The big change at moment seems to be central heating. The control seem to be a major problem with loads of unsuitable devices being sold.
Years ago we had a boiler which heated water and a pump sent it around a collection of radiators and we tried to throttle back each radiator so a single electric thermostat would control the lot.
However the condensating boiler changed all that if the water arrived back too warm it would close down the boiler. So the thermostatic radiator valve was then fitted to every radiator each room now individually controlled the electric thermostat was a thing of the past.
Time moves on and we want to save money so back to electric
and we get the TRV with a timer built in so bedrooms only get warm at night and living rooms only in the day.
We move to next stage
the wifi controlled TRV so we can alter the times and temperatures from our phones for each room and also link to intruder alarm so when alarm set heat is auto reduced.
Then we see a host of adverts wanting use to step back in time and use a single device to control the temperature of whole house. Clearly designed for US market where hot air not water is used but the really aggressive advertising campaign for nest and hive seems to be winning over common sense.
Be it a Sinclair C5 or any other invention it's not the invention it's the marking upset some news paper and they can kill it before it every gets off the ground. Grease the right palms and even a daft invention will sell. Wonder how much was paid to marking guy for British Gas for the daft single point thermostats?
Timing is also important loads of remote controlled lights with dimmer included came out just as we moved to CFL which would not work with dimmers.