ELI5: Why I can see infra red heating butvI dont see infrared remote controle (tv)?

Imagine everything around you is giving off light, but we can only see a tiny bit of it – like only seeing red, orange, yellow, green, blue, and purple.

Infrared light is another type of light, invisible to our eyes. It's like a secret color!

Now, think about your infrared heater. It gets really hot. When something gets really hot, it glows! It's like a fire. But instead of giving off visible light, it mostly gives off lots of infrared light because of its temperature. We can feel the heat, and our eyes can sometimes just barely see a dull red glow if it's hot enough. That's because some of the infrared is "leaking" into the visible red range.

Think about your TV remote. It also uses infrared light to talk to your TV. But it’s not hot! It sends little infrared signals by turning the light on and off very quickly.

Why can't you see it?

• Not hot enough: The remote isn't heating up. So, it doesn't glow like the heater.
• Weak signal: The infrared light from the remote is designed to travel a short distance to the TV, not to be bright and visible to you. It's a very weak signal, just enough for the TV to understand.
• Special purpose: The remote is built to send information (like changing the channel), not to light up a room.