Philips displays innovative rotary wheel remote controls

September 7, 2007

Philips today unveiled their revolutionary new rotary wheel remote control technology for consumer electronic device manufacturers. Designed to enable quick and intuitive navigation of user interfaces & scrolling through content, the rotary wheel technology features a speed-variable wheel that allows users to surf through menus and immediately access digital content at a faster or slower pace than allowed by traditional remote control technology.

This technology has been developed to allow easy management and selection to large amounts of digital content with the speed variable rotary wheel requiring fewer keys on the remote control. Compatible with set-top-boxes, DVDR and IPTV, the rotary wheel technology is designed to work seamlessly with an on-screen user interface.

With increasing amounts of digital content accessible through PCs, TVs, set-top-boxes and music systems, users are demanding more intuitive ways to manage movie, photo and song libraries.

The rotary wheel technology for remote controls has been developed by Philips Home Control following consumer feedback that traditional remote control devices, based on single function activation, or up/down or left/right navigation, did not offer the flexibility desired by users. By implementing a rotary wheel as the primary control, this technology facilitates quick and intuitive navigation. Extensive consumer testing during product development revealed that users favor the rotary wheel when browsing for contents in the Time Shift Buffer and lists of files in the hard disk.

“Our rotary wheel technology is a large step in the process to change the way people think about remote control technology. The rotary wheel is very intuitive and allows users to easily manage increasing amounts of digital content,” said Jean-Paul Abrams, Global Commercial Manager Home Control at Philips Electronics. “With this technology, it is much quicker to find the desired digital content and it lets users browse with more control and flexibility. Moreover, it can be made compatible with the on-screen user interface of our customers, offering unprecedented simplicity in digital content management.”

Source: Philips