What real problem is the ability to fiddle with one's heating from outside the house by using a phone actually solving?
It is solving the problem of some one inside the house fiddling, and when situations change being able to adjust without using fuel to travel to do that adjusting, so if my son goes to work intending to call and see me on his way home, then I send a text to say I will be out, then he can still come home to warm house, and the reverse if he is told you need to go to Newcastle your booked overnight in a travel lodge, he can stop it coming on that evening.
And if you're in the house, what does it do for you that using the controls directly won't do?
It does grate I know, but you try buying a hard wired thermostatic radiator valve with a programmed time, my son actually wired house with a LAN socket at every radiator so they could all be hard wired into the computer control, however they are not made, you can get wireless for a number of manufactures, and you can get stand alone, but radiators tend to be where reaching a stand alone unit is hard, even when you are going to alter all setting with a PC in the same house, you still have to do it through the internet. It's the way the system is made, you need a hub with connects to router and a free account to work it. Not even direct within the house.
I would agree in theory using a hard wired system seems better, however in practice does not work.
I want to turn off an alarm from down stairs which is located upstairs, and also be able to reset the alarm once I have left the house, a simple pneumatic time switch would do the job. However to fit it means cutting a grove in the walls, lifting floor boards and carpet, and re-plastering and decorating after. Or I use a WiFi socket. Even DIY the Wifi is cheaper.
The
REAL problem is you can only use what is available, and quantity reduces price, so manufactures try to make their product with as many bells and whistles as they can to increase the market for it. So they just don't make a reasonably priced hard wired system. Yes you could buy a PLC to do the job, with SCARDA control, but at a silly cost.