Even if you did have some "smart" appliance that would make it easier, you'd have to "over-heat" when you come back to get again the desired temperature (or pre-heat a few hours before coming back), which would mostly make the effort's result insignificant...
It would make sense to drop heating when leaving for a few days though, week-ends/holidays. Offices are not heated on week-ends for example.
I will note that I am in a warm country, so we much more rarely have the heat on. But if I'm out of the house for 8 hours, I'll definitely turn off the AC. It might take time to get the house cold again, but c'mon, no way we'd pay for a day's worth of electricity for no reason.
I wonder how much this changes if it's heating vs cooling, and based on how much you have to heat/cool a place.