In the non-RPi world (Allwinner, Amlogic, Rockchip) the boards that need active cooling dut to SoC chips that run hotter tend to have thermal properties in device-tree which allows the kernal to control a pwm fan automatically; there are simple thermal ramps/steps or simple on/off mechanisms. In the RPi world things are generally done from userspace "because it's more tinker friendly" but IMHO it would be better for a case vendor like Argon to push a device-tree overlay into the RPi kernel sources (which are more receptive to such things than true upstream) so that users can enable similar thermal support at kernel level in the same way HAT devices are enabled. Then any distro being used by e.g. an Argon case user has nothing to do in userspace and it's a one-line cmdline.txt change kernel side. NB: The latest RPiOS (Bookworm) release is deprecating lots of hackier GPIO libs/methods in favour of upstream tooling that follows upstream standards. It will take a while for those changes to ripple through the Pi ecosystem, but it's some long-overdue spring cleaning that will help rationalise the number of ways things can be done from userspace and lead to better documentation and consistency. Of course, in forums you'll mostly just see users bitching that various tools have been thrown under the bus. Progress always entails ruffling a few feathers.
To return to your request: it's one of those topics where the idea is simple but the technical implementation is far-from; due to the myriad of ways that box and board manufacturers 'could' implement fan support from userspace. The only consistent thing is, there's no consitency on how it's done. Thus creating a universal "simple" fan control app for LE is a mountain of work, and that's probably why nobody has ever leapt at the chance to create one. LE is staffed entirely by volunteers, and that means people inherently work on the fun things they enjoy or use themselves. AFAIK nobody on staff uses an Argon case, so there isn't much interest among staff to own support for those boxes. And that's another reason why the best people to implement a simple add-on for Argon cases is .. Argon.
