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I fail to see why I would want this. As others point out, your phone already does this. At this point in time smart home remain a gimmick and I don’t see many go beyond a smart light bulb.
I find smarthome features nice, myself.

Lights that change over the course of the day, or dim for movie time.

I have a smart plug / air quality monitor that, if it were properly configurable / configured, could power a fan to turn on when air needs to be circulated based on a variety of criteria

I have a wireless speaker setup that I also use as my morning alarm, but that allows me to set a reasonable volume on my speakers and have the same sound throughout the house.

My house is equipped with water sensors that will alert if there’s a leak when I’m out of the house, and can call the custodian to deal with it before it gets bad.

Many people have home security systems and Ring cameras.

Smart homes are alive and well to varying degrees of smartness with smart features.

Why do you think they’re a gimmick?

I actually like the water sensor, and similarly gas sensors. I don’t really virw security cameras as a smart home thing.

Anyway, most people I’ve seen try to create a smart home end up spending a crazy amount of time managing it, while rarely using the stuff. I see it as adding complexity to my home, rather than making it simpler. Want to watch a movie? Close the blinds. Just set the timer on the washing machine, you don’t need it to be internet connected.

Interoptability is still low between manufacturers, price are to high and life time to sort. I was at a Microsoft presentation where they happily told us that their IOT OS woul get 10 years of security updates, great, but that it the absolute minimum I would expect for something like appliances, and no where near what I would demand for something built into my house.

It’s a gimmick because you need to interested in managing it and keeping it updated, which I am not. There’s enough complexity in our life, let’s not add more.

"One thing made by us will be able to control one thing made by us, so you should buy everything from us."

No. Put a general web browser in the car, make the devices controllable over the web by any general web browser, and you've got something much more useful.

Not even that. The phone is the center of our lives, so it really only needs to be on our phones (if people even care about IoT--this is an open question).

This is Mercedes Benz taking its internal worldview that the car is the center of our lives, making product decisions based on that, and trying to get people to buy into that worldview.

A simple carplay supported touchscreen is all we need in the cars
Ideally, one that isn't irreversably entangled in the CAN bus! So it can easily be upgraded to something that isn't as awful as nearly all auto mfg infotainment attempts, or isn't obsolete when the mfg doesn't bother with software updates to maintain compatibility with carplay updates, or high quality audio for audiophiles, or aftermarket infotainment with tactile knobs and buttons for us old farts who like to keep our eyes on the road while we're driving.
And letting customers buy lower-tier packages and install upgrades themselves? Or avoiding your car looking old after 3 years? Why? That’s the inly purpose. The only “innovation point” left for auto makers is features so they scramble year after year to show the latest trick sacrificing quality to balance the costs.
>The only “innovation point” left for auto makers is features so they scramble year after year to show the latest trick sacrificing quality to balance the costs.

Of course the latest gimmicks are a big part of why you'd buy a S-class, but it's not like the basics like seats and suspension haven't seen significant improvements generation after generation.

A great example would be the rear wheel steering they just introduced, not at all a gimmick.

I don't think sane people are shopping for a new car every 3 years because their "infotainment" looks old. Such features IMHO are for the comparison shoppers who will compare competing cars side by side and can be pushed either way by tiniest gimmicks.
There’s a valuable segment of car buyers who do change cars every 2, 3, or 4 years to always have the newest features. They often lease and are influenced in their overall decisions by the fact that cars do change. “I can’t have the old-looking tail lights and grill!”

Manufacturers almost surely tailor some of their product plans with this in mind.

Well, one of the(but definitely not the main) reasons why I replaced my perfectly functional 2016 Mercedes Benz was that my model missed the ability to have Android Auto/CarPlay by literally 2 weeks of production. It was impossible to add later without an extremely expensive head unit replacement.
'Need' is not the right word, since cars without any of this nonsense work just fine. You could perhaps argue the car itself is a luxury that isn't needed, but smartphone integration certainly isn't needed in any sense.
Just make it open.

Homeassistant is opensource, controlls a bunch of different gadgets/smartdevices/switches/..., gets data from a bunch of different gadgets/sensors/smart devices, and has a bunch of apps using it's API.

Honestly, I only buy stuff, if I can integrate it into homeassistant (without using the devices cloud services)... sometimes that means soldering + flashing tasmota, but in the end, I get it to work.

Letting people use a web browser while driving is pretty much a recipe for disaster.
Yeah, but the free market can never find that optimum by itself.
Can't we just go back to plain, old cars and just add a simple, straightforward integration with your smartphone? The whole infotainment crap is a sure way to make your (otherwise perfectly functioning car) feel obsolete in 3 years. Not to mention that manufacturers will surely try to force you into some subscription to keep everything running.
What we need is modularity. For all of my cars so far I have upgraded the radio to support Bluetooth audio. I don't really need anything else. So far I've been able to choose from a wide variety of aftermarket head units or OEM units from other models. The aftermarket units are usually possible with an adapter to make it look nice, but it's not strictly necessary. I get the feeling the interfaces are reverse engineered, though.

When I see new car systems they look like a nightmare to upgrade. Maybe you'll be lucky and someone reverse engineers the interface but maybe not.

Many parts on cars do have standard sizes, but many do not. It would be nice if there was something like the ATX standard for cars. But maybe it would make cars cost twice as much and be less efficient? Who knows.

This is going to create some interesting attack vectors.
First thought: A security nightmare on wheels.

Second thought: Can a company like Daimler compete successfully in software against the likes of Tesla, Waymo, etc.?

Third thought: I wouldn't want this in my home.

Can a company like Daimler compete successfully in software against the likes of Tesla, Waymo, etc.?

Was this article about self-driving cars? It's just thermostat integration for crying out loud.

The answer is no. There was an article about this topic stating that German car makers are more than 5 years behind Tesla. This is not only software design, but also the overall architecture of the car with so so so many ECUs from so so so many different manufacturers making competing in software features and software updates impossible for traditional makers.

What we see there is yet another legacy vs. new tech phenomenon that we see in so many other industries - from telcos to neo-banks.