So what’s with all those extra buttons?

The Remote Control Conundrum

Marketing comes to mind, of course. Whether it’s about buying a TV or some other electronic gizmo, people usually prefer gadgets loaded with features because they feel more luxurious. On the contrary, a remote control stripped of its signature buttons seems cheap. Thus, manufacturers use the idea of optionality—think the “Aspect Ratio” or mysterious rainbow buttons—to make you think you’re getting more for your money. Sounds backwards, but unfortunately, quite a few people buy into it.

Don’t forget about the streaming billboard either. The buttons dedicated to services like Netflix, Hulu, or Disney+ are indeed a nice promotion tool. So, in order to ensure a permanent presence, streaming platforms pay an additional fee for their spot on your Roku remote.

The Cost of Convenience

Like most matters of modern tech, it all comes down to money in the end. To create a clicker with fewer buttons, the company needs to build a new mold for the plastic casing, manufacture a different circuit board, and conduct new tests to ensure everything works properly. It’s a lot easier to reuse an existing “master” remote that can work with everything from your old cable box to a fancy 4K flatscreen.

The outcome? A remote control that resembles an aircraft’s cockpit. A modern remote realistically needs very few buttons, often relying on voice control or even an app. By contrast, these standard universal remotes, like the classic GE models, still cram in more than 50. Back when you could still grab a legendary Logitech Harmony, you might have gone into the store for a slightly bigger screen and left with a full numeric keypad, DVR controls, and inputs for a home theater you didn’t even have. It’s simply easier for the manufacturer to stick us with such devices than to design something intuitive.

The Dark Side of Design

And yet, there’s one even more obvious reason why this feature creep is counterintuitive. We usually use our remotes in the dark, relying on touch instead of sight. That’s why we need real buttons—not a featureless slab of plastic that makes us stop watching TV just to hunt for the right key.

As remotes have become Swiss Army knives of some sort, the few buttons we actually use—like volume or rewind—are hidden in plain sight. But then again, those tiny modern remotes do have a penchant for getting lost in the couch cushions, so maybe we’ll stick to the kind with a plethora of performative buttons instead.

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