A remote control is a wireless transmission device that uses modern digital encoding technology to encode button information, and emits light waves through an infrared diode. The light waves are converted into electrical signals by the infrared receiver of the receiver, and decoded by the processor to demodulate corresponding instructions to achieve the required operational requirements for controlling devices such as set-top boxes.

It is uncertain who invented the first remote control, but one of the earliest remote controls was developed by an inventor named Nikola Tesla (1856-1943) who worked for Edison and was also known as a genius inventor in 1898 (US Patent No. 613809), called “Method of and Apparatus for Controlling Mechanism of Moving Vehicle or Vehicles”.

The earliest remote control used to control television was an American electrical company called Zenith (now acquired by LG), which was invented in the 1950s and initially was wired. In 1955, the company developed a wireless remote control device called “Flashmatic”, but this device cannot distinguish whether the beam of light is coming from the remote control, and it also needs to be aligned to be controlled. In 1956, Robert Adler developed a remote control called the “Zenith Space Command”, which was also the first modern wireless remote control device. He used ultrasound to adjust channels and volume, and each button emitted a different frequency. However, this device may also be disturbed by ordinary ultrasound, and some people and animals (such as dogs) can hear the sound emitted by the remote control.

In the 1980s, when semiconductor devices for sending and receiving infrared rays were developed, they gradually replaced ultrasonic control devices. Even though other wireless transmission methods such as Bluetooth continue to be developed, this technology continues to be widely used until now.