Casio CMD-40
A digital watch you wear and point at the TV — it not only pretends to be every remote in the room, it can memorize the ones it hasn't met
Overview
Released at the end of 1992, the Casio CMD-40 was the flagship of Casio's "Wrist Remote Controller" line: a conventional-looking digital watch (module 1174, complete with an 8-digit calculator, alarm, and stopwatch) that concealed a full infrared TV/VCR remote control inside its resin case. An IR emitter sits at the top of the case, a chunky red side button fires it, and a small box on the LCD flashes whenever the watch actually sends a signal. Wear it on your wrist, point it at the television, and the body becomes the handset.
Deep dive
The CMD-40 collapsed the physical grammar of a television remote — a device you pick up, point, and press — onto a device you already wear. It carried preset code tables for dozens of 1990s TV and VCR brands, so a channel change, volume nudge, or playback command was typed out from the wrist by aiming the watch face across the room.
The oddest detail is that the watch could memorize the language of remotes it had never met. In learning mode you held any other remote about three centimeters from the watch, pressed the button you wanted to copy, and the CMD-40 absorbed up to 16 infrared codes into its own memory, confirmed by an indicator on the display. The wearable gadget thus became a universal remote not because it shipped with every code, but because it could learn new ones on the wrist.
Beneath the remote layer sat an ordinary Casio digital watch: date and time, a single daily alarm and hourly signal, a stopwatch, and a full 8-digit calculator operated from the same keypad that drove the TV.
A dome-shaped resin case, a large red side button, and the small IR-indicator box gave it a gadget-era look. Casio omitted a backlight because it drained the battery too quickly (it ran on a CR2032 cell). The CMD-40 stayed in retail from late 1992 until around 2005, outliving most of the VCRs and televisions it was built to imitate, and remains the best-loved of Casio's remote-control watches (following the CMD-10/20/30 and preceding the short-lived CMD-50).
Team & pioneers
- Casio Computer Co. Designed and sold the CMD-40 and the surrounding "Wrist Remote Controller" line.
Media