An illustration of low-cost and intuitive innovation challenging long-standing industrial standards and practices

There exist numerous long-standing industrial standards and practices that manufacturers worldwide almost always take for granted in their product design and daily production whilst at the same time no thought seems to have been given to potential improvements of such standards and practices for decades. Among them are infrared remote control protocols in consumer electronics, such as RC-5, NEC IR protocol etc. and analogous remote keyless system protocols in automobiles. As an illustration, this paper outlines both the technical and practical aspects of a typical low-cost and intuitive concept of innovation (now a patent of the author), based on ergonomics and user-centered design, having the aim of fundamentally enhancing the functionality of these decades-old protocols. This involves extending such one-way protocols to two-way protocols and adding a clock, specific-purpose memory, and an output component to the remote control for handling the current status of the device under control. Despite its low cost, such an enhancement leads to a series of practical advantages like lower power consumption, environmental friendliness, longer battery life and, most importantly, the users' peace of mind. This illustration also demonstrates how innovation can potentially bring upheaval to long-standing practices that have appeared to be unchangeable in the engineering, manufacturing, and technology industry for decades.