It's not "just a clock" if it has wifi. If he just wantted a 3-button dumb clock that's what he should buy.
I'm generalising to more complex appliances, but no, just adding buttons doesn't do it (quite apart from more points of failure), even for a clock - how would you set multiple alarms, say one for you, one for your partner, with different times each day of the week. do you have 2 buttons for each day, or what? Of course, in reality you end up with modes, and menus , and a crappy custom UI.
Multiply this by every gadget in the house, and a full UI remote (be it phone, tablet or specialised wireless touch-screen remote) becomes an attractive option.
I'm generalising to more complex appliances, but no, just adding buttons doesn't do it (quite apart from more points of failure), even for a clock - how would you set multiple alarms, say one for you, one for your partner, with different times each day of the week. do you have 2 buttons for each day, or what? Of course, in reality you end up with modes, and menus , and a crappy custom UI.
Multiply this by every gadget in the house, and a full UI remote (be it phone, tablet or specialised wireless touch-screen remote) becomes an attractive option.