The launch of the Apple Vision Pro sparked renewed interest in extended reality experiences, both those offered by full-blown and heavy headsets as well as those pushed by more straightforward glasses. The latter often rely on your smartphone or a dedicated remote control to navigate through apps projected in front of you, an indirect interaction method made more awkward by the standard design of these devices. Remote controls might be fine for TVs and appliances, but not when you can barely see your own hand. This concept design tries to challenge convention by redesigning the face of a remote, offering a more ergonomic and simpler way to move around mixed reality while wearing those XR glasses.
Designer: Yiqiao Liu
XR or eXtended Reality glasses like the Xreal Air and TCL RayNeo can probably be called the poor man’s Vision Pro. They practically display a virtual monitor in front of you, which may or may not be pinned in an arbitrary location or follow your head around. This allows the glasses to be lighter, cheaper, and less conspicuous, though they do look like overgrown sunglasses. This also makes using the XR platform feel a bit more familiar because they more or less correspond to familiar operating systems like Windows or Android.
Moving around and interacting with objects in this XR space is then a simpler matter as well, and some even use the phone itself as a pointer and remote control, which is difficult to use when your vision is partially obscured by the glasses and all your fingers can feel is a flat and featureless surface. On the other hand, conventional remotes with their numerous buttons and straightforward layout can also be cumbersome to use as well.
The XR Glasses Controller concept takes the minimalist design of something like an Apple TV remote and tilts it at an angle. Visually, this soap-shaped device looks like an unbalanced remote, with the top buttons leaning to the right and the bottom touch dial sliding to the left. It’s not a design that was made just to look different, though it definitely gives it a distinctive appearance.
The theory behind this design is the mobility and limited range of our thumbs when holding a remote. As many smartphone designers already know by now, the thumb holding the remote moves naturally in an arc, and that up-and-down movement can cause more strain. The controls are thus aligned with this arc, making it easy for the user to switch between buttons and touchpad without having to overextend or bend their thumb. Along with the significantly reduced number of buttons, the remote is easier to use as well, though it does limit itself to Android-based XR platforms since those buttons perfectly match Android’s navigation scheme.
Isn’t it funny that somehow we went from universal remotes in the early 2000s to suddenly having these complicated hubs to connect all the devices in our smart homes? I won’t lie but talking to a hub isn’t as great as it promised to be. It’s a lot easier to point a remote at something and press a button than to tell Alexa to reduce the volume of music or raise the temperature of the AC… and while Amazon, Google, Apple, and the like just think hubs are the answer, one company is reverting back to the remote days. The Haptique RS90 is perhaps the world’s first universal remote controller designed to operate practically any wireless or smart device you’ve got around you. It uses a combination of infrared, WiFi, and Bluetooth to interface with devices around your house from smart TVs to Bluetooth speakers, ACs, soundbars, projectors, air purifiers, and even your PS5. You don’t need to talk to a hub, and better still, you don’t need to install twenty apps on your phone to manage multiple devices around your house.
The Haptique RS90 departs from the clunky look of traditional universal remotes. Instead, it takes on the shape of a smartphone, albeit with physical controls along with a 3.2-inch touchscreen. This display serves as the central hub for navigating menus, controlling smart home features, and even watching tutorials. A well-curated set of essential buttons line the bottom, providing quick access to core functions like volume control, channel surfing, and playback options. This thoughtful blend of touch and physical controls caters to both those who prefer a tactile experience and users who want the ease of a touchscreen. The overall design of the RS90 sticks to a recognizable linear format of most remotes, which gives you a feeling of familiarity. Hold it and you intuitively know how to use it – there’s a minimal learning curve with the controls, and even less so with the touchscreen. The remote is sleek without being too sleek – it’s less likely to get lost, thanks to a tilted design that makes it impossible to slide in between sofa cushions. Simultaneously, the tilt allows the screen to face you when you’re holding the remote horizontally – a clever detail that ends up becoming the RS90’s defining iconic silhouette.
The Haptique RS90 isn’t just about controlling your TV – it aspires to be the central nervous system of your entire smart home. It boasts broad infrared (IR) compatibility, allowing it to command traditional TVs, projectors, sound systems, and more. But its true strength lies in its ability to connect with smart home devices too. The RS90 promises seamless integration with popular smart home interfaces like Philips Hue, Home Assistant, Tuya, Sonos, Zigbee, with Homey and Smart Things in the works. The remote can directly control popular streaming services like Netflix and Spotify, or devices like Apple TV and Amazon Fire Stick, eliminating the need to juggle multiple apps or even actual remotes. The list goes on, with integrations planned for Roku, and game consoles like the PS5 and Nvidia Shield too!
