This is another benefit of truly analog manual controls: Memory. Used to be your stereo volume knob was just at a certain level; when you turned it on it was at that level. Now they're all software controlled. At least some stereo equipment maintains this paradigm but I'm with you on the phone volume as it's dictated by your phone and the volume for one device could be drastically different than another.
I purposely NEVER connect smart TVs to the internet for this reason. I'd like to get a "dumb" TV but the ones in the sizes I'd like are prohibitively expensive.