NEW YORK - The man who changed millions of lives forever by helping to create the TV remote control has died.
Robert Adler, 93, who registered more than 180 American patents during a lifetime of dreaming and tinkering, won an Emmy Award for the device in 1997 with
fellow engineer Eugene Polley.
In a 60-year career, Adler was best known for his 1956 Zenith Space Command remote control, a creation that changed the face of modern life.
In 2004, Adler remembered being one of two dozen engineers at Zenith Electronics Corporation given the same mission - to find a new way for TV viewers to change channels without getting out of their chairs.
He said: "People ask me all the time, 'Don't you feel guilty for it?'
"And I say that's ridiculous. It seems reasonable and rational to control the TV from where you sit."
Polley and Adler have been credited as the device's inventors. Polley created the Flashmatic in 1955 that operated on photo cells while Adler introduced ultrasonics to make the device more efficient in 1956.
His wife, Ingrid, said Adler would not have chosen the remote control as his favourite invention and he did not watch much TV.
"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."
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