Media Kit

If Santa brings a new TV down your chimney this holiday season, you'd better hope he leaves behind a couple of expert elves to help you use your new toy. Unless of course, you happen to be in the very small minority of consumers who completely understand the "codes, aspect ratios, guides, inputs and cyclone sounds" - which are just some of the features on today's TV's and remote control devices.

If you are scratching your head and wondering, when did watching television become rocket science, you're not alone. Kenneth Gassman, Customer Service Director for Miracle Remotes, LLC says, "There are countless functions on TV's and remote controls made in the past several years that no one understands or even wants. For instance, on some new LCD TV's there is a button on the remote that allows you to flip your picture upside down. Are there that many people who watch TV while standing on their head that we need this feature?"

Fast forward to the future, you finally learn how to use most of the important features on your remote and then it gets lost, broken or the dog eats it. Now you have a new problem, finding a replacement remote. Gassman knows first hand the frustrations created by all of this technology madness. His company, Miracle Remotes LLC, handles endless calls from puzzled, irritated consumers in search of the same miracle - a replacement remote that works like the original did - without requiring a degree from M.I.T. to program and use it.

"Retail stores can't carry original remotes since there are thousands of models plus the originals are expensive. For lack of a better option consumers usually purchase universal remotes when they need replacements. Unfortunately, they end up frustrated after realizing universals are very confusing to program, and don't provide all the features required," Gassman explains. "Only basic functions are found on the front of the TV panel. Without the original remote you can't activate features like channel auto programming or access your DVD or game inputs on many sets. Other functions like changing the picture size on newer TV's, are also impossible to work with universal remotes. Then there's the issue of programming codes and instruction manuals almost as long as a novel. Some universals literally need to be connected to the Internet to be programmed. Technology that was supposed to make our lives easier leaves many consumers totally bewildered."

To try to simplify matters and address the need for easy to use full function replacement remotes, Miracle Remotes LLC has introduced The Miracle Remote Series. All the customer has to do is put in batteries, no programming, no codes, The Miracle Remote just works! Each remote is designed to work just one specific TV brand. Plus, The Miracle Remote operates just like the original and can operate all the key features on TV's made from 1988 to the present. The remotes also include improvements for ease of use, such as frequently used buttons being larger and placed at the top of the unit. With eight different models offered, there is a Miracle Remote available to control most major brand TV's.

So the next time you are longing for simple technology that doesn't require standing on your head, go to www.MiracleRemote.com and check out the Miracle Remote. As Kenneth Gassman likes to say, "When it's easy to use, it's a Miracle!"

Universal remote controls sold as aftermarket accessories are a growing business: U.S. shipments increased to 33.2 million units in 2003 from 30.7 million in 2002, according to the Consumer Electronics Association. NOTE: This number does not include original equipment replacement remotes.

Five Decades of Channel Surfing: History of the TV Remote Control
Mary Bellis - About.com

Channel surfing was born five decades ago. The first TV remote control, called "Lazy Bones," was developed in 1950 by Zenith Electronics Corporation (then known as Zenith Radio Corporation). Lazy Bones used a cable that ran from the TV set to the viewer. A motor in the TV set operated the tuner through the remote control.

By pushing buttons on the remote control, viewers rotated the tuner clockwise or counterclockwise, depending on whether they wanted to change the channel to a higher or lower number. The remote control included buttons that turned the TV on and off.

Although customers liked having remote control of their television, they complained that people tripped over the unsightly cable that meandered across the living room floor.

Commander Eugene F. McDonald Jr., Zenith's late founder-president, believed TV viewers would not tolerate commercials and was convinced that sooner or later commercial television would collapse. While waiting for the development of commercial-free subscription television, McDonald yearned for a wireless remote control that would mute the sound of commercials.

Flashmatic: The First Wireless TV Remote
Zenith engineer Eugene Polley invented the "Flashmatic," which represented the industry's first wireless TV remote. Introduced in 1955, Flashmatic operated by means of four photo cells, one in each corner of the TV screen. The viewer used a highly directional flashlight to activate the four control functions, which turned the picture and sound on and off and changed channels by turning the tuner dial clockwise and counter-clockwise.

