I can’t recall where I got them. Probably the cheapest stuff off of eBay or Amazon. Looks like adafruit has one, too.
The original remote for my Panasonic units sends all the settings over IrDA, so I only had to record and replay the commands to turn it on and off.


I have a smart plug on my washing machine. It fires off a push notification to my wife when the draw has returned to nothing for a few minutes. Then the wife gets the laundry and hangs it to dry.