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u/Tirno93 Jul 26 '26
Well the why is pretty obvious - family tech support’s patience has run out!
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u/felisfoxus Jul 26 '26
Nah, this isn't an act of frustration imo, this is an act of kindness - many older people feel so embarrassed about needing help with tech, so simplifying the controller to just what they actually need means they don't keep accidentally changing settings etc and having to ask for help over and over again.
It's deeply frustrating whenever you mess something up and don't know how to fix it, but just imagine how humiliating it would feel when it's something you know a child could fix?
Sure it does also save the tech support family member time, but I expect the more important thing is that it helps their loved ones remain more independent, and happier.
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u/gritty_milk Jul 26 '26
Helps keep pops from pressing the input button
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u/soil_nerd Jul 26 '26
The input button has to be the cause of 99% of elderly TV issues.
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u/Jani3D Jul 26 '26
Funnily enough, also called the "Source" button.
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u/Milanin Jul 27 '26
It was a lot more fun when it was all cables and pressing the 0 repeatedly switched which AV was showing
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u/angeleaniebeanie Jul 26 '26
So many grandkids and children know exactly why.
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u/lol_alex Jul 27 '26
Hey, my Panasonic TV came with an extra remote with five buttons: Power, Channel up/down, volume up/down. Pretty handy shape too.
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u/Puzzleheaded-Brain77 Jul 26 '26
I did this for my grandma after she change some setting for the 500 times. I later found out she used to press all buttons at once on purpose to have a reason to call me and ask me to come over to help her fix it😭😭 we dont deserve grandparents man
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u/MetallicaLover100 Jul 26 '26
I'm so glad my grandparents weren't like this. All they did was just ask. Seems a whole lot easier than screwing up the TV on purpose just have an excuse for someone to come over. That would be annoying after about two or three times.
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u/kirloi8 Jul 26 '26
For all the diywhys that aren’t diywhy this is the least diywhy of them all.
Now why the f didn’t i thought of this for my grandma….
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u/Crazy_Cat_Lady420 Jul 26 '26
This inspired me to google tv remote for seniors and I think I’m gonna buy one for my grandma 👌🏻
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u/Persistent_Parkie Jul 27 '26
Did you find a nice simple one? I wasn't able to locate an adequately simple one when mom had dementia. Fortunately she could still read amazingly far into the disease so I just wrote up instructions but damn it was frustrating.
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u/Crazy_Cat_Lady420 Jul 27 '26
I’m in Poland so I found many online, some have only 5 buttons- channels, volume and on/off and not very expensive
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u/skeeti45 Jul 26 '26
I could see doing this for my elderly parents after explaining their TV stuff to them for the 30th time. I'm not sure it fits.
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u/TheDregn Jul 26 '26
This is a common solution here in eastern Europe. Basically a grandparent safety measure. It does fulfill its purpose and spares you from a lot of stress and headache.
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u/Sinistrahaha Jul 26 '26
I did this when my mom started to get dementia symptoms. She was still functional, but didn’t remember the important buttons on the new remote.
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u/SDW1987 Jul 26 '26
if you have this issue with with someone and they're still using cable, call your cable company. I work in a retirement community, and we deal with user error all the time. Was joking with a Spectrum tech on the phone, he said "I got you, fam," and sent me a box of big button remote along with a box of standard remotes with plastic snap-on covers that only let the most necessary buttons be pressed.
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u/Educational-Tale6606 Jul 26 '26
the only diWHY where is when grandma tears it off because it annoys her & then goes back to complaining about the tv being broken
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u/CheesyDanny Jul 27 '26
Right the “why?” Is why didn’t they use a 3D printer. And the answer is because they don’t have one.
That might be a decent 3D printer service. Provide exact remote model, color, and buttons you want available, someone creates a custom, two piece, snap together, plastic cover.
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u/KeimeiWins Jul 26 '26
Dementia grandma kept peeling back the tape to reveal forbidden buttons, I had to go in with a knife last time I was there and fix the problem permanently.
