Hi ska, we understand. As engineers and chefs, we were also skeptical and curious as to how well surface temperature feedback would effect the pan cooking. So we built it, and the answer is that it worked far better than we imagined! Like, it's really, really tasty. Within a reasonable range of inputs, we found that the "other [variables] are at least as important" was an incorrect assumption. Surface temperature and time, when controlled via an adaptive recipe, really is the biggest upgrade you can make to your cooking.

For salmon in particular: yes there's an input selection of thickness. For steak, there's doneness and thickness.