While it pioneered the concept of wireless TV remote control, the Flashmatic had some limitations. It was a simple device that had no protection circuits and, if the TV sat in an area in which the sun shone directly on it, the tuner might start rotating.

Development Challenges
Commander McDonald loved the concepts proven by Polley's Flashmatic and directed his engineers to develop a better remote control. First thoughts pointed to radio. But, because they travel through walls, radio waves could inadvertently control a TV set in an adjacent apartment or room.

Using distinctive sound signals was discussed, but Zenith engineers believed people might not like hearing a certain sound that would become characteristic of operating the TV set through a remote control. It also would be difficult to find a sound that wouldn't accidentally be duplicated by either household noises or by the sound coming from TV programming.

Regardless of the specific system chosen, Zenith sales people were against using batteries in the remote control. In those days, batteries were used primarily in flashlights. If the battery went dead, the sales staff said, the customer might think something was wrong with the TV. If the remote control didn't emit light or show any other visible sign of functioning, people would think it was broken once the batteries died.

The Birth of Space Command
Zenith's Dr. Robert Adler suggested using "ultrasonics," that is, high-frequency sound, beyond the range of human hearing. He was assigned to lead a team of engineers to work on the first use of ultrasonics technology in the home as a new approach for a remote control.

The transmitter used no batteries; it was built around aluminum rods that were light in weight and, when struck at one end, emitted distinctive high-frequency sounds. The first such remote control used four rods, each approximately 2-1/2 inches long: one for channel up, one for channel down, one for sound on and off, and one for on and off.

They were very carefully cut to lengths that would generate four slightly different frequencies. They were excited by a trigger mechanism - similar to the trigger of a gun - that stretched a spring and then released it so that a small hammer would strike the end of the aluminum rod.

The device was developed quickly, with the design phase beginning in 1955. Called "Zenith Space Command," the remote went into production in the fall of 1956, becoming the first practical wireless remote control device.

Quarter Century of Ultrasonic Remotes
The original Space Command remote control was expensive because an elaborate receiver in the TV set, using six additional vacuum tubes, was needed to pick up and process the signals. Although adding the remote control system increased the price of the TV set by about 30 percent, it was a technical success and was adopted in later years by other manufacturers.

In the early 1960s, solid-state circuitry (i.e., transistors) began to replace vacuum tubes. Hand-held, battery-powered control units could now be designed to generate the inaudible sound electronically. In this modified form, Dr. Adler's ultrasonic remote control invention lasted through the early 1980s, a quarter century from its inception.

More than 9 million ultrasonic remote control TVs were sold by the industry during the 25-year reign of Dr. Adler's invention.

Today's Infrared Remote Controls
By the early 1980s, the industry moved to infrared, or IR, remote technology. The IR remote works by using a low frequency light beam, so low that the human eye cannot see it, but which can be detected by a receiver in the TV. Zenith's development of cable-compatible tuning and teletext technologies in the 1980s greatly enhanced the capabilities and uses for infrared TV remotes.

Today, remote control is a standard feature on other consumer electronics products, including VCRs, cable and satellite boxes, digital video disc players and home audio receivers. And the most sophisticated TV sets have remotes with as many as 50 buttons. In 2000, more than 99 percent of all TV sets and 100 percent of all VCRs and DVD players sold in the United States are equipped with remote control.

Background Material on how Electronic Gadgets and Remotes Have Become Over-Complicated:

As the creator of television's first wireless remote control nearly 50 years ago, Robert Adler spawned generations of viewers who do their channel changing from the couch.

But today, the retired engineer is just as confounded as millions of others who fumble with the remote controls that clutter their coffee tables and routinely fall into the cracks of sofas.

Nearly every audio or video electronic gizmo comes nowadays with a remote control, and despite so-called universal remotes designed to alleviate the proliferation, advancements in this must-have armchair accessory still elude many consumers. The latest models require technological bravado, are expensive, or don't work as expected.

Adler, 90, has three remote controls in his suburban Chicago home -- one each for his TV, VCR and DVD player. He has trouble navigating them just to play a movie. But he's never dared condense his collection into a universal remote.

