If you decide to use an IR blaster avoid the BroadLink brand (which is the first that comes up on an Amazon search). I ordered one in 2019 and the Android app wanted all kinds of inappropriate permissions, including the ability to access the phone's IMEI info "to prevent theft". I have no idea if it worked because I did not install the app and returned the product to Amazon.
Yeah, so I have a Broadlink Rm4, bought it since it seemed decent. I don't like it very much. You *can* avoid all of this in 2023, BroadLink Manager will help you set it up without the app. If an IoT device has an app as the only way to talk to it or set it up, throw it out unless you know how to work around it. Just give me a little http rest api or something and let me handle actually doing stuff.
With Broadlink Manager, you can set it up, have it connect to your Wifi (or your isolated IoT wifi network) and start working, however 'spamming' controls, like you would for volume is no bueno, it often times will overload itself or something (even if you play with the 'repeats' in the captured commands)
Tuya stuff is everywhere (even if it isn't branded Tuya). If it's wifi, it's garbage (local tuya kind of works, tasmota is spotty, though I haven't looked in a while, they may have sorted out the newer Tuya devices). Their Zigbee products, now those are solid. No apps or any bull**** to wade through, just hook it up to your ZigBee coordinator and you're off to the races. Hell, I use some of the lights with a Hue bridge and they work just fine.
I'll probably replace my IR system (just an ESP32) with a Crestron unit if I can work out programming it. They're like hilariously cheap since most people can't 'do' anything with them.