The interesting thing about Beyong is that IR is a line-of-sight method of communication. As a result, this only works if the remote is pointed at the laptop. This is a feature because a single remote can control multiple laptops and devices, without the user having to scroll through a menu, like in many bluetooth tools.
We further expanded on this project by building a small and cheap IR receiver that is wifi enabled, allowing us to control IoT object with the TV remote. Imagine - the same remote can be pointed at a lamp to turn it off, at one laptop to turn on music, and at another to browse the web! Unlike the usual IoT app, it's just point and click.