"I think it's scandalous how little the people who design these things seem to keep in mind that people don't know it by heart as they do," he said.

Today's remote controls commonly sport 30 to 50 buttons to accommodate the growing features -- and complexities -- of modern electronics, from picture-in-picture modes of dual-tuner TVs to the ability to zap past commercials.

The average American household has four remotes, according to the Consumer Electronics Association. Others estimate the average is even higher, especially as home entertainment expands to include satellite or cable boxes, media centers, and TiVo-like digital video recorders. Some companies are even making remote controls for personal computers, which are becoming entertainment hubs themselves.

Zach Scribner, a 25-year-old sound engineer in San Francisco, bought a $15 universal remote about two years ago to tame eight-clicker chaos. To his dismay, it worked with only one of his two TVs and his VCR, but not his DVD player or any part of his stereo system.

That's because basic universal remote controls under $50 are limited to the thoroughness of the maker's database of remote control codes. Usually, cheap universals actually can operate only five to eight devices. So if your CD player's make and model isn't supported by that universal remote, you're stuck.

"That's why people go from six to three remotes -- and not one -- and that doesn't help their cause," said Ramzi Anmari, a vice president at Universal Electronics. The company provides universal remote technology to electronics companies and licenses its database of infrared remote codes.

Still, remote controls sold as aftermarket accessories are a growing business: U.S. shipments increased to 33.2 million units in 2003 from 30.7 million in 2002, according to the Consumer Electronics Association.

Industry observers say low-end models still account for the bulk of the sales, even though more sophisticated all-in-one type remotes have emerged in the past few years.

On the cutting edge are remotes featuring touchscreens, wireless technology that allows signals to work through walls, or even Internet access. The makers of the Guide Remote, which already displays a user's customized TV listings, hope to let users soon vote on reality TV shows via the remote.

Some companies, like NoviiMedia and BravoBrava!, have developed software to turn other devices, such as personal digital assistants, into uebercontrollers. Agilent Technologies recently announced an infrared transceiver that can be built into mobile phones and turn them into remote controls for CD players and other home appliances.

"These are the advanced guard of controllers, but the mainstream market for remotes is still people who are just changing TV channels, pausing the DVD, and switching from the DVD to TV input," said Jim Barry, a Consumer Electronics Association analyst.

Universal remotes that run closer to $100 or higher are smarter and more flexible. They can "learn" or pick up function codes via an infrared zap from a gadget's remote that isn't on the universal remote's pre-designated database. They also often have more "macro" buttons that users can program to do a series of tasks with a single click.

For instance, a user could have a "macro" button turn the TV on, switch it to the A/V mode, power up the home theater receiver, set it to DVD mode, and turn on the DVD player -- a common process that would otherwise entail juggling three different remotes.

The $200 Harmony H659 by Intrigue Technologies tries to ease user agony by providing pre-labeled buttons such as "Watch TV" or "Listen to Music" that do the "macro" programming for you, automatically sending the right commands to your components.

The Harmony remote can be programmed via the Internet. Users can go online to describe how they use their gaggle of gadgets and hook their remotes to the computer to download the necessary codes and commands.

Climb higher on the price scale, spending more for the remote than for some coffee tables, and there are models that can operate more than a dozen devices -- not only audio and video components but sometimes your air conditioner, too.

The $500 Home Theater Master MX-800 controls up to 20 devices. The new $700 Sony Navitus Remote Control controls 18 and sports a fancy color LCD screen that presses back against your fingertip to confirm each command.

Royal Philips Electronics' top-of-the-line $1,699 iPronto universal remote can wirelessly connect to the Internet to display news or e-mail, as well as a TV programming guide on its LCD screen.

The new $80 Radio Shack 8-in-1 Kameleon is the first universal remote control to include a finder feature. If the remote disappears, a user could press a button on a separate finder device for up to 14 seconds to make the remote control beep loudly.

The Kameleon itself, which controls up to eight devices, doesn't have any buttons. Instead, a blank LCD display lights up with on-screen buttons once the internal motion sensor is triggered. Depending on which mode you want to be in -- say, TV, cable box, or DVD -- then only that keypad layout would illuminate.