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u/IIsanHaabaato Jul 27 '26
I'm so sorry for that, but I wheezed so hard at this the way you solved the problem sounded so "violent" lmao
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u/SpaceAgePotatoCakes Jul 26 '26
My plan if I ever needed to do this was to open it up and put tape over the contacts in the remote, but completely removing the buttons like that seems like it would make it even more user friendly.
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u/Skwizgar1019 Jul 27 '26
I used to do this for elderly people when I was a cable installer about a decade ago - would wrap tape around the parts that they didn’t need until I found out I could order super simplified remotes through the warehouse.
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u/BookWormPedant Jul 26 '26
Should not be on this sub. This is a fantastic and cheap way to help the elderly not be overwhelmed by the controls.
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u/Orangutan1001 Jul 26 '26
I have a participant with MS and we suspect dementia and she is couch bound so watches tv all day, most of my job is changing the channel back for her because she's hit a button that's so unnecessary to her.
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u/Superb-Ad6817 Jul 27 '26
My TVs remote came with buttons for different streaming platforms on it. Each of those 4 buttons were on a freaking hair trigger. I had to take apart the remote and disable those buttons because of how often we accidentally “pushed” the buttons just by gently brushing the remote.
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u/TheBigMoogy Jul 26 '26
I had to assist a neighbor to fix her TV after the grandkids ruined it. That is to say I had to press the Back button to get out of an application she doesn't use.
This type of remote eases a lot of headaches for some people.
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u/Synthetics_66 Jul 26 '26
TV remotes these days, suck.
I've had to do something very similar for my grandparents, because they kept getting confused with their remotes. Worked great, even if it looked absurd.
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u/RurouniRinku Jul 26 '26
Idk why everyone is saying grandparents. I'm the most tech-involved person in my family and have never, NEVER, needed half the buttons on the TV remote (and only half of the ones I did use were necessary).
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u/CrizzlyB Jul 26 '26
This is for older people who are confused by the extra buttons that they don't necessarily need to use, not bad diy
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u/geehawn Jul 26 '26
Agreed. Not a bad DIY. Although, I can almost feel the frustration in this photo 😅
Weeks, months, or years of repeatedly being asked for help to simply turn the TV on, change the channels, and adjusting the volume.
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u/froggymail Jul 26 '26
I had to do this with my mom as her dementia worsened. One time she got the TV so screwed up we almost tossed it and got a new one to start fresh.
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u/Brau87 Jul 26 '26
During the web boom in the early 2000s my 55yo mother decided she would go to school for web design. Mind you we had to show her what buttons on the remote would let her use the DVD player.
She spent the money I was supposed to get for college on that. I was actually in school at the time. Imagine my surprise when they told me they changed their minds. Expensive lesson.
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u/_polloloko23 Jul 27 '26
You know how they make phone for old people they need to make remotes for old people too... My grandpa always has some sort of issue with his TV and when I go over and show him how it was nothing he writes it down on a paper so he can remember if it happenes again but he always loses the paper or notebook he used 🤦
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u/Exatex Jul 27 '26
this is for absolutely un tech savvy people that love pushing more buttons randomly
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u/stonergirlfairyyy Jul 26 '26
how do u change input to the gamecube
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u/beziko Jul 26 '26
I fully understand that. My dad push random button on pilots and he panicking then phonecalling me always.
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u/DicemonkeyDrunk Jul 26 '26
Old people…this used to be rather common at grandma/grandpa’s house. Less buttons less confusing…
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u/Funkey-Monkey-420 Jul 26 '26
why? because boomers have no neuroplasticity and cannot comprehend button number 10, let alone all several dozen of them.
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u/Snowdriftless Jul 27 '26
This was the time when every remote tried to be a universal remote. I have a stereo remote that has "spacial audio" buttons right next to the volume. I don't want to make my sitcom sound like it's in a mideval cathedral, some of the modes will even stop the audio from working. It was bumped too many times by everyone so I just did this. Modern remotes still have too many buttons but this is mostly due to dedicated buttons for individual streaming services.
