MEET ROBERT ADLER
Ever hear the term couch potato? That’s what someone’s called when they simply lie on the couch watching TV, perhaps for hours on end.
Well, Robert Adler didn’t develop that phrase; rather, that phrase was created because of something he developed the perfectly functioning wireless TV remote control.
In the very early days of television (the late 1940s), there simply was no way to control the TV from the couch. If you wanted to turn it on or off, or change the channel, or adjust the volume, you’d have to get up and do it by hand.
Then in 1950, a company known as Zenith introduced a device called Lazy Bones. This device actually featured a wire that was attached to the TV—to literally connect the viewer to the television. A motor in the TV operated the channel changer dial via the remote control. Imagine how exciting that was to (lazy) viewers, as the product’s advertising boasted, “Prest-o! Change-o! Just Press a Button… to Change a Station!”
A Zenith engineer later invented the Flash-Matic, which was wireless and used a precise flashlight to control the main functions of the TV. But there were problems with the device: if sunlight hit the dials on the TV, it would change channels all by itself. So long, Flash-Matic.
In 1955, while working at Zenith, Mr. Adler then stepped in and decided that the answer to remote control technology was to employ ultrasonic tones—high-frequency sounds that were beyond the range of human hearing. A year later, the Zenith Space Commander was introduced. The device was a true wireless remote control. And guess what—because it used aluminum rods that were struck by small hammers when keys were depressed, the remote control didn’t need batteries!
By the way, because the Zenith Space Commander created the need for an additional receiver inside the TV, the price of a set went up by about 30 percent. But consumers didn’t care—they wanted to be couch potatoes!
The technology behind Dr. Adler’s remote control was the standard in the television industry until 1980; in its twenty-five years of use, more than nine million such units were sold. After that, remote controls were produced with infrared (or IR) technology. Rather than making sounds the human ear couldn’t hear, IR remotes generate lights the human eye can’t see. IR technology is used to this day.
Mr. Adler worked with Zenith for more than six decades; over that time, he earned more than 180 U.S. patents, including one for the gated-beam tube, which improved TV sound reception.
You’re probably wondering: was Mr. Adler himself a couch potato? Not at all. According to his wife, he didn’t watch a great deal of television. “He was more of a reader,” she said. “He was a man who would dream in the night and wake up and say, ‘I just solved a problem.’ He was always thinking science.”
GET THE COUCH POTATO BACK WHERE HE BELONGS!
