I'd be fascinated to know how much impact on TCO remote control actually has. There's definitely an economy of scale argument, if you can make tens of thousands of devices a couple percent more efficient that has a real impact, but does the remote control capability actually move the needle that much?

There isn't a complex real time control scenario here.. Obviously defrosting too much wastes energy, so you'll want to get that one right. But does having centralized control over that really make a difference at scale? Does having centralized control over temperature set-point make any difference?

From the basic physics of the process it's hard to imagine real time remote control being a decisive factor in efficiency.

> I know you had a solid 5-10 minutes of though on the topic but for supermarket chains that's how they manage to operate cheaper, that's how they don't increase the cost of the food.

I mean.. maybe? But nothing you wrote actually demonstrates that.

[edit] I guess if it's not about efficiency but instead a trust issue then it makes more sense from a marketing standpoint. But generally remote control isn't a great way to work around untrusted operators with physical access. They could just prop a door open or slice the seal if they wanted to..