The man known for making the couch potato possible has died. According to news reports, Robert Adler, the co-inventor of the television remote died Thursday of heart failure at a Boise nursing home. He was 93.
Adler worked at Zenith Electronics Corporation for more than 60 years and earned more than 180 patents, but was best known for his 1956 Zenith Space Command remote control. The device won him an Emmy Award (along with fellow engineer Eugene Polley) and helped fuel many a fight in households with multiple children and one TV.
Depending on the source, credit is given to Polley, another Zenith engineer, or Adler as the inventor of the landmark device. According to Zenith, Polley created the “Flashmatic,” a wireless remote introduced in 1955 that operated on photo cells, but it was Adler who introduced ultrasonics, or high-frequency sound, which made the device more efficient in 1956.
Adler earned a doctorate degree in physics from the University of Vienna before joining Zenith’s research division in 1941. In 1979 he retired as research vice president and served as a technical consultant until 1999. During that time Adler also helped to develop sensitive amplifiers for ultra high frequency signals used by the U.S. Air Force for long-range missile detection. In addition to those accomplishments, Adler was also considered a pioneer in SAW (Surface Acoustic Waves) technology used in color television sets, touch screens, and cell phones.
Ironically, Adler’s wife Ingrid said her husband wouldn’t have chosen the remote control as his favorite invention. In fact, she told news reporters that he didn’t even watch much 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.'”
I think it’s safe to say that millions of couch potatoes are glad he solved the problem of having to get up to change the channel.
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