I believe boundlessdreamz is talking about Smart IR Remote [1]. We named our app "Smart Remote" 2+ years ago, and after a month, Peel (the preloaded app) also renamed itself to Smart Remote (from Peel). We've held on to our name, and they've held on to theirs, which has caused a lot of confusion.
That's maybe a discussion for another medium, but we're actually updating the app right now with a customizable notification - so you have access to your commands from anywhere (including lockscreen) without any kind of intrusion.
Also, we already have a floating remote (facebook chathead-style) that shows on top of the lockscreen. Best of all - you can configure it to show only while you're on the home wifi.
Since they make money only with advertising, Peel is only focused on TV-watching. While we're going to have the same feature soon (tv guide with auto-switching), AnyMote is meant to do let you do much more than just control a TV and Set Top Box. It has all kinds of wifi lights support, receivers, media centers, etc.
As a hardware maker on Kickstarter who is about to ship [1], I can sort-of agree with what the article is saying. Yes, one of the most important things is to find THE right partner in China, as that can easily make or break your product.
However, if you're afraid to build your own hardware (or at least drastically modify something pre-existent), you're severely limiting your flexibility and the areas where you can innovate. Maybe it worked well for Koalasafe, which sounds like could have very well be built as just a modified version of OpenWRT with a simple installer. But it certainly wouldn't work for more than half of the other hardware projects out there.
Look at the most succesful projects - Pebble, Coolest Cooler, The Micro, Dash - none of these could have gotten where they are without custom firmware.
Going back to KoalaSafe - the $100k they raised may sound like a lot of money, but it's certainly not enough to develop the kind of hardware they are using. It's enough maybe for the software part and some prototypes. You have to set your expectations straight too, and I do believe they did the best anyone could do with that money. Congrats on delivering!
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.remotefair...