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Comment by BozeWolf | Hacker News Reader

The unresponsiveness of controls drive me nuts as well. Greasy or wet fingers makes it hard to use the controls. This is solvable with physical knobs.

Also the power moves up and down in steps, induction alternates between on and off to deliver an average amount of power. With gas knobs you have more fine grained control. When you want to fry something, with induction you often have 2 power options: the “fry, cook, fry, cook” option and the “fry just a bit too hard” option. I have debuyer pans, made of thick metal, acting as a buffer, which helps a bit.

Stepless controll, with physical knobs would help a lot.

Induction stoves are great for cooking water though. And for cleaning.

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I think that's largely a function of how much the manufacturer is willing to spend on hardware. I have a Bosch Series 8 cook top and it has enough power levels and fast enough PWM cycle that I can't detect the pulsing even with a light weight carbon steel pan.

There still are issues, like the automatic pan warm up feature control logic overshoots with a carbon steel pan and undershoots with a cast iron one. Pan detection takes a couple of seconds every time it's triggered which makes it annoying to use lifting the pan as a way of temperature control.But overall I'm pretty happy.

A separately installed control panel with physical knobs would be appreciated though. Wouldn't want knobs on the main cook top as having a flat surface makes cleanup so much nicer.

> Wouldn't want knobs on the main cook top as having a flat surface makes cleanup so much nicer.

Most professional (restaurant) stoves solve this by having the knobs on the front face instead: https://c8.alamy.com/comp/RYNEEX/gas-hob-stove-and-grill-in-...

That's not an option for cook tops integrated into the counter, which is the majority over here. But basically that is what I had in mind.

If you have the oven below the cook tops, you can place the controls there. This is basically how most home ranges look like in Germany: https://imgur.com/a/U2JK6cB

That's how they look in Sweden as well, if you're a bit on the fancy side (which everyone seems to be these days)

> Pan detection takes a couple of seconds every time it's triggered which makes it annoying to use lifting the pan as a way of temperature control.

This is my biggest problem with the induction burners I've used. Basting meat in butter requires tilting the pan, lifting it off the burner. Cooking eggs softly involves moving on and off the heat. Whatever auto setting on things I've used don't allow for "off for a bit, and then back on for a bit" use.

> Greasy or wet fingers makes it hard to use the controls.

YES. The worst is my new Bosch dishwasher. It has capacitive touch buttons.

Seriously. Who thought it would be a good idea to use buttons that don't work properly with wet fingers...on a dishwasher.

You think that’s bad? I have been upset at Rubbermaid for months, because I bought some $6 buckets that cannot pour more than a trickle without spilling their contents everywhere. That brand used to be a favorite of mine, but I now plan to avoid buying any of their products for as long as I can remember that they hire obviously incompetent industrial designers.

It sounds like I should proactively add Bosch to my list of companies that demonstrate dedicated leadership in the race to the bottom. I will still consider their brand and products, but more as a cautionary example than as a viable option.

My last dishwasher had the analog buttons go bad twice, so when it was time to get a new one I went with the capacitive touch button one, just for that reason (no moving part to break there). Been about 12 years, not a single problem, and the buttons work all the time. Granted, I know a well spec'd/designed hardware button can last a lifetime, but that one didn't even get close, so for me the capacitive's been a pretty good choice.

Definitely not all induction stoves are like that - in my previous appartament I had an induction stove from Bosch, and the frequency of alternating "on/off" was high enough that it was not noticeable at all. It also had 20 power levels and a frying temperature sensor - worked really well. But now I moved to an older house, which one of the cheaper induction stove from Samsung, and that one is terrible - it has exactly the property you describe.

The fine grain control issue is very solvable. The induction hot plate I use has 100 steps, and is perfectly adept at gently reducing balsamic to a glaze, for example.

It’s a high end unit today but the technology will trickle down.

What hot plate do you use?

Vollrath 59500P Mirage Pro - tried several disappointing consumer models before biting the bullet.

For me, the surplus gas controls meant that only the 100% setting was reproducible, and i ended up almost always using it.

My induction plate has 9 clear steps, and I usually use 1200/1800.

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