned out, but the Space Commander was full of promise. It operated on ultrasound frequencies generated when each button was pressed and struck a bar internally.

The ultrasound remote was an improvement, but still had a flaw: unrelated noises of similar frequencies caused the channel to change at unwanted times. A handful of jingling coins, a child’s xylophone, or any number of similar sounds were close enough to the remote control’s frequencies that they would often cause spontaneous channel changing. Flawed though it may have been, the Space Commander will always have a special place in technology history.

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