Simplifying TV remotes for elderly parents by shaving off unnecessary buttons

[Whipley Snidelash]

My elderly parents, before they passed, would call me into the room almost every night to unbork their television because of the remote control. It seems every single remote control, and if you’re like me you have a pile of them, has the exact same problem that baffles the elderly who are developing cognitive problems due to dementia, Alzheimer’s or just old age. Every remote control has buttons that will call up a menu and every single one, I have anyway, needs a different button to get rid of at least some of them. So I came up with a solution.

Virtually all of them have soft buttons now and the unsophisticated only need power, volume and channel. I took a razor blade and shaved all the rest off flush, no more problems and you can still use the shaved buttons if necessary.

not even going to get into the stupidity of our species that they can’t figure this out and I would bet that almost every remote has this problem.

 

[berkeman]

My Xfinity remote has voice recognition now, and it seems to work pretty well. Also, I don't know if they have the capability to control TVs yet, but my wife uses "Alexa" a lot to do things and manage lists, etc. It looks like it can interface via WiFi with lots of Smart Home devices...

https://alexyanything.com/

 

[Whipley Snidelash]

I just got XFinity, no remote or equipment, bought the modem separate. What does your Xfinity remote control?

 

[russ_watters]

Virtually all of them have soft buttons now and the unsophisticated only need power, volume and channel. I took a razor blade and shaved all the rest off flush, no more problems and you can still use the shaved buttons if necessary.

Variation of the same thing; I've seen examples where people wrapped electrical tape or otherwise covered their parents'/grandparents' remotes, with cutouts for the only buttons they really needed. Simplifying is definitely useful.

 

[berkeman]

I just got XFinity, no remote or equipment, bought the modem separate. What does your Xfinity remote control?

Just the cable box and TV so far. You enter a code for the brand/model of the TV so it knows what IR encoding to use for stuff like volume, brightness, etc. The button in the lower middle with the microphone symbol on it is what you push to talk into it:

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B079J63554/?tag=pfamazon01-20

 

[Dale]

My problem is that with 5 kids the remote somehow often wanders into a different room. Nobody ever takes it out of the room. So ours must be alive, growing legs as needed, and then undergoing atrophy before the legs can be directly observed.

 

[George Jones]

I don't have a remote for my TV. I guess that's because I don't have a TV.

 

[berkeman]

I don't have a remote for my TV. I guess that's because I don't have a TV.

Oh, you're one of those show-off power users who streams everything to their iPhone I guess...

 

[George Jones]

Oh, you're one of those show-off power users who streams everything to their iPhone I guess...

Nope. I don't have a cell phone. I tell my classes "If i had a cell phone, my partner could get a hold of me."

 

[berkeman]

Nope. I don't have a cell phone. I tell my classes "If i had a cell phone, my partner could get a hold of me."

https://s3.amazonaws.com/lowres.car...pfire-camp_fire-communication-bfrn331_low.jpg

 

[Astronuc]

I don't have a remote for my TV. I guess that's because I don't have a TV.

That's probably a good thing - in 2020.

 

[Whipley Snidelash]

Just the cable box and TV so far. You enter a code for the brand/model of the TV so it knows what IR encoding to use for stuff like volume, brightness, etc. The button in the lower middle with the microphone symbol on it is what you push to talk into it:

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B079J63554/?tag=pfamazon01-20

View attachment 269605

 

[Whipley Snidelash]

So you bought just the remote? Just for the voice control feature? How does it relate to XFinity? Trying to determine if I want one.

 

[berkeman]

So you bought just the remote? Just for the voice control feature? How does it relate to XFinity? Trying to determine if I want one.

No, it came with the system. We used to use AT&T DSL when we lived in an apartment downtown, but two years ago we moved into the hills east of San Jose, and DSL couldn't reach us anymore. So we swtiched to Xfinity cable service for TV and Internet, and they installed their modem (WiFi and wired Ethernet) and we got two TV control boxes with remotes as part of the package.

 

[256bits]

has the exact same problem that baffles the elderly who are developing cognitive problems due to dementia, Alzheimer’s or just old age.

Just the elderly.
I think most remotes are someone's way of having some fun at the expense of the user, just a marketing gimmic, or an last minute design of putting parts in a box, shake them up and out comes a stupid remote with buttons that do no make any sense.

There must a Dibert cartoon about this.

 

[Rive]

I think most remotes are someone's way of having some fun at the expense of the user...

Phones are just the same, I think. No wonder that 'senior phone' is now a category on its own right.

Ps.: oh, wait. So when I put a gimmic-free custom rom to my phone then I'm actually turning it into a kind of 'senior phone'

 

[berkeman]

So you bought just the remote? Just for the voice control feature? How does it relate to XFinity? Trying to determine if I want one.

And coincidentally, this was in my e-mail today about Xfinity voice remote commands:

https://www.xfinity.com/support/art...id=19350815995&mid=20200919_Adhoc_CM_VRNL_SLB

 

[Keith_McClary]

There must a Dibert cartoon about this.

https://dilbert.com/search_results?terms=universal+remote
https://dilbert.com/search_results?terms=tv+remote+control