Yes you can use your phone, but only after the initial setup, to join wifi and login with Apple ID.

After that you can put your remote in a drawer and forget about it, well until you need to do setup again, although I have never done that in 3 years.

The remote comes with it, so it’s’ not as if you have to buy one, and the setup is literally a few minutes.

Don’t overthink this.

Does Todoist auto categorize items as you add them?