A better solution would be to root the damn TV and neuter its spyware/adware crap.
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
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
the Apple TV provides hdmi cec, which should control your television through the hdmi cable.