HR2008-02

Overflow Remote Control
What are you going to control ?

2008.09.30 Kasahara

Fighting with my brother over dial TV channel was long time ago. Today, even you buy the most inexpensive TV, it will routinely come with remote control.

It sure is normal to have remote control for VCR and air con, but we also see the equipments such as fan or lighting with remote controls. Rather, there are many equipments we cannot operate without the remote controls. Remote control, something that is inescapably-tied to electronic products. How, in the world, many remote controls are lying around us?

The start was....

As you do, I have many remote controls of electric products at my house. And what bothers me is that when I reach to one of the remote controls on the table assuming it is the one to change the TV channel, it turns out to be the one for audio stereo, or when I try to turn on the air con because I feel hot, the remote control is missing.

When I've counted the remote controls in my living room, there are 7 of them. However, if you do not check accurately, the probability to be able to grab the right one is one seventh. So we decide to research, wondering, "Is this for my house only? How do other people handle?"

Research method

We have asked the people who are registered as monitors to our company, as well as our staff to answer the questionnaire.

The questions are followings:

1. Which room do you have the most remote controls ?
2. How many remote controls are in that room, and for what products are each remote control for ?
3. What bothers you for having so many remote controls ?

We have this much remote control.

127 people have responded to the questionnaire, and the valid response about the number of remote control is 103.

Firstly, we have found that the room where the remote controls gather the most is "living room". Where people gather can be where electronic products and remote controls gather

And for the question, how many remote controls are there in that room where the most remote controls locate, the result has come up with the average of 5.07. This means in every households, you will find about 5 remote controls in their living rooms. We find that they at least have 2, and the most is 10 remote controls.

Next is aggregation result of what remote control (home electric appliances) they have.

The runaway winner product with the highest rate on having the remote control is TV, where 2nd is air con and 3rd is VCR.
HDD/DV/Blue-ray comes to 4th with more or less the same number with VCR. I guess this is trend of the times.
Then Audio, STB, lighting and fan follow.

Bothers this much

Then the question is, what bothers them for having so many remote controls.
Here are responses with interesting story.

About 80 percent of respondents have experienced some kind of "trouble".

Firstly, "remote control gets lost, or disappears" is the most comment we get.
When there are many remote controls, it is common to not be able to find when they need it. Awful cases can be of those whom remote control remains missing, or those not be able to record a video because of the missing remote control.
Also some interesting cases can be those that concerns children with episode such as, a child who has come to visit , takes the remote control away.

From usability perspective, it is interesting to know that there are many users with experiences such as, "take wrong one/cannot tell which is the right one", "Forget how to operate/confused".
When look at a breakdown of many remote controls, imaging and music related products dominate the most, such as TV, VCR, HDD/DVD/Blue-ray recorder, audio and STB. Because of their similar design and function, people may find themselves taking a wrong remote control by mistake.

Other than those above, we also get many episodes which make us nod inadvertently.

• When pack many remote controls in one place, the button gets pressed automatically, and will glitch.
• Because we have 2 air cons of same manufacturer, and that their each remote control can manage mutual operation, I have accidentally turned on the unintended air con.
• It is double-trouble to switch around between multiple remote controls, such as scroll with TV remote control, and operate with DVD/cable TV remote control

Etc, etc....

Impression

Like at my house, I see that remote controls are overflowing in many households. I am also surprised by many of those have experienced unexpected "trouble" with remote controls.

In considering the way of remote control for home electric appliances, we should not see it as a equipment to be able to operate each product remotely, but see its existence in users entire lifestyle including the relationship with other products, and the usability

Created in 2008.10.31