According to a 2023 study by Hub Research, 74% of TV households have a smart TV. Statista says there are 125 million TV households in the United stats. That means that nearly 93 million American homes have smart TVs. That’s a lot of smart TVs. It’s safe to say that the smart TV has kind of become an integral part of the modern American home. And I think the en masse move to the smart TV makes a lot of sense. As we’ve seen the move from cable to streaming, so too have we seen the rise of streaming boxes like Roku, Apple TV, Amazon Fire Stick, and Google Chromecast. The next logical step, of course, was to just integrate those boxes into the TVs themselves. And that’s when we saw an interesting shift from the traditional television remote to the smart TV remotes of today.

smart tv remotes

Each of these remotes has a unique layout and feature set. This can be a little frustrating for people that have a blend of ecosystems in their house. I, for example, have a Roku TV in my living room, an Apple TV in my home theater, and a Google TV in my bedroom. All of the remotes in my house have some features I like and some features I don’t. Let’s start with what what I’ve noticed I don’t like.

Infrared Transmission

I think my number one frustration with using TV remotes is aiming it at the TV. It’s 2024. We need to move past IR as a method of wireless data transmission. My Epson projector uses IR, but it seems to have an unusually good receiver. It’s somehow able to pick up my inputs when the remote is pointed completely away from the projector. Is it using a camera to see the light bounce off the wall and ceiling? Couldn’t tell you. It’s neat though.

Static Dedicated Shortcut Buttons

This one drives me crazy. My Roku remote has 4 dedicated shortcut buttons that have the name of the shortcut printed on the button. My Roku remote has permanent dedicated buttons for Netflix, Sling, Hulu, and Starz. Not only do I not have a Sling or Starz account (and no desire to get them), but I also accidentally press the buttons and it takes me out of my current app and drops me in the Roku channel store, asking me if I want to install the Starz app. Infuriating.

Lack of Integration with Third Party Hardware

My wife hates that we have a “TV remote” and a “volume remote.” Our remote has volume buttons on it, but you can’t program it to send to communicate with our stereo amplifier. And of course our stereo amp is too old to support HDMI CEC (Consumer Electronics Control) so the TV can’t send a volume up or down signal to the amp. It’s a mess.

Disposable Batteries

TV remotes are some of the last devices in my house that take AA or AAA batteries. As a result, I almost never have any backups in the house. So when a remote runs out of battery, I have to drive to the store to get more (which usually means no TV that day).

Designing a Better Remote

So what features do we want? I think the obvious place to start is by smoothing out those pain points.

  1. Radio transmission
  2. No shortcut buttons (or at least customizable)
  3. IR support for stereo amps and displays
  4. USB-C rechargeable battery

The astute among you may realize that I’ve basically just described the latest Apple TV remote. We’ll get to that. But I think this is a good place to start. Now let’s talk ergonomics.

Ergonomics

A good remote feels good in the hand. This is actually where I think the Apple TV remote falls flat. The squared off edges and flat back just don’t feel good to hold. Another component of good ergonomics is the size. When Steve Jobs designed the original iPhone, one of his key requirements was that a user should be able to reach all four corners of the display with their thumb while holding it in the natural position. All of my smart TV remotes do this, but some just feel better than others. After some testing, I can confidently say that this is due to two things: having a substantial mass in the palm and having a rounded back. The current-generation Apple TV remote excels at this. Our remote will keep the same general profile and size of the Apple TV remote.

Universal Control

One of the most frustrating parts of my Apple TV workflow is the lack of continuity among devices from the remote. Sure, there are some existing solutions to fix this like HDMI CEC, but not every TV/display configuration supports this technology. It’s frustrating that I have to turn the Apple TV off with the Apple TV remote and then turn the TCL TV off with the TCL Roku remote. A core feature of my ideal smart TV remote has the capability to control both the streaming box (Apple TV, Fire stick, etc) and the TV itself from one remote. Some prior implementations of this feature were a little too complex for my liking. Logitech’s Harmony remote, while excellent, was a complex device with and LCD display on it that could change what a button’s function was. I think the better approach is to use a software solution on the streaming box side to define button behavior. For example, I’m not really sure I care if my Apple TV box ever turns off. I’d much rather have the power button on my Apple TV remote control the display rather than the streaming box.

Wrapping Up

At the end of the day, Apple’s remote is, by far, the best option on the market today. With a few simple modifications from the software side, it could be a perfect human interface for the smart TV ecosystem.