World’s Longest Television Remote: Russian Innovation

The 2 AAA battery-powered Pultius TV Remote from Art Lebedev would be difficult to misplace as it is nearly twenty inches long. It also provides the hapless user with as many buttons as there are channels. The creators are convinced that being able to switch between 399 channels answers a very specific need to click among television-hungry, channel surfing viewers and consumers.

Art Lebedev has responded to the challenge to “design a remote control with as many buttons as there are channels on TV.” The problem is that this design does not necessarily make things any easier for the television buff. The 20-inch long rainbow gradient of 102 identically-sized buttons brings the issue of making a decision to a location where it never should have been in the first place; namely, nowhere with much time to kill.

The Pultius TV Remote Control offers 99 individual channel buttons along with 3 buttons for adding 100, 200 or 300 to the number. With just two button presses, the user can have direct access to 399 unique channels. The remote, however, is really more like a baton and since there’s no traffic to direct or orchestra to lead, it is a bit redundant, to say the least. Still, the word ‘innovation’ applies, for there is no other like it anywhere. The question remains: Should we be grateful?

This bizarre design represents Art Lebedev Studio’s attempt to include as many channels as possible on a single remote, without a need to press multiple buttons. Since it’s just a concept, there’s no word on price or availability, but could that be as Martha Stewart used to say and still does, “a good thing?”
Time will tell.

Meanwhile there’s a program I want to watch and I can’t find the ….can you guess?