There are times when analog is a better design choice than Digital. This is especially true for state type things such as selecting a mode on a universal remote.
Most universal remotes these days have a series of digital buttons across the top to select the state / mode such as:
(TV) (Cab/Sat) (VHS) (DVD)
The problem is, without a little LED telling you which state the remote is in, you can't tell by looking at the remote what state it is in and that LED would be a constant battery drain.
Compare that to a good old fashioned analog toggle or sliding switch.
|TV | Cab/Sat | VHS | DVD|
|---------[]--------------------|
Here you can tell what state the remote is in easily, just by looking at the remote, and there is no power required to convey this feedback!
Seriously, why the digital buttons?
My Mother and Grandmother both accidentally grab the remote and change the channel not knowing the remote is in the TV mode and end up changing the input on the TV essentially breaking their setup. I have to walk them through putting the remote in tv mode and switching the input back. I finally just told them to always press the button for the device you want to talk to first and then issue the command. This is an extra step most of the time, but it eliminates the confusion. A simple analog switch would be so much better here.
