I've heard this wisdom before, usually with an apple TV positioned as the alternative, but I've had that setup before and didn't enjoy having to use 2 remotes instead of one.

A better solution would be to root the damn TV and neuter its spyware/adware crap.

Put the TV remote in a drawer and only use the Apple TV remote. With CEC enabled, that one remote will control power and volume for the TV and any connected audio devices. It'll also switch to the proper input when the Apple TV is turned on.

I only use one remote. The tv remote. I just enable HDMI-CEC

I keep the Apple TV remote around for extremely rare situations where that doesn’t work but even then, my cell phone has a built in Apple TV remote as well, which makes it even less necessary

> A better solution would be to root the damn TV and neuter its spyware/adware crap.

That sounds like a lot of work. I don't want to sign up to this much work for every product I own that I want an iota of control over.

So I would argue if this is "better" by any stretch of the word

why were you using 2 remotes? did you have other systems attached to the television, such as a game console, or cable?

the Apple TV provides hdmi cec, which should control your television through the hdmi cable.

this is a solved problem on basically any modern tv: HDMI-CEC lets your appletv control your tv without using the tv remote.

Having 2 remotes is so much easier than trying to flash custom firmware on the TV