Some touch controls are incredibly good at filtering false inputs. Unfortunately you can't tell which.
the knobs on my manually operated range pull right off their posts and go soak in the sink with some soap and hot water once a week while i spray the range's control surface with whatever spray cleaner and wipe it off with every other flat surface in my kitchen.
after ten or fifteen minutes of soaking, anything left on the knobs fall off with a dry rag that goes in the cloth washer afterwards.
But I gotta say, the ability to just simply wipe the whole stove surface with a towel and be done has more than made up for the touch buttons sucking.
With physical knobs: Take knobs off and soak them, use a towel and wipe a circle around the nub that’s left, try not to leave a circular streak pattern, put knobs back. Or just wipe the knobs with the towel and get close enough on the surface.
Touch buttons: wipe the whole thing in big strokes, you’re done.
I clean the whole surface after every use now, because it’s just so damned easy.
What I really want is for the controls to not be on the cooking surface at all but that only seems to be available for stovetop + oven combinations which have their own annoying limitations.
Still bad design on many levels, but not quite what I would call a safety hazard for this reason alone.
Ideal would be to put the control surface further away from the cooking surface but that won't integrate into semi-standardized kitchen designs.
For medical reasons [1] I had to transition from the induction hob to a ceramic hob, and had to choose the Nef equivalent because it had the same physical footprint. So now I have the same crap controls with much worse response time to the control inputs themselves. The ceramic hob also can't detect when a pan has been removed so will leave a hob dangerously hot but not glowing. I've got used to it now but it is very frustrating and still catches me out sometimes.
[1] I have an implanted defibrillator whose sensor is nulled out by an inductions hob's magnetic fields.
https://media.s-bol.com/qn6AyQBAxA33/lYREMLg/1198x1200.jpg
(https://etna.nl/keukenapparatuur/fi590zwa/)
As I'll be remodelling the kitchen in any case, going to a stand-alone appliance is fine by me.
There are several models with knobs out there now. It seems to have been picked up as a premium feature.
This is a cool one with knobs that can be removed. Never used one, but I liked the idea.
Fortunately by last year the this Café (GE) double oven induction range was available here in the US: https://www.cafeappliances.com/appliance/Cafe-30-Smart-Slide... I have a few quibbles (mainly, that only one of the burners is properly sized for a 12" skillet) but overall I like it.
I don't mind the touch buttons for operating the oven and timers--in fact, they're nice and easy to clean (with a handy "lock screen" feature so you can spray and wipe down the front panel without everything going nuts) but I'm pretty sure trying to fine tune the burner settings using a touch slider while keeping an eye on multiple pans would have driven me nuts. I also have haven't had problems with the knobs getting dirty or being hard to wipe down if they do, to address a point raised in another reply.
Price splits the difference between the entry level ranges and the snobby brands (Miele, Thermador, etc).
The criteria of knobs on an induction oven filters out quite a lot of options annoyingly.
Too bad you have no way of telling how good controls are in a product before you start using them.
It has two heating areas but maybe there's 4 area version.
Well, and after years of searching, friends recommended me the AEG models, like IKE64450XB (here in Europe). And honestly, I was happy with the touch surface ever after: It reacts quickly enough and I can modify every flame at an instant. I don't even get a penny for this, I'm just satisfied. So, yeah, touch can be good, like on a smartphone, even on household devices.
On the other side, it's really hit or miss with these touch UIs: I also have an combined washing machine + dryer from the same brand and there I need to press each touch surface for at least half a second, and not touch the metal case of the machine, otherwise the touch wouldn't register. Then, the UI would sometimes hang, but still register touches, playing them back once it has caught up.