A lot of the responses disagree. I generally prefer physical remotes, but a touchscreen remote could be pretty sweet for very complex systems (think whole-room

A lot of the responses disagree. I generally prefer physical remotes, but a touchscreen remote could be pretty sweet for very complex systems (think whole-room/whole-house systems that integrate A/V with lighting, HVAC, etc.) if implemented well. But the whole interaction model with phones and apps is just... wrong for this usecase. The delays, the many swipes and taps just to get to the right screen, the delays, waiting for the app to load and connect to the network, and also the delays. I've been meaning to hack an old phone to be an instant-on remote with some custom software, but there are always dozens of higher priority projects. If anyone wants to hire/partner with me to build such a thing though...