I have been using the W&S jacket and gloves for the past 2 years now (switched from Gerbing....but that's another story) along with the W&S dual remote heat controller.
This setup has worked flawlessly.
"The default if plugged in and no remote contact is I think 1/3 heat level".....this is true.
Mike Coan from W&S told me that that it was designed like this in case you had a controller failure when you were on the road. if this happened, you at least had 1/3 heat constantly heating you. Nice feature.
I have found however, that in shoulder seasons, I sometimes only want the jacket on as an under layer and didn't need the heat or I would get cool and then need heat. I would have to unplug the jacket to stop the heat and then pull over to plug the jacket back in when I needed heat again.
This was the only thing that annoyed me about this setup.
Problem solved......a riding buddy of mine had heated gear that was either on or off.
He was using this
http://gerbing.com/collection/on-off-lighted-switch.html to control the heat on his gear.
I figured hey... if I plug this inline with my W&S, I can turn the heat completely off when I don't need it...and turn it on when I do....without having to unplug and plug the jacket in.
I always put new batteries (AAA) in the remote controller every riding season.
Andy