Remote control technology has come a long way since Adler's two- and four-button models of the Zenith Space Command in 1956. The Space Command could turn the TV on or off, change the channel, or mute the volume. For Adler, that's user heaven compared to today's remotes.

Philips admits what everyone knows: digital gadgets are way too complicated for the average consumer

Last December, executives of Royal Philips Electronics got a call from ABC's news program "20/20." They had put an American consumer in a room with a pile of digital gadgets and a universal remote control from Philips. Of course, the poor soul failed to get the products to work and left in utter frustration. This tale was told in January by Royal Philips CEO Gerard Kleisterlee at an industry dinner in Las Vegas, where he said it had become "painfully obvious" that the promise of the digital revolution to make our lives easier, simpler, better, is not being delivered. In fact, in many respects, it's only made life more complicated. And we are to blame." Last month Kleisterlee launched a campaign to rebuild Philips around a plan to make technology simpler to use, and a $100 million ad campaign to spread the word. At Philips's headquarters in Amsterdam, he explained the plan, very simply, to NEWSWEEK ' s Friso Endt.

NEWSWEEK: Is it true you ran a test, giving 100 of your top managers one weekend at home to get various Philips gadgets operating?

KLEISTERLEE: Yes, we did. And indeed, a number failed, returned frustrated and some even angry; another group that succeeded returned quite proud. It strengthened our conviction that we must start making things easier for consumers or we will never see the real promise of the digital revolution come to life. And we must do it now.

We are the first to explicitly make a commitment. We developed a program we call Sense and Simplicity, and the three pillars it leans on: advanced technology that is easy to experience and designed around you. As we go forward you will see more and more products that answer to these requests.

Let's look at a few statistics: our Yankee Group early this year reported that close to 30 percent of all home-networking products sold today are returned because the consumer can't get them to work. Also 48 percent of potential digital-camera owners are delaying their purchase because they think the products are too complicated. And then there's the roughly 25 percent of Americans who think they already own an HDTV. Of course, there's a difference in the consumer habits of Asians, Americans and Europeans. But simplicity is a universal need. There has been more talk about that than anything else.

Isn't Philips still best known for developing gadgets, like the video player, only to see them commercialized by the Japanese?

What you talk about happened 40 years ago. We are most successful in the DVD player, worldwide. The same goes for the flat TV-screen or the 3-D ultrasound machine, to mention a few. But don't make the mistake that Philips is only a consumer-products company. We are a technology company. That's why we are now promoting the image of health care, lifestyle and technology based on Sense and Simplicity. Simplicity is as applicable to a doctor working under pressure in a hospital as it is to a consumer operating a DVD recorder.

The 20 percent of people in the Western world who buy 80 percent of our products--typically affluent decision makers in the 35-55 age range who share a dislike for the unnecessary hassle often created by technology. One person making a decision on a top-of-the-range flat TV for the home could be the purchasing manager at a local hospital. They have the education and the money to decide to buy a noninexpensive sonic toothbrush. So we need them as consumers and professionals. Only that group?

Our message can be much more tailored to reach about 80 percent of that audience. We do not have to target every possible consumer. Of course we also have a younger audience, downloading specific music from their computer, but that's not where the majority of our sales comes from. The same goes for China, India or the developing markets of Latin America. There we have products for lower incomes. But also there our income will come from the same market--more than average incomes--as in Western society.

Why are tech gizmos so hard to figure out?
By Edward C. Baig, USA TODAY

You've just brought home a hot new high-definition TV or digital camcorder. You can't wait to enjoy it. Just one little problem: You're going nuts trying to set up and use the darn thing.

Usability experts point to the iPod as the poster child of good usability.
By Johansen Krause, Apple

Today's tech toys throw in goodies we scarcely used to imagine, from cellphones with tiny TV screens to computers that stream video wirelessly through your house. But lots of those features you probably don't want, can't use or don't know exist.

Don't expect to be saved by the instruction manual — if there is one. If it hasn't been written by geeks, it's been translated, verbatim, from Korean or Japanese. Too many gadgets pay scant attention to ease of use.

