I’d instinctively expect it to be more of a binary thing: they work, then when the batteries get to a certain level they completely stop working.
Instead you get this in between phase when the batteries start getting low, where you have to get closer to the TV for them to work. Why?
In: 5
At the end of your TV remote is a little LED, it fires infra-red light at your TV that is picked up by a sensor on your TV.
That IR light flashes to tell the TV messages, so when you press a button on your remote, it flashes a code extremely fast to let your TV know what button you pressed.
So the reason this starts to fail is the same reason torches fail. There isn’t enough power to keep on the light, so it dims until it goes out. This is the same with the IR LED, not enough power is running through it to light it up sufficiently to be detected by the TV.
Remotes work by flashing an Infra-red LED at a receiver on the TV, as the batteries weaken this light gets dimmer so you have to be closer to the receiver for it to be able to detected it. You can see the IR lights flashing of you look at your remote through a video camera like one your phone.
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