My grandparents had a Zenith console TV that had a remote control that used ultrasonic tuning forks. [0] The tuner had presets and some sort of stepper or solenoid driving it. Hit the channel up button, and CLACK! thump-thump-thump you'd go to your next preset. You could make the TV do random things by jingling keys or coins.
SpaceCommander remote control owner here. This brown (gold lettering and highlights) unit sits in my big box of oddball, vintage tech stuff along with a few vacuum tubes, QIC tapes, Sun-4c parts, and other now-useless stuff.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Adler#Contributions_to_...