No. The lack of buttons annoys the hell out of me. Lose your remote? Oops, no TV for you. And frankly, I despise any product that emphasizes something completely superficial like looks over functionality. I pity the empty, vapid existence of people who actually get excited about such ridiculous design issues.
this post was submitted on 20 Dec 2023
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My TV has one button. My household has three teenage boys. The remote is always lost and I have to use that ONE button for everything.
Stupidest bullshit since taking headphone jacks out of phones.
Like, they sit in different places in the living room and leave the remote in different spots?
Get more remotes, and have your very own? Universal remotes have been around for a long time. IIRC Steve Wozniak, the co-founder of Apple, was involved with inventing them.
https://www.amazon.com/universal-remote/s?k=universal+remote
Can get one for less than $10 this Christmas, make the problem go away.
EDIT: Yeah, thought he was:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CL_9
CL 9 was a company that developed a universal TV remote control. It was started by Steve Wozniak, co-founder of Apple Inc. and designer of the Apple I and Apple II personal computers. CL 9 was in business for three years, from 1985 to 1988, launching the 6502-based CL 9 CORE remote control in 1987, which Wozniak calls the first programmable universal remote control.
EDIT2: Hah. Just noticed the CPU model. That's the same processor that the Apple II had that he put in that remote.
I'm not saying your solution is complicated. You're right, $10 is cheap and that is simple, but I will still counter with: I should not have to BUY ANOTHER PRODUCT TO USE THE ONLY INTENDED FUNCTION OF SOMETHING I'VE ALREADY PURCHASED.
Hear hear!
I mean, you still don't want to walk to the TV each time to fiddle with the controls, regardless of the design of them, right? Like, even if the on-TV controls were more-accessible, is that the route that you'd most-prefer to go, given the option?
Well, that did it. You finally convinced me that everything I thought I knew about my TV is wrong and that I actually DON'T want any of the things that I previously said I wanted, and that none of my complaints are based on my actual life experiences. Thank you for clearing up this delusion I've been living in for years!
Seems you posted an unpopular opinion.
I prefer mechanical buttons, for essential functions of a device/ machine.
Technology/software break down, nice to have the option of manual control.
TV companies can hide them in the back, so that is a design problem.
TV companies can hide them in the back, so that is a design problem.
Yep. Both of my TVs have controls on the back. One has the traditional row of up/down/channel/volume/etc buttons like you'd expect, another has four buttons with a little joystick in the middle that lets you navigate the menu system. Both work fine, well enough that I can change the inputs and the volume without fumbling through menus.
That is awesome!
My PC display has the joystick.
I prefer traditional, but anything is better than not having any buttons!
Thank you for info and have a great day!
No. The buttons don't bother me, and I like having options for when I misplace the remote.
OP if your problem with buttons is looking at them, they figured out the solution to this back in the 70s: don't put them on the front of the TV. TVs have been made with buttons on the top, bottom, and sides for literally decades, and with flat screens the back is perfectly fine, too.
A TV without buttons is a dealbreaker for me. If I can't control it without the remote I'm not gonna be happy.
Do you work for a tv manufacturer's marketing department? Please make a thicker model with decent built in speakers and buttons that I don't have to feel around for!
Edit: Also, please no smart features, they age poorly. I can provide my own...
Also, please no smart features, they age poorly. I can provide my own…
I do like it when a TV has fully implemented CEC and I can use its controls to control any devices hooked up to it. If there needs to be some rudimentary "Smart OS" there to make that work I can live with it. But yeah, chances are I'm plugging a hacked AndroidTV box into it and using it as a glorified monitor.
It should be illegal to sell a TV that doesn't have a full set of controls (not that dogshit little stick thing) on the front or bottom.
The back is not a valid place for inputs.
I'd rather buy a TV with easier-to-access controls, but I don't see why the state needs to mandate that. I suspect that there are also people who don't want that as well, and I don't see why they can't be catered to as well. Room enough in the market for both of us.
Historically, the TV was an isolated device with an integrated tuner. Now, a lot of the functionality has moved to other devices -- cable boxes or video game consoles or whatever -- and the TV is, in many cases, just being used as a display for other devices, more analogous to a PC's display. I rarely touch my PC's display's controls.
Also, HDMI CEC has made it more practical to use a single remote, a single set of controls. I have multiple remotes floating around, but some people aren't even going to use the controls on their TV remote.
And I don't know why the bottom is especially desirable. I mean, at least for me, the bottom would be more-obnoxious than the back, on the side, where I've often seen controls. I have a TV on a stand...I'm guessing that you have a wall-mount?
I wouldn't actually support micromanaging tech like that. It would be a nightmare.
I use both. The back is barely accessible on a stand and not even sort of accessible wall mounted. It is not an acceptable place for controls under any circumstances.
The point of controls are only when the remote is missing, but CEC sucks. I don't know if it's because the standards are shit or enforcement is shit, but the end result is tech as terrible and inconsistent as Bluetooth.
I personally like all my gadgets to have as many large, clunky, clicky buttons as possible.
Tom Paris is that you?
I agree. I prefer having the tv being all screen. I’m hoping you mean having the buttons hidden rather than being a whole section? Bc, you need buttons.
Bc, you need buttons.
A lot of modern TVs are starting to go power-button only. Was trying to set one up recently, but didn't have any batteries on hand for the remote. I literally just needed it to act as a monitor and display the hdmi input, but without the remote, I couldn't change input, or do anything else useful.
Some don’t even have that, I was trying to find the buttons on a tv that I was using the other week and there weren’t even power controls without the remote, it was so annoying
To be honest, I hate not having buttons for the most basic functions on devices. At least the TV still has them. (It's from '06, still going strong)
I don't feel any type of way about buttons
I constantly lose my remote and have to use those buttons
You could do the hotel thing. Just glue your remote to the coffee table. Never lose it again. Or just look through the couch cushions cuz why would it have left the room it's TV is in unless you have kids? And if you have kids that lose the remote just do what my parents did:
Your kids are now the remote. Make them press the stupidly small crappy buttons. Maybe that's why they're small in the first place; they expected them to only be used by small children.
To answer your question, I have now 3 times found myself in the living room holding the remote rather than my cellphone, which is back on the bed by the television. My only excuse is that I'm over 60, ADD, and was distracted by the dirty dishes I was also carrying.
Or get a smart TV and just use your phone
Nothing like having to unlock your phone and wait for it to reload the app just so you can turn down the volume. And good luck doing that if you're having network issues.
good luck doing that if you're having network issues.
One of the reasons why I would like IR Blasters to become common in most phones again. In a smartphone, those would be way more useful than the regular-ass cell phones I remember having them in all the time.
Especially when Netflix gives you like 2 seconds to cancel it skipping the ending themes and doesn't give you any option to disable that, so by the time you have the app running, it's already playing the next episode.
Granted, getting out of bed to try to stop it by using physical buttons would take several times as long.
No
Nah, the buttons were fine. I think more people were annoyed about when the TV's would perpetually be set at 12:00 and you could do nothing about it unless you had a roll of black electrical tape.