A couple of days ago Total Telecom ran an article by Dow Jones’s Roger Cheng about how mobile phones are becoming TV remotes.

This kind of convergence is all fine and good — I think it’s great that we finally have mobile computing devices that connect to more than just the voice network — but these implementations overlook the issues that turning a handset into a remote control creates. They also overlook the opportunity to do something truly innovative.

Consider that when the remote control transitions from a shared device attached to one room to a personal device that goes with you from wherever you are, there are unique challenges. What happens when you are watching TV with a couple of other people and the phone that was controlling the TV set walks out of the room because a phone call came in? Can someone else open up her phone and change the channel or turn off the system? How much work does she have to go through to do so?

Or consider the implications on battery life for the remote control. Remotes today last weeks or months on a couple of AA cells, but a mobile handset might last a day or two on standby — just hours with the screen turned on. So we put our phones to sleep. But that means in order to turn on the TV we have to turn on the phone first — and we probably have to open up that remote control app, too — so what used to be one step-simple is now slow and cumbersome.

I’m not saying that these are insurmountable problems — if they were, we at ThinkFlood would be on a fool’s errand with the RedEye remote for iPhone. Rather, my question is whether the designers of these products have considered these implications and addressed them. For example, we solve the first issue by allowing multiple controllers (cell phones) to command the same system simultaneously — no easy feat when you start to think through how information has to be coordinated among handsets. We also allow one controller to control multiple rooms, have added a charging dock to the hardware, and so forth.

Of course for every problem there is also an opportunity. Infrared, wand-style remotes are 1970s technology, but these cell phones have the computing power of a mid-1990s desktop and Internet connectivity that approaches today’s wireless broadband. Surely there is something innovative we can do here that makes these systems compelling?

While we think multi-room, personal remote controls are compelling in their own right, what about adding some social media features? Sounds like a good idea. Unfortunately, IBM is trying to patent that idea out of existence, as Gus Sentementes of The Baltimore Sun reported yesterday (and picked up today by Kit Eaton at Fast Company). Yes folks, this patent doesn’t guarantee that we will have an innovative new window from our remotes to our Twitter feeds and Facebook pages; instead it basically guarantees that it won’t happen. Because IBM isn’t in the business of making remote controls, and they aren’t going there anytime soon. Rather, this is IBM’s manipulation of the patent system for their own profit — allowing them to cash in on ideas without having to put forth the effort in development. Small companies that might have included functionality like this in their future plans (ahem) have to face the fact that it will cost them more money in licensing fees than they will ever recoup from their customers. Hardly the intention of the patent system as the nation’s founders envisioned it.

Thankfully there are plenty of other innovations open for the taking. Yes, cell phone remotes have a future — as long as they are more than just plain old TV remotes crammed into cellphones. That day will come soon — watch this space.