...so you could use your phone to connect to them and tell them to turn on etc....
I'd like to see that happening for the house (front door, washing machine, TV, computer - of course, etc) and for the car, like unlock/lock the car when I am 1-2 meters away, start it and turn on the air condition to pre-cool the car before you get in on a hot summer day, and maybe some more applications where the smartphone can be used as a remote control or a proximity device.
Yes, but it has not become mainstream yet. I remember around 1990 people were doing some things with remote controls for fun usually. A little primitive compared to: I walk to my car and at about 2 meters it gets unlocked, opens the door, starts and waits for you; same thing when you get away from it.
You need a motherboard AND processor that support VPro/AMT , luckilly, many i5/i7 processors do.
You will get VNC or VNC-like access to the bios and boot menus.