Eugene J. Polley, the man who invented the wireless remote control and changed the way we watched television, died last week.
Polley was an engineer at Zenith when the company was one of the leading TV manufacturers. In 1950 the company developed a remote control that attached to the set by a cord. Five years later, Polley came up with the idea of a wireless device that sent light beams to receptors on the set to change channels and turn the set on and off.
With a price tag of $100, the Flash-Matic, as it was known, initially was a luxury device for most consumers. And since there were only three TV networks, there was no great need for the luxury. But with the explosion of cable channels starting in the 1980s, the remote soon became ubiquitous. We have Eugene Polley to thank for that.