I had a look on reddit for searching about irda on ESP32. I have one great Digital Multimeter from Gossen-Metrawatt the Metra Hit 28S. Unfortunately no where to find the IRDA to USB/RS232 Adapter. Only with the Multimeter as a bundle for around 500€.
On the Espressiv board they schow how to it works without special Hardware. Only a TFDU 4101 IRDA Modul. I tried to enable it but no way for my little bit what I understand about.

So maybe ...

Thanks

Uli