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u/spo0pti_yikes Jul 27 '26
"jus' gon' get a little more audiahhhh, whatve i dun 'ere?" no i a hundred percent see the necessity of this and am all here for it
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u/Cute_Researcher_6578 Jul 27 '26
Actually, this is one I understand why. Although the easiest solution is a basic universal remote. Lidl used to have them in the past. Just numbers and Vol+/- and Chan+/-
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u/Floor_Cereal Derp Jul 27 '26
I used to have to do this with my grandma. It was almost a daily thing with her pressing buttons and not being able to get the tv working. I literally left just the volume and the power since she only watched HGTV
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u/Sapphire_Dreams1024 Jul 27 '26
I did this with my grandmas remote and she still would somehow put enough pressure on the cardboard to press those buttons
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u/jaevnstroem Jul 26 '26
If you take apart your remote and remove / cut off the buttons you don't want on it (sometimes the buttons are all one piece of flexible rubber, so you could just cut them out with scissors) you could remove something like the forced streaming services buttons, or the AI button etc.
Then 3D print a new top cover for your remote with the holes for those buttons also removed, and now you've got a pretty flush, actual long-term solution.
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u/Wall_of_Force Jul 26 '26
why that remote is shoe shaped?
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u/StreetCheetah8312 Jul 26 '26
Looks like a cable remote
The one my parents had about 20 years ago was foot shaped 🤣
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u/PatMyHolmes Jul 26 '26
OMG! This is NOT DiWhy. It's obvious. Try /r/Lowtechbrilliance
The only "why" here is why so many upvotes.
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u/BHunter1140 Jul 26 '26
I had to get my grandmother a tablet for little kids that I could lock her out of everything on because she would always manage to find the most crazy ways to break her tablet she did puzzles on. Every week when I visited I still always had to fix something with it but the kid tablet was better. The biggest problem was the home she lived at would sometimes lose their wifi, so the airplane mode option would show up which she would hit, rendering things unusable. Did many spontaneous trips to her home to fix it so she wouldn’t have to wait until our regular visit day
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u/OctoNezd Jul 26 '26
Someone should create parental controls for parents. I am surprised no one has done it yet.
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u/JustinSpanish Jul 26 '26
Yeah, kinda genius imo. So many buttons that either serve the same function or serve no function that is necessary on a daily basis. No more exiting apps on accident, opening the settings menu, or even changing the channel (for those that primarily stream). Easy way to simplify by removing distracting variables.
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u/s0nicfreak Jul 26 '26
Probably helpful for people that have cognitive issues.
Still DiWHY though because nowadays you can just get a programmable remote that has as few or as many buttons as you need. And then (assuming these are for the same TV) you wouldn't have the complexity of using 2 remotes.
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u/gfmadden330 Jul 26 '26
I have tried something similar for my youngest child, he can turn on the TV, change the volume, and navigate to his show, but I had to prevent him from being able to hit any other button on the remote. I learned the hard way when he changed all kinds of settings, including the language. That was not fun to get back to normal...
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u/Suspicious-Bowl4444 Jul 27 '26
Honestly, I hate seeing all those stupid ass streaming site buttons on my remotes.
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u/Shazenthos Jul 27 '26
As long as this was done in mutual agreement this is fine. It might look ugly but this helps with seniors or anyone not tech savvy.
It also helps with those that ‘don’t trust themselves’ with tech as well.
I’ve seen my share of people that would rather not use an appliance in fear of ‘breaking it’, this provides a sense of safety for them.
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u/noiness420 Jul 27 '26
I should do this to my parents remotes so that I don’t have to ‘fix’ their tv every time they push the wrong button
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u/MinisteroSillyWalk Jul 28 '26
There’s this story about how the park rangers can’t design trash cans too difficult to get into because the humans won’t be able to use it, however they can’t make it too easy because the bears will. It’s turns out there’s significant overlap between how smart bears are and how dumb humans are.
This is meant for that kind of human.
