Memorial Page for Robert Adler

Robert Adler (born 4 December 1913 in Vienna; died 15 February 2007 in Boise, Idaho) was an Austrian-American physicist and inventor. He became best known as a co-developer of the wireless television remote control. His professional life at Zenith Electronics, however, reached much further: Adler held more than 180 U.S. patents and worked on television technology, ultrasound, surface acoustic waves and later touchscreen technology.

Vienna and emigration

Adler studied physics at the University of Vienna and received his doctorate in 1937. After Austria's annexation by Nazi Germany, the Jewish scientist left Europe in stages through Belgium and Britain. In the United States he found a research position at Zenith Electronics in 1941. That emigration shaped his life, even if it later became less visible in the public image of the remote-control inventor.

Zenith and research

At Zenith, Adler worked in research for decades. He developed circuits, tube technology and filter solutions that made television reception more stable and devices more practical. Much of this work was hardly visible to users, but important for the development of consumer electronics. Adler was not a lone tinkerer outside industry, but part of a research culture in which companies maintained their own laboratories with physicists and engineers.

Remote control

Adler became best known for the Zenith Space Command, a wireless remote control introduced in 1956. Eugene Polley at Zenith had already developed the light-based Flash-Matic. Adler used ultrasonic tones that could control the television without a cable and were less vulnerable to interference. For that reason he is usually named as a co-developer of the wireless TV remote control, not as its sole inventor.

Everyday effect

The remote control changed television technology and viewing habits. Broadcasters, advertisers and viewers adapted to the possibility of changing channels from the chair. Adler himself viewed the invention soberly. According to reports from his wife Ingrid, he watched little television and preferred books. That distance makes his best-known work striking: a restrained physicist changed an everyday way of using media that millions of people came to take for granted.

Awards and later work

Adler became an IEEE Fellow, received the IEEE Edison Medal in 1980 and, in 1997, shared an Emmy with Eugene Polley for the development of wireless remote control. Even after his official retirement he remained connected to Zenith as a consultant. His final patent project concerned acoustic touch sensors and was filed shortly before his death. It shows how long his interest in practical physics remained alive.

Farewell

Robert Adler died of heart failure in Boise, Idaho, on 15 February 2007. He was 93 years old. His best-known contribution lies in everyday media use; his deeper achievement lay in precise research and many technical improvements that usually remained invisible.