[jwr]

Kind of — Harmony remotes still had way too many buttons, you had to keep them pointed at the thing being controlled for the entire duration of a sequence, things could get desynced, and we shall not mention the horrible software, right?

[mvanbaak]

this is true for the IR based harmony remotes. But they also have hub based systems where the hub blasts the commands (over IR or BT) and the remote talks to the hub using RF or BT. No need to point at things.