I have to agree it's a bit difficult coming from years of using a Harmony. What I still can't wrap my head around is how you are supposed to set up which HDMI port is being used. I see no way to do that. You pick a device, and that's as granular as it gets.
My out of box was not good either. For the longest time, I could not get the remote to do anything. Removing and replacing the batteries, spinning them after insertion for better contact, and just plain fiddling finally got it to light up. Next problem is that my Win10 PC could not see it when attached. Changed cables, rebooted a few times, and after 20 minutes of troubleshooting magically I heard the little tone that a new device had been connected.
I have still much work to do, as right now all it will do is turn on the TV and the Roku. No other buttons work. My receiver never does switch on. So no volume control, no home or menu key, no way to actually operate things.
Honestly, this was my first kickstarter but I was aware the Skip was a work in progress. But in the attempt to make things easier, it's the opposite for me. The advice is to choose another option for the brand. I'm not sure anyone thought about how many variations that can combine if you have multiple parts to your system, and when there is no info as to the abilities of each choice, this seems like it's going to take a long time.
And came back to add another bit of weirdness. When my remote was activated, the dates shown were exactly one month ago - 1/28/23