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Comment by bjarneh | Hacker News Reader

> - the controls on my stove top

How were these stove-top touch-buttons ever considered an upgrade to their predecessor? They always have no feedback, or that annoyingly high "beep" feedback. They are always slow to respond. They typically use only two or three buttons to control the actual temperature, forcing you to select location first, which is typically slow and terrible as well. Nobody in their right mind can prefer these to the good old separate knobs which we used to have; which my relatively new stove still has (they still exist luckily). I'll add a link to the one I have, for others looking for stove's without the annoying touch controls.

https://www.bosch-home.no/produktliste/komfyr-ovn-platetopp-...

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Speaking of stove tops - Neff's "TwistPadFire" somehow manages what I previously thought was impossible - it actually takes touch buttons and makes them even worse. The control is a a magnetic circular thing you stick on a specific area on the stove top. It comes off the stove top so first of all you have to manage not to lose it / you have to find it before you can use the stove. Then when you try to use it you have to press down then turn it without using too much force. If you use too much force, or fail to turn it in just the right way, it will pull it off the magnetic area and the whole thing stops responding to any input until you do some magic incantation to unlock it.

The problem is that you don't realise any of this until it's too late and your only option is to rip the stove top out and replace it with another brand.

> The problem is that you don't realise any of this until it's too late and your only option is to rip the stove top out and replace it with another brand.

Honestly it is unreasonable to think something so ridiculously overcomplicated would ever work.

I found it not that bad. Was considering to get a third one (after moving the 2nd time), but didn’t as the previous two tops failed right after being out of warranty.

Key for me was to learn that to activate the knob, you needed to make sure to touch both metallic rings on the knob at once.

I overall preferred the UX over a pure touch based interface. We stored the knob by attaching it to the hood (the knob contains a magnet), so it was always at the same location.

I like their solution, much better than just touch and still easy to clean. Very fast to go from 0 to max and back. No problem in activating them, you're 'probably holding it wrong'. ;)

I don't know how one can loose/have to find them, mine is always on the stove, I only take if off while cleaning and put it back on afterwards, which is a thing of milliseconds, thanks to the magnetic attachment.

Never heard of it; but after seeing a video demo; yikes! That idea looks dreadful. Even the little coin flip that's done with it after they're "finished" using it, makes it seem quite easy to misplace. Two bad ideas poorly stuck together with magnets :-)

The only saving grace of those is the ease of cleaning spills. Otherwise I completely agree with you and GP - how annoying it is that every physical button is now a clunky touch surface!

> The only saving grace of those is the ease of cleaning spills.

Disagree. Spills can turn hobs on & off, and at best cause the entire control surface to lock up and start beeping - which can quickly turn worst, if a hob happened to turn on a split second earlier.

Knobs. On the front, not on the top.

That only works for full stoves, something I don’t think I’ve seen in 15 years.

How do you do knobs on the front (or side) with an embedded cooktop? Raise it by 3 inches so you have space for knobs?

If you're embedding the hobs on the top, then embed the knobs on the front, and run a wire in between. It's not like it was meant to be portable, if you are making one cut-out, why not make two.

I agree with this. I like physical controls in most places but purposely picked a touch-control stove because it is just so much easier to wipe down. The controls are a bit less convenient than knobs but the ease of cleaning makes up for it in my opinion.

> The only saving grace of those is the ease of cleaning spills.

I have never in my life seen a stovetop knob that isn’t easily removable for cleaning. The shitty touch panel on my cooktop is recessed in a way that it is impossible to fully clean a liquid spill out of the seam without disassembling the appliance.

I love my induction stove with touch buttons. Easiest stove I have ever had to clean. Just like wiping any other part of the bench.

Same here. I can instantly set the level on each zone. Set separate timers. They work flawlessly. Ikea induction top

My gas stove has both: Control knobs for burners, and non-tactile buttons on a display.

The control knobs are extremely easy to clean: I just pull them off and throw them in the dishwasher.

The display is never clean. It has grease on it and I can't ever scrub it hard or use caustics for fear of damaging it.

On my particular electric stovetop if I spill a tiny bit of liquid from cooking onto the buttons, the whole stove goes into protection shutdown mode, and I have to thoroughly dry the buttons to get it to work again. I hate that something that is so simple has such a terrible design flaw.

It's not just your stovetop, it's every non-high-end stove top with touch buttons. I move around a lot and stay in short term rentals. They all have stovetops that stop working if you spill a single drop of water on the controls. It's crazy.

I don't think it's anything to do with touch buttons being easier to clean. I think it's just that they are cheap.

I tend to agree. I have a high end induction cooktop with touch controls, and I don't have the same problem. If I spill water on the capacitive touch buttons it might ding at me because it thinks I just pushed that button, but it doesn't freak out or anything, the buttons all still work.

I did choose the touch version specifically because I was tired of all the work cleaning my natural gas cooktop. Now that I've used it for a few months, I think I'd like the knobs better because the cooktop would still be a lot easier to clean overall, but it's not terrible. My biggest complaint is that the cat walks across it at night and I can hear the dings as it steps on the buttons. And then there's the paw prints on the glass. Sigh.

I have the Ikea Högklassik induction stove top, and it has 4 touch sliders, one for each zone. I'm actually quite happy with it, it works well enough, not as easy as knobs but close. Also they seem to have worked on the spilling/wet hands problem, it's still sometimes annoying but seems much improved from older designs.

Is that induction? The product page says "Elektrisk platetopp" and not "Induksjonstopper".

I'm looking for an induction top or an oven combo with knobs and it's difficult.

Gaggenau has this, we have the Vario 400 series. Physical buttons, crazy fast, reliable and beautiful. The downside: it cost us the same as a small second hand car...

> Is that induction? The product page says "Elektrisk platetopp" and not "Induksjonstopper".

No, it's not induction. The BOSCH stoves with induction all have that nutty touch interface :/

There is a bunch of Bosch induction models in the Series 4 that allow knob control from the oven.

OK, I just took a quick glance at the Norwegian BOSCH website, and all I saw was that touch interface. Glad they still exist...

It's because they're easy to clean. No crevices or edges where oil and grime can accumulate. Sure, you can still clean buttons, but to have them look "as new" takes more work than touch controls, especially in an environment like a stove, where "accidents" can happen regularly.

I still prefer physical buttons though.

I've used some kitchen equipment (fortunately, not ovens...) that think the buttons are pressed if you spill liquid on them. You have to stop and clean the thing before you can continue.

> that think the buttons are pressed if you spill liquid on them.

Seems like a pretty big problem if that's the case for any of those touch controls on a stove; perhaps they're even worse than I thought :-)

I literally just came from Ikea for a new kitchen and asked for this feature on my stove haha. Luckily they said i could choose my own stove so i will think i will do that

It was never about an upgrade.

Touchscreen is fancier, looking and cheaper to make them buttons or knobs.

It’s just cost it always was. They made it shiny, so you thought it was better.

You can charge more for touch controls, than for cheap, reliable physical knobs.

Kind of the opposite; touch controls are easy to manufacture to a standard that will last the 10 odd years a stove is expected to live. Physical and moving parts are much harder, particularly in the context of a kitchen where there is heat, water, and oil. Physical knob induction stoves do exist, but primarily for industrial kitchens, and they cost a lot more.

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