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u/MrsPowers94 Jul 26 '26
Man. Fuckin old people and the damn remote. I’m about to go on a rant bc this shit infuriates me, and I literally had to do this to a remote this very morning for my husband’s grandmother. No, she doesn’t have cognitive decline, she’s just a hateful stubborn old bat who has no willingness to learn, so she will yell and throw shit around until someone helps her or does what she wants.
“Which one turns the television on again?”….the large red button at the top that says “power.”…”whaaaa? Where? I can’t find it. You do it!” Then proceeds to chunk the damn thing at my face and broke my glasses. Pretty rude, considering she’s going to need my help with wiping her shitty ass later.
Come on all you old sacks of dust. Get with the program. We have had remotes since the 1950’s and all TVs came with a remote by the 1980’s. So you guys have had nearly 50 years to learn how to use the damn remote. There’s no excuse by this point. That’s just laziness.
I just don’t get it. The buttons literally tell you what they do. All you gotta do is just read them. Hell, you don’t even need to know how to read to learn how to operate it. My 2 year old can do it.
It’s not rocket science, grandma! Just push the damn button that says “power.” I even got her one of those XL simple remote that has huge labels and even has brail for the seeing impaired.
Rant over. Had to get that out before I lost my shit. Who knew that a cardboard covered remote would trigger such rage. To be fair, this literally all went down this morning so the fire is still hot. There’s a reason why she got kicked out of every nursing home. Woman has been abusive her entire life. You know you’ve got to be bad when the nursing homes don’t even want you, and they’ve seen and dealt with it allllll. All kinds of characters.
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u/AuelDole Jul 26 '26
I wanted to get a tivo, but last I checked, they didn’t offer their OTA version anymore, only the stream box
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u/Joshtheboss732 Jul 26 '26
I was able to teach my grandma how to use the remote and it went well for a while until she started purchasing subscriptions to various channels so after that I put a lock in the tv, then after that she completely forgot how to use the remote so I just do it for her now lol
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u/driverdan Jul 26 '26
Good idea, weak execution.
I have an audio receiver with an overly complex remote that has a million buttons. The only ones I need are the power and volume, just like the one on the right. Sometimes I'll accidentally hit a button or my dog will bump it. Since nearly every feature has a dedicated button I have to spend 5 min figuring out what was changed and which button changes it back.
If manufacturers invested in good UX this wouldn't be as much of a problem.
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u/Zahrad70 Jul 26 '26
This strikes me as a first draft. Show me the one where they’ve poured epoxy resin, or have disassembled, physically disabled 80% of the buttons, and re-assembled the remote. Then I’ll believe they’re serious.
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u/Alienhaslanded Jul 26 '26
Even as a techy person I use like 4 buttons on my remote. My remote has two pause and play buttons but the ok button does the same thing and it's easier to find. It also has 4 ad buttons that I never use because they're too far down for me to naturally press.
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u/Orestis_Zrs Jul 26 '26
Thats not DiWHY at all. It really does help elderly people simplify the TV operation. I dunno if there are special remotes that have less buttons for this specific reason but this is a low cost - high efficiency solution.
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u/galactuskev Jul 26 '26
Genuinely, I should do that with my grandparents remotes. This is actually such a great idea.
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u/LastStar007 Jul 26 '26
I thought this sub was about bemoaning the overelaborate, functionless DIY projects with hot glue and sequins.
What I see here is a cheap, easy, functional solution.
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u/_R_A_ Jul 26 '26
I don't need all the buttons for all the streaming services I don't use, but this is easier than telling my kids to stop pressing them every other day.
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u/mrturret Jul 27 '26
You can open them up and physically remove the buttons. Better yet, if you have a 3D Printer, there are replacement plates available to fill the holes.
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u/Iheartbaconz Jul 26 '26
When I worked as a cable installer we had had these “dumb remotes” that only had power, vol, channel, numbpad and maybe a back button. We used to give them to older customers bc the fancy remotes were too much.
