Over Labor Day weekend I pulled out my Lumiglass plasma light (something like this) and set it up on my coffee table. I discovered that the light, when turned on, is somehow interferring with the remote control for my Comcast set-top box.
It doesn’t seem to have an effect on other remotes.
Discharge tubes in which plasma generates the light have a negative electrical resistance and so the current through them is unstable. The light they give off has a rich spectrum of variability in it. I think it must create enough illumination changes that your remote, which uses the flickering of its own lamp to convey information, can’t work right.