[Xlythe]

Oh, hey, I was working on that back in 2014 for one of the big TV manufacturers. The project was ultimately cancelled.

It was nice for things like switching HDMI inputs; you could dynamically update the name and icon, making it more intuitive for someone who had never used the TV before and didn't know what was plugged into which port. You could also adjust settings more easily without everyone have to watch together with you on the big screen as you dug to find the obscure setting to tweak.

But your complaints were equally valid, and were a concern at the time.

I would have liked to see it ship, if just to see if customers liked it. A traditional remote still worked too. But oh well.

[mitthrowaway2]

When I press the "input" button on my remote, the TV displays a list of HDMI ports and what is plugged into them. Why would I want to be looking at my remote for that information? I'm already remote-controlling the best display device I own.

[alsobrsp]

Look at fancy pants input button over here.

I have a ~2022 Samsung OLED, and it doesn't have an input button that I can find. I have to go into the home ribbon menu to find the inputs.

[gardenerik]

Oh, how I hate the new Samsung remotes!

They have very few buttons, which you can't tell apart in the dark (unless you remember the layout) and everything must be done through the UI which tries to upsell you some streaming service everywhere.

[dmonitor]

The Wii U gamepad had this functionality. It was pretty handy for the reasons you describe.

https://en-americas-support.nintendo.com/app/answers/detail/...

What TVs should be adding, though, is Wiimote functionality. Build the IR array into the bezel and let me point the remote to select something with a cursor, with arrow keys as a fallback if I'm lazy.

[goosedragons]

LG has had this for years with their Magic Remote.

[devmor]

Was it LG? I bought a lot of their discontinued Android-powered “smart” remotes for a project a few years ago. They unfortunately had their uses for other applications limited by a battery life of less than 30 minutes - I assume they were meant to live on the included Qi-powered stand.

[garaetjjte]

>you could dynamically update the name and icon

You could do that sanely, with e-ink display on a button.

[InsideOutSanta]

Yeah, the Logitech Harmony remotes that combined real buttons with a touch screen, particulary the Harmony One, were amazing. You had buttons for all of the common stuff, like volume, play, pause, numbers, and so on, but then you also had a touch screen so you could directly trigger actions that can't have physical buttons because they're different between individual setups.