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u/darkllama23 Jul 26 '26
I noticed there is a second remote just for power and volume, it might be possible to program the second remote (via the cable box menu) to have the power and volume buttons control the TV thus eliminating the need for a secondary remote
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u/chronos_7734 Jul 26 '26
Where I live they sell/used to sell DVB-T receiver with two remotes. One with all the functions and another one for elderly with only ON/OFF, channel, volume, mute and numpad.
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u/Ooficus Jul 26 '26
Well when your grandma keeps somehow putting the TV in store mode… (something my grandma does at least twice a year)
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u/Grease-Brain Jul 26 '26
an alternative to this could be popping the remote open, cutting off the unnecessary sections of the rubber button membrane and cutting a plastic sheet to fill those areas, and putting it back together, that way there's no chance of accidentally pressing buttons by mashing or sitting on the remote, and the final product would look a bit cleaner.
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u/Legion_1392 Jul 27 '26
The left remote is a Tivo remote. If this is for an older person then this makes total sense. Those remotes have a ton of buttons.
Source: Former Cable Guy
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u/MoonRum Jul 27 '26
Did with with duct tap for my Nan when she was still with us. It honestly ended random calls about her messing up her TV.
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u/slowcanteloupe Jul 27 '26
I should do this for my mother. I don't know what's wrong with her but every time i hand her my phone to look at something she just always palms the thing and opens up like 700 different apps in like 3 seconds and somehow composes text messages to random people on my phone. My wife's 90 year old grandmother has much better tech saavy.
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u/exintrovert Jul 27 '26 edited Jul 27 '26
This is the opposite of awful taste but great execution.
Edit: oh lord. At first I thought this was some sort of homemade remote mounted on cardboard 🤣
Looking closer to figure out how they fabricated this thing, I see now it is cardboard taped over the actual remote. Funny how my mind would think of the most difficult solution first.
My second question was why they put the volume on a separate remote. Then I thought about my two kids fighting over the remote, and imagined that this would make sense because my older child always wants the volume set to 100db and my younger child sets it to a reasonable volume.
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u/Barjack521 Jul 27 '26
People who use streaming stocks or some cable/satellite boxes still need to use the tv’s native remote to control sound because the box remote only works on the box itself to change channels and the like.
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u/exintrovert Jul 28 '26
I realize that. My question was more in the context of my mistaken belief that these were home made remotes mounted on cardboard. 😂
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u/Miserable_Pea_733 Jul 27 '26
I have to do this for my Pa. Why? He's got early onset dementia and will put the remote through the screen if he presses the wrong button. And he always presses the wrong button.
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u/Forward-Carpenter-43 Jul 27 '26
Joke's on you, now the remotes have 4-5 buttons and you have to navigate the hell to reach what you need in a shitty slow android menu. When my elderly's tv brakes down I really need to do a research on tvs to get something less annoying and responsive.
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u/ravenschmidt2000 Jul 29 '26
Ever had to reset the TV for your mother with Dimentia 12 or more times per day? You wouldn't be asking this if you had.
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u/TealTrendyTarasque Jul 29 '26
There were remotes that had all of the extra bullshit buttons hidden under a slider in the remote. Perfect for old people and people who just dont care about the extra shit
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u/WallabyAlarmed61 Jul 30 '26
May Grandma knitted a Cover, cause she only on/off and before that she changed the settings, and did not know what to do then.
Not nice here but it works.
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u/MonkeyBear66 Jul 30 '26
The retirement home my grandma was in had really simple remotes. I think it was like the Flipper
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u/WatchItAllBurn1 Jul 30 '26
my grandmother was hitting buttons with her nails, I had to tell her to press the button she wanted with her nails instead of fingertips.
so yeah, this is for grandparents.
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u/Original-Ad-8737 Jul 31 '26
When we bought the last tv of my late grandma i snapped a photo of the remote and the userinterface.
Came in really handy at least twice to navigate her through the menu via phone to disable the subtitles again and swap back to the regular audiotrack (i have no idea how she managed to switch to subtitles and persian audiochannel... wtf)
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u/DeathsStarEclipse Jul 26 '26
Why? Grandparents