One of the more popular dedicated IR blaster hubs are the broadlink ones and the switchbot hub 2 can act as a IR blaster hub as well, you just need to teach them the codes for the remotes that you will be using if they don’t already have profiles for the devices you want to control.
The latter connects to home assistant via matter and devices connected through it will show up in the matter (beta) integration list.
From there you can find various universal remote cards to setup more personal universal remote controls for your needs i.e
As for a physical remote, this one reviewed by Lars might be one of the cheaper options out there currently for those that want one:
As for one coming from Nabu like with the Skyconnect and its varients in the works, they would need to see whats out there to bring into the open source teams based on how they respond and act.