More recent models have cleaved a lot closer more traditional ‘clicking stick’ design of most TV remotes, with 2020’s AN-MR20GA sporting a rectangular shape and even a numerical keypad – a boon for anyone still watching TV channels over broadcast or satellite, if not those that have made the move over to Netflix and other OTT services permanently. The AN-MR500G model after that was condensed into more of an oval shape, like the floating obelisks from Denis Villeneuve’s 2016 sci-fi drama Arrival, pulling the center of gravity towards the remote’s midpoint but with essentially the same layout – as LG oscillated into a convex shape instead. LG went on to embrace a slightly more space-age design with its 2013 iteration, the AN-MR400, with large (and not especially space-saving) buttons emanating from a central browser wheel, and hard, plastic buttons. In its initial iterations – like the 2011 AN-MR200 – it took after a Matrix coat or vampire cloak in its silhouette, with a tall shape and concave sides. What’s so fascinating about the Magic Remote is how its shape has changed and evolved over the years.
It’s seen a new evolution for 2021, too, a whole decade later – refining its proposition, while also making some concessions to more traditional remote form factors. It was designed specifically for LG’s 3D smart TVs, though the Magic Remote has proven the test of time in a way that 3D definitely hasn’t. Of course, the brilliance of the Magic Remote is that it makes this additional functionality optional, giving users the choice to point and click, scroll with a click wheel, or step between icons with an eight-directional clickpad. It’s this functionality that makes using an LG TV feel that little bit different, with the option to forgo traditional scrolling or clickpad navigation for something more freeform – and more in sync with the hand gestures of a society used to using a keyboard and mouse. It did this using motion technology from Hillcrest Labs, a company that also supplied similar tech for Sony’s PlayStation Move controllers. LG’s Magic Remote has been around in some form for a good few years now, first launching in 2010 as the Magic Motion remote – back when it was appropriate for Engadget to describe it as having “Wii-style motion controls'' (like Nintendo’s best selling console) due to the peculiar point-and-click functionality it brought to its LG TV remote.
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