Project Spotlight – Philips Medical

Several years ago, we were approached by Philips Medical Systems to design and produce a semi-custom remote control that was to be used for a new Tele-Health initiative. The scope of the project was to develop an IR remote control that would communicate with their custom set-top box (STB), using an existing remote control enclosure. Philips has their own remote control manufacturing division, but their internal MOQ was too high for the new Philips Medical group project!

After some review, we found a standard enclosure that worked for their needs, but the customer determined that the keys were too small for seniors, who were their typical user. They wanted to have larger buttons with very high contrast and easy to see colors and artwork, in order to create a more intuitive and easy to use interface to their STB.



We proposed to take the existing remote control enclosure and make a new mold to create a new keypad, top case and overlay. This allowed the customer to provide their users with a remote control that included a custom keypad which met their user interface (UI) requirements with large buttons, high contrast artwork and easy to understand graphics. Additional undefined buttons were added to the design, which could easily be enabled through a modification to the keypad overlay.

Celadon engaged with the electronic engineer and graphic artist from Philips to create the initial design and finalize the product requirements. CAD drawings of the mechanical design for the new enclosure were supplied for review. Final product specifications were submitted for approval before tooling fabrication and printed circuit board (PCB) design and programming started. First article engineering (FAE) samples were supplied to the customer within about 8 weeks for testing and manufacturing approval.