Kymera Wand remote control magically changes your channel

When Arthur C Clarke stated that, "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic," he painted a vision of the future that has only now been achieved, with the Kymera Wand remote control from The Wand Company. This genuinely magic wand allows you to control your TV by casting 13 spells at it.

Okay, fine, it's not real magic. The wand actually uses an accelerometer to distinguish between 13 separate actions -- swish it down, rotate it clockwise, thrust it forward and so on -- that can be programmed to correspond to buttons on your TV remote allowing you to control your TV by waving the wand at it. Saying the spell is entirely optional, but adds to the occult feel: "REPELLUS JEREMY KYLEUS!"

The Kymera Wand arrives in a sexy, faux dragon-skin presentation box along with an instruction manual so beautifully in keeping with the theme you'll be convinced you're a young wizard on your way to Hogwarts (as we like to imagine every morning on the way into Crave Towers, although the Central line is somewhat less impressive than a giant steam train).

The wand itself is about 13 inches long and made from a sturdy-feeling wood-effect plastic. We would have liked to see one made from hand-carved wood, but we imagine the cost of that would be somewhat more than we can conjure up.

Being fundamentally a remote control, you'll need to teach the wand what each of the 13 actions are to correspond to. This is a simple procedure that involves setting the wand to 'learn' mode, performing the necessary wand-swish and pressing the desired button on your normal, mundane remote control.

Slightly more difficult, however, is remembering what each of the 13 actions do yourself -- we suggest keeping the highly artistic manual nearby as a cheat sheet. Once it's all programmed, you're ready to annoy amaze your Muggle friends with your ability to control the TV with your wand.

Once you've perfected the required manoeuvres, the wand performs well. We programmed ours to work simultaneously with our TV's power and volume control and our Virgin Media box's catch-up browsing controls -- these seemed the most appropriate for us, considering we exclusively watch old re-runs of Les Dennis' Family Fortunes on the Challenge channel.

Operating the TV with the wand was a huge amount of fun and we couldn't help irritating everyone by bursting in the room, screaming, "POWERIUM OFFUS!" and turning the TV off by swishing the wand. It remained hilariously funny, even after 20 times, which is the kind of value you don't come across every day.

The accelerometer within the wand isn't perfect, however, and sometimes didn't quite register our movements as well as we'd like. We also wouldn't mind seeing an off switch or similar, as it's sometimes awkward to put the wand down without it recognising the movement as a command. 

It's easy to argue that the Kymera Wand is fundamentally pointless, and we may very well agree with you -- it's far easier to just pick up your standard remote and point it at the TV to get rid of the stupid, attention-grabbing smirks of whichever Z-list celebrities are sliding about on an ice rink. But really, we know you'd all rather flourish a wand to force your TV to do your mighty sorcerous bidding -- it's just so much more fun.

If your secret desire is to dominate your TV like your Potter pals, you can pick up the Kymera Wand now for around £50 at The Wand Company's official website. In the meantime, click through our wands-on photos and let us know what you think in the comments -- or by owl, whichever is more convenient.