Tactile buttons (with backlights) provide a traditional remote control experience
With great power, as the saying goes, also comes great responsibility. Having a centralized remote for all your smart home gizmos also means needing to make sure your 12-year-old doesn’t go messing with devices around the house. The remote boasts fingerprint-based security, allowing you to pretty much lock it the way you would a smartphone (available in the higher-tier model). Aside from locking your remote, you can also personalize its UIs with macros and shortcuts (something even smartphone apps don’t let you do) to ensure that you have every possible command right under your fingertips. After all, nothing feels more frustrating than fumbling with a remote trying to figure out basic functions, right?
The Haptique RS90 arrives at a pivotal time in the smart home revolution. While it doesn’t currently support Matter, the new industry-wide standard for smart home communication, it demonstrates a clear understanding of the need for interconnectivity. Thankfully, the developers have indicated that Matter support is planned for future updates. This future-proofing ensures that the RS90 won’t become obsolete as the smart home landscape continues to evolve.
While discussing the battery life of a remote control seems pretty trivial, the RS90 is clearly more than your average remote control. Given how much functionality it packs, it also arms itself with a 2000mAh battery that keeps it going for days (the small screen helps reduce battery drain too). To charge your remote, the RS90 is also accompanied by a slick charging hub that lets you simply dock your controller when it needs a battery boost. This also means your remote is less likely to get lost because you aren’t carelessly leaving it around the house.
The Haptique RS90 ships in two variants – the regular RS90 itself with 1GB RAM, 2.4 GHz WiFi, Android 8.10.0, Bluetooth 4.1 (and BLE), and a Quad Core ARM chip. Alternatively, the higher-tier RS90x model ships with 2GB RAM, Dual-band WiFi, Android 12, Bluetooth 5.0 (and BLE), an Octa Core ARM chipset, and the fingerprint sensor to help you lock your remote. Personally, the RS90x just seems like a better future-proofed option, running newer OS on more powerful hardware. Smart homes aren’t going anywhere, in fact, they’re only going to expand. If hubs annoy you, it makes sense to own the best possible version of a universal smart remote that lasts you for years, doesn’t it? The RS90 starts at $257, while the RS90x has a starting price of $321. Both models come in silver and gun-metal grey options, and ship with the charging dock and USB-C cable included, along with a 3-year warranty.
Even with the advent of smart TVs and streaming, remote controls are still an indispensable part of that user experience, imperfect as it may be. The basic design of remote controls has changed very little, save for the extra minimalist variants that, in exchange for simplicity, sometimes make you crawl through menus and options just to get to the function you need. More importantly, however, the complexity of these electronic accessories has made them too stressful to use, and their tendency to get stuck in the corners of couches was a meme even before there were memes. This concept tries to revolutionize the remote control design to deliver a more tactile experience that lets you operate or even pick it up without looking at it at all.
The traditional remote control design has always been one of practical convenience rather than comfort or enjoyment. It’s meant to let you quickly change channels or the volume, but the irony is that it often takes more time to look for the right button or, worse, look for the remote itself. Even with more minimal designs that reduce the buttons to half a dozen or so, the rectangular shape of the device itself lends it to being lost too easily.
The Sightless Remote Control proposes a rather drastic change to the standard design in order to address these issues. Instead of a flat rectangle, the remote has a T-shaped form that ensures it won’t slip through the gaps in couches and chairs. It also makes it easy to pick up the remote, whether from those corners or from the top of a table, all without even looking at the remote and just using our sense of touch instead.
The same is true for the buttons themselves, which are no longer distinct circles or ovals. Instead, there’s a single column in the middle of the remote’s top surface with wedge-like shapes rising on opposite sides almost like waves in the ocean. Instead of using printed icons, text representing the functions are instead embossed, again allowing for “blind” use by letting your fingers do the seeing. It will still require a bit of muscle memory to help place that finger in the right area, but it won’t be as tedious as on a typical remote with very smooth buttons.
More than just enabling sightless use of the device, this design tries to bring back the joy of using an analog device in an age of smartphones and touchscreens. It makes entertainment not just a pleasure for our eyes and ears but also for our sense of touch, all while helping reduce the cognitive overload that multi-functional screens and phone apps bring to our brains.
