Claims about the oldest remote control usually mean one of three different devices. The earliest sets were controlled by a cable running across the floor to a box with a couple of buttons, which is a remote in the literal sense and a trip hazard in every other. After that came a wireless design that fired a beam of light at photocells in the corners of the screen, which worked beautifully until sunlight fell on the cabinet and changed the channel by itself.

Ultrasonic handsets followed, and they had their own failure: a jingling set of keys or a dog could trigger them. Only when infrared and coded pulses arrived did a handset become reliable enough to be taken for granted. Any photograph captioned as the first remote is worth reading against that sequence.