LG Magic Remote Debuts with Voice Recognition

[admin]

Perhaps the next movement in remote controls is just around the corner. With rumors of an Apple-branded TV pending, LG Electronics (LG) wanted to beat everyone to the punch and release a new and innovative remote control for its newest Cinema 3D Smart TVs. It's called the Magic Remote and it employs voice recognition, wheel, "magic gesture" and pointing functions. LG's Cinema 3D Smart TVs provide access to over 1,000 apps as well as premium content. The Magic Remote difference from a conventional remote controls in that it all-but eliminates the standard push-button methodology of control. LG claims that buttons are merely one dimension of an intuitive user experience. By implementing voice recognition technology into the Magic Remote, users can use their voice to enter text such as search terms.


Discuss "LG Magic Remote Debuts with Voice Recognition" here. Read the article.

[Adam]

My dad would probably hate that. "Where are the buttons?!"

I can imagine their customer support phone calls. "I think this remote is broken. I can't get the TV to TURN ON!!! Oh, wait. There is goes..."

On the flip side, it could unleash a whole new fire storm of posts on here.

[BMXTRIX]

I've said for years that one of the best ways to do remotes would be with good voice recognition. Apple does a good job with the iPhone/Touch products, but TVs are generally poor to miserable with this stuff.

Instead, I could see browsing sites with a mouse-like remote and some voice commands to bring up websites or recall favorites or history. To browse movies or music by voice would be far quicker...

Maybe

The biggest issues I see with the TVs is that they use cruddy bottom of the line processors which take far to long to respond and are horrendously underwhelming. So, you have your entire audio library availble to your TV... The visual interface may be terrible, and it didn't do a proper import of your songs with cover art from iTunes, so you are looking at a text list. You say 'Browse to M' and it takes ten seconds to jump down to songs starting with the letter M. No, you want to sort by artists... Another ten second wait. You are back at the 'A', so you have another ten second wait to get to 'M' again.

This is where Apple tends to excel in that they provide processing power which generally matches their software requirements so you get a visually appealing interface which responds quickly.

Now, as long as you buy 100% of everything from iTunes and keep a PC up and running with all of your content on it and the PC running iTunes 24/7 you are good with that Apple product.

I have absolutely NO faith that Apple will produce a decent product in their TV after their highly proprietary Apple TV product. I certainly don't see LG as being one up on Apple in this regard.

Darn, I'm such a pessimist on this stuff.

[Adam]

The biggest issues I see with the TVs is that they use cruddy bottom of the line processors which take far to long to respond and are horrendously underwhelming.

So true. Everytime I launch Viera Cast, I get that twitch that always happens when something takes just enough longer than it should that it annoys me (like when I pick the wrong check out line at the store).