A Japanese company has built a remote that you can bend and twist to control your TV, as an alternative to using buttons and gesture controls (which can get out of hand during a good game). It also never needs batteries.
Murata Manufacturing Co. says it plans to roll out the Leaf Grip Remote Controller next year. It is also producing a touch pad that can sense pressure. A user might enlarge an image, for example, using more pressure rather than a pinching motion.
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The technology behind these devices is a piezoelectric film. Piezoelectric materials generate current when they are bent or twisted. If you have ever used a camp stove you’ve run into piezoelectric materials, which are usually crystals or ceramics. In this case Murata is using a thin film developed through joint research with Kansai University and Mitsui Chemicals.
Ordinarily any piezoelectric substance is also subject to another effect called “pyroelectricity,” when a change in temperature creates a current. The problem is that the changes in temperature -- even small ones -- swamp the signal from the bending and twisting motion. Your remote might turn on the TV whenever it was hot inside the house. The thin film Murata developed doesn’t have this problem.
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The remote’s piezoelectric film is also highly transparent. So between the layers of film there is a flexible photovoltaic cell. Since it’s a remote it doesn’t need to provide much power and it eliminates the need for AAA batteries.
From a user perspective it will be interesting to see if people take up bending and twisting their remotes to control various functions; such devices would have to be durable as well. It’s also not clear how such a remote would deal with your television beyond changing the channel and the volume; presumably it will connect to the TVs internal menu somehow.
The two devices are making their debuts at the CEATAC trade show in Chiba, Japan, on Oct. 4.
Via Murata Manufacturing / Physorg
Image: Murata Manufacturing
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