Skyward Sword and Wii Motion Plus showed us that you can use pointer controls without the need for IR. The sensors in the Joycon are so advanced that they should have no problem implementing pointer controls by only using motion. I expect the precision from using the advance motion controls of the Joycon to be an improvement over the Wii(U)'s IR controls. Skyward Sword did have a way to re-calibrate using IR, though. I think you can re-calibrate using motion only by holding the Joycon in a center position when you calibrate it.