Unknownuser2007 has posted a great little HOWTO on Instructables — a “senior remote” for a TV with only five buttons. I’d love one of these, but I’d also add a Play/Pause button (a few years ago I would have needed “mute” — but with everything coming through a PVR, pause works even better when the phone rings).
My mom was born in 1931. She is from the generation of radio and WWII. Her eyesight is failing and she isn’t good with anything electronic. TV remotes confuse her. This mod came to me after she called me one day, claiming her TV remote stopped working. It turns out, she inadvertently hit the button that activated the VCR functions. She didn’t know or couldn’t see the button to reactivate the TV functions. So I decided to “dumb” down the remote to only three functions: On/Off, Channel and Volume.
(via Wonderland)