For some additional context, the original feature genuinely was energy efficiency. <Hotel chain> was trying to get some green certifications for a flagship and went looking for partners to do the actual efficiency stuff. That company found a sub, and so on until I was contracted to do the actual firmware. Everything got done and it was installed in a test hotel in Vegas.

After that initial success, one of the intermediary contractors came up with the surveillance idea (among others) to try and find reasons for <hotel chain> to roll the system out to more facilities.