Now, an army of "usability" advocates are vowing to do something about it. They're determined to exert a stronger hand in the design of tech products. If they get their way, simple-to-use will be the new normal five years from now.

You won't need to give the baby sitter a crash course on how to turn on your TV and stereo. You'll be able to rent a car without spending 10 minutes learning to turn on the wipers, lights and air conditioning. You'll be able to navigate websites without crying out, "I can't find what the%$#* I'm looking for!"

"We expect brain surgery to be hard," says Whitney Quesenbery, of Whitney Interactive Design, a consultant who helps design easy-to-use websites and applications. "We expect making a call and turning on the TV to be simple."

Thursday has been declared the first World Usability Day by the Usability Professionals' Association (made up of product testers, designers and others). The aim: to promote "user-centered design and every user's responsibility to ask for things that work better." Earth-Day-style events in 35 countries will spotlight people who want to bring simpler products to the market.

"We as an industry need to do a better job," says Ben Shneiderman, a University of Maryland professor and author of Leonardo's Laptop: Human Needs and the New Computing Technologies. "The public needs to be banging on the table and saying it should be better than it is."

• The Museum of Science in Boston is setting up exhibits to teach school kids about user-centered design. Also, designers of products and websites can submit their wares to a team of experts for rapid-fire feedback on the product's usability strengths and weaknesses.

• Visitors touring IBM's usability lab in Tucson will see the process of designing cellphones.

• At Michigan State University, real usability success stories will be displayed. Example: a Whirlpool washer that lets blind users speak commands to the machine.

"We all have the same goal," says World Usability Day event director Elizabeth Rosenzweig. "We're not here to mold ourselves around technology; technology should work for us."

The struggle to tame technology is not new. "I still am fond of a wonderful quote in a manual for the phonograph: 'This phonograph only takes two weeks to [learn to] use,' " says Donald Norman of the Nielsen Norman Group, which helps companies make "human-centered" products.

Not so many years ago, we tended to fret about the VCR's flashing clock. Zenith's solution was downright Dilbert-esque: It put instructions on videotape.

The loose equivalent today is putting tutorials on the Web. (Printing manuals is costly, and research suggests few people read them.) But that's hardly the solution.

"I don't want to go to the website in order to find out how to use a product," says Eva Barnett, a New York lawyer.

The use of too many products is surprisingly counter-intuitive. To turn off a Windows XP computer, you click the "start" button. And why do you turn on your cellphone by holding down the "end" button?

Doris Santella, 67, of Sound Beach, N.Y., says: "I have friends who won't go near computers because they're terrified of breaking something."

The phenomenal success of Apple's easy-to-use iPods is instructive: Companies that successfully unveil usable products aren't just providing a nice service; it's good business, too. Companies that excel in usability can boost their return on "usability" investment more than 100-to-1, estimates Randolph Bias, a University of Texas professor who co-wrote the book Cost-Justifying Usability.

Why? Simpler-to-operate products tend to sell better, and a company can spend less on tech support.

But some tech engineers and designers assume too much: that since they understand how the gadget works, everyone should. Bias quips: "A whole lot of companies went out of business because their users were too stupid."

•Corporate demands. Companies must regularly feed new products into the pipeline or upgrade existing gear. Marketers sometimes push products out before they've been fully tested with real folks. "There's the potential to be presumptuous and assume you're meeting users' needs without being rigorous," says Lee Green, IBM's head of corporate design. "There are pressures for getting to market quickly."

•Making it usable for all ages. "I try to pick products that look simple to operate because they're less intimidating," says Shelby Schwartz, a retiree in Madeira Beach, Fla.

•Technological progress. Faster chips, abundant storage and other advances lead to new products. But complexity is often the flip side of innovation. In the old days, you could plug a TV in and start watching. You just had to position rabbit ears or install a roof antenna. You had only a few channels to choose from.

In the digital era, you almost need an engineering degree to connect a TV to a home-theater system. Do you run cables through the set-top box, DVD player, VCR or TiVo? Which of the gaggle of buttons on the remote do you press?

