Eugene Polley, inventor of the remote control, dies

Few inventions pass through millions of hands around the world every day like the remote control. Its inventor, Eugene Polley, developed the Flash-Matic for the company Zenith Electronics.

Eugene Polley, the inventor of the first remote control for televisions, has died at the age of 96. Polley developed the Flash-Matic, the remote control of history, created for the company Zenith Electronics.

This device marked a before and after in the way in which the viewer relates to the television, thus opening the era of zapping.

When the Flash-Matic was launched on the market in 1955, users were able to choose a channel for the first time (in those countries where, at that time, there were more than one, such as in the United States) thanks to a system of rays and sensors.