Fortunately the LG still does IR, although the IP command set seems more extensive.
But I can live with IR and there's a Python library available on GitHub that implements the IP protocol (called "bscpylgtv") and which I use for the couple of commands not available through IR.
I'm currently invoking this through simple CGI scripts - but I'll check out the Node.js approach as you suggested.
Seems less overhead and I always wanted to to do something with that.

Doing this on the Pronto would have been interesting, but ok, I guess those days are over when it comes to crypto stuff.

Sebastian