"The consequence of TV, audio and video convergence is in having to interconnect what were previously disparate applications," says Gus Rodriguez of Philips Design in the Netherlands. But Philips thinks usability sells. It's marketing consumer electronics gear around a "Sense & Simplicity" campaign.

•Mobility. To keep portable devices compact, buttons tend to serve more than one function. As with the "end" button that turns on a cellphone, companies don't always make the smart design decision.

•The product does too much. Gadgets that excel at one or two things become more complex as new features are added. Some of us want our cellphone just to make and receive calls. We don't want it to also be a camera, a video-game player or a TV.

Yet, advertisers serve up the myth that products with more features are, naturally, superior. That means "creeping feature-itis."

Usability experts point to the iPod as the poster child of good usability. But even Apple has had to make tough design calls.

"Making the iPod a great music player means saying no to a checklist of features," says Phil Schiller, Apple's senior vice president for worldwide product marketing. The result: Apple has managed to keep iPod simple, even as it's morphed from a portable music player into one that can also show pictures and video.

"The feature-list wars were not good for software," consultant Quesenbery says. "People threw a function in because it gave them a check-box on a list, not because it met the needs of the marketplace."

Microsoft is redesigning the user interface for the next version of Office, due next fall. Microsoft will display only the tools you'll likely use most frequently. The goal: to cut the number of clicks to complete a task. In Office 2003, it took 26 clicks to insert a text box into a document; with the new version, four.

Intuit is a leader in usability testing. Based on user tests (and feedback from tech support), Intuit recently altered the user interface of one of its popular software programs, QuickBooks, because customers couldn't figure out where to start. Intuit, which publishes TurboTax, is unveiling a simpler program called SnapTax for those who fill out the 1040 short forms.

During usability tests, Intuit's director of user experience, Kaaren Hanson, gives people tasks to complete in a specific program. Quantifiable goals are set: Success, for example, would be achieved if nine of every 10 people could complete tasks deemed "critical."

"Anytime you're designing products, you have to have compromises," Hanson says, and "prioritize some features over others." As part of their usability research, Intuit, Microsoft and others observe real customers at company labs and follow them to their homes and workplaces.

Sprint is testing the usability of camera phones by asking customers to take a picture and upload it to a website. Success is measured not only by who completes the task but also how quickly.

Based on its usability tests, TTE, which markets RCA TVs, changed the menu screens on some upcoming models. Some users, in setting up their TVs, had been skipping over the automatic channel search feature, which later meant they couldn't watch certain channels. Now, a new window will pop up to say, "Are you sure you want to skip this step?"

Companies have taken other steps to ease confusion: color-coded cables and connectors and "start here" guides. Meantime, experts urge folks to complain and return products that don't work or are too hard to use.

"The rate of improvement is accelerating," Bias says, hopefully. "I think things are going to be better tomorrow and a lot better in five years."

If so, Quesenbery says, maybe, "I won't get calls from my mother asking, 'How did you put that number in my cellphone?' "

Dynatron, Inc. and New Remotes, Inc. have Partnered to Create - The Miracle Remote.

Dynatron Inc. is the proud manufacturer of the Miracle Remote series. No programming, No codes it just works! We are also a leading manufacturer of remote controls used for consumer electronics and the hospitality industry. Other items we manufacture include telephones, security systems, surge protectors, along with cable and accessories for consumer electronics.

Dynatron is a subsidiary of Starlight Electronics and we are located in Ridgefield, NJ. We have been in business for over 30 years.

New Remotes Inc. is the leading authorized reseller of discounted original and universal remote controls for consumer electronic components since 1987. We are also the largest manufacturer of remote controls made specifically for hotels and motels. New Remotes Inc. is also the manufacturer of Disposable NosoControl Hospital Remotes, created to stop the spread of infection in hospitals and other medical setting. And finally, we make the popular Miracle Remote series, No Programming, No Codes, it just works!

Kenneth Gassman has served in several technical and managerial positions at Miracle Remote LLC, a subsidiary of Dynatron since 1990. For the past six years he has held the position of Customer Service Director. With his vast experience, he is considered a leading expert in technology, manufacturing, sales and service in the remote control industry.

His direction and contributions toward the development of the Miracle Remote Series have proved invaluable to the company.