Probably the design constraints here make this pretty necessary: you want the user to be able to hold the button down to adjust the volume by large amounts and release when it gets to a comfortable level; sending individual volume packets this quickly causes too much traffic over the slow connection; and the remote doesn't have any way to receive packets from the controlled device so it can't just send absolute volume levels.

You could send another volume-up packet every say 200ms. No way that would congest a local wireless connection.

This might not be the actual constraint this system had:

> I had the same problem in a hardware product using a legacy wired protocol that was sent over a ZigBee connection.

Oh wired, wow, I had to read that five times to understand it fully. That is an unreconcilable situation, ouch.

Or implement a statemachine in the receiver that increases the delta volume added when in signals keep coming.

Another constraint might be power draw. If the remote was battery operated every time you fire up the wireless bits you drain the battery some amount. More wireless time == shorter battery life.

Just speculating though....