The Better Mousetrap?

[Magus]

Just bought one of those cheap media player things so I can watch pc movie files on my TV. It's made in China. It has a remote that is half the size of a normal remote, has all the same type of buttons, and seems to have the same range.

It runs on a watch battery.

See this truly shows America is no longer the leading technological power, or if this is actually an American company (Micca), it took until now to come up with this. If you knew how many damn AA and AAA batteries I've bought over the years for all the damn remotes, using multiple ones for each of them, usually replacing them at least once a year, costing me dozens of dollars...and each remote could have run off a watch battery that probably costs about 5 dollars and would probably run for about ten years, if my watch is any measure of it (and yes, it has indiglo. I don't think the power drain for a remote can be any higher!)

Sure, I could get rechargeable batteries, but they cost more, like ten bucks for the charger alone. Clearly the remote control companies are in cahoots with the battery companies to rob of us of our hard-earned dough!

...oh, and the media player is pretty nice, I guess. It's probably chinsy and cheap or whatever, I'm sure the remote is too. BUT one could make a high quality remote that runs off a watch battery. BUT NO ONE THOUGHT TO.

So, any other examples of "better mousetrap" ideas you've discovered or even thought of yourself? Can we solve the energy crisis in some simple manner? Data storage? World hunger? Think hard.

[akaSM]

Cheap chinese stuff? I've been buying that kind of stuff lately :D.

I got a nice bluetooth keyboard that has a trackpad and mouse buttons. It's quite nice and works perfect with my PC which I recently moved to the living room. Now, how many keyboards do you know that do this?


It works via bluetooth (works fine with my phone)
It's back-lit
Has a touchpad and mouse buttons
Has a laser pointer
Has a rechargeable battery
Shortcuts to media buttons (e.g. press Fn + F7 to play)
It's actually well built (!)


Yeah, it has some drawbacks like a poor range, it has to be pretty much in sight of the receiver or the trackpad gets jerky, alongside a small delay in the keypresses (only noticeable in games, the games are still playable though) but again, have you seen anything like this before?

Now, for rechargeable batteries, they're totally worth it. I got a Wii with 4 controllers that's regularly used, my mouse that uses 2 AAA batteries and all the remotes of the house plus a couple things.

We haven't bought batteries since before I got into med school, yeah, they're kinda expensive (around 4 times the price of some good regular batteries around here) but, they're completely worth it and you'll end up saving a lot of money in the long run. I even have a couple USB chargers which I can plug into a TV, my Wii or even my phone charger so I never run out of charged batteries :3

[Kerensky287]

Has a laser pointer

http://i204.photobucket.com/albums/bb22/Kerensky287/reaction%20shots/wut.jpg

[TDK]

yes because clearly crappy electronics are an accurate representation of the technological standing of each country

[Magus]

yes because clearly crappy electronics are an accurate representation of the technological standing of each country

Hey, you said it. After I said it, and sarcastically, but I plan on ignoring your tone completely and utterly.

Besides which it might be an American company that just outsources to China. My main point was that for some reason nobody thought of just running small electronics off of watch batteries despite it making way more sense than AA and AAA batteries. Obviously an integrated rechargeable battery makes the most sense, but I presume it costs more so it would drive the price up. Watch battery seemed like a decent middle ground for something as small and low-powered as a remote.

Anyway, in keeping with making better remotes: they should put little beepers in the things that will beep when you press a button on your TV, kind of like when you lose track of a wireless phone handset. That way you can find the damn things when you lose them. This was actually mentioned in a comic book (possibly by Lex Luthor), but nobody has bothered to put one in remotes yet.

[rpgdemon]

Question: Do watch batteries store more charge than AAA or AA batteries?

Seriously, I don't know.

If not, then you'll be running out more often than a normal remote, and have to keep buying (More expensive, and more annoying since they're not always stocked) watch batteries.

[BitVyper]

This has less to do with technology and more to do with companies not giving a fuck.

Anyway, any battery that actually requires you to take it out in order to recharge it, is for chumps.

[Magus]

Question: Do watch batteries store more charge than AAA or AA batteries?

Seriously, I don't know.

If not, then you'll be running out more often than a normal remote, and have to keep buying (More expensive, and more annoying since they're not always stocked) watch batteries.

Well I don't really know either. They seem to have more charge, since I think I've had to replace my watch battery once, and I've had it for ten years, and presumably I can't see it taking much more power than a remote control.

My main point is that at least on the surface it seemed like they were trying some new shit to make common place things slightly better. So thus we should all think of new shit to make common things slightly better.

Like...solar panels on your car.

This has less to do with technology and more to do with companies not giving a fuck.

Anyway, any battery that actually requires you to take it out in order to recharge it, is for chumps.

True, but presumably integrated rechargeable batteries would drive the price up. It's just a remote, not an MP3 player, which also takes a lot more juice to run. Rechargeable batteries in an MP3 player make a lot of sense, because if it used regular old batteries you'd be replacing them every two days, since the things run for hours at a time.

What MP3 players need is...a keychain attachment and belt clips standard on all models. So many simply have one or the other, or, in the case of most Apple products until the iPod Nano, neither.

[BitVyper]

If you're actually buying a remote separately, most of them fall into the same general price range as MP3 players already. I sincerely doubt they are more costly to produce than an MP3 player.

To be honest, I'm not even sure what I would use a remote for at this point. Almost all of my media is run on my computer.

[Magus]

Hmm, they don't seem to cost as much. A good MP3 player costs at least 30 dollars (though I personally have a cheap 15 dollar Sansa). I think the most expensive remote was...possibly 12, yeah. I guess they're getting up there. But what I meant was a remote is used way less than an MP3 player. That's why batteries generally last a year, you press one button at a time once in a while, it doesn't play constantly for hours at a time like an MP3 player. That's why they need integrated rechargeable batteries.

But yeah, integrated rechargeable batteries for remotes would be good, too, and for everything else for that matter!

Keep putting forth basic improvements to objects in our daily lives, NPFers!

[Aerozord]

they all have watch batteries in them, its what powers bulk of the remote. The battery powers the transmitter mainly. Possible what they really did was boost the receiver so the weak signal the watch battery puts out is picked up

[Magus]

Hmm, so the receiver in the media player uses a little more electricity, then?

[TDK]

an MP3 player, which also takes a lot more juice to run

Mp3 players use ridiculously tiny amounts of electricity. Especially ones that don't have full lcd screens and whatnot (ie: the kind that would actually take batteries and not have them built-in). I had this tiny, generic mp3 player for years that ran off a single AAA battery. Never had to change it once.

But mp3 players in general basically use jack shit. The screen is their primary power draw. Playing music off of headphones uses tiny amounts of electricity because, being RIGHT in your ear, the sounds they make are so very quiet that it doesn't require much power at all to produce.


I mean, you have your people who play their music at ridiculous volumes on their headphones, but they are morons and therefore don't count.