Induction hob

I was looking at induction hobs and there are some that use just 13A (rated 3KW) and some that require 30A rated at 6.5KW. Would anyone know what the differences are (in terms of cooking, practicality) ? I do not know how induction technology converts consumed power into heat and at what efficiency, any help appreciated?

I have a hard wired induction hob. Basically as I understand it those on a 13 amp plug reduce their output as you increase the number of "rings" in use, so that if they are all in use the maximum output is probably about 50% of the rated output.

If you have a cooker circuit, there is no point buying a hob with a plug.

One think I would avoid is touch controls, the induction hob is faster reacting than gas, so when a pan starts to boil over you can simply turn it off, no need to lift pan, as long as you can work the controls fast enough, touch controls are too slow.

Also I have found you can't see some touch controls when sitting in a wheel chair, which also means short people may not see any warning lights.

Get one with knobs on.

ericmark said:

One think I would avoid is touch controls, the induction hob is faster reacting than gas, so when a pan starts to boil over you can simply turn it off, no need to lift pan, as long as you can work the controls fast enough, touch controls are too slow.

Also I have found you can't see some touch controls when sitting in a wheel chair, which also means short people may not see any warning lights.

Get one with knobs on.

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Touch controls are easier to clean, ones with knobs aren't.

Londoner2 said:

Touch controls are easier to clean, ones with knobs aren't.

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Having no controls also easier to clean, and that is what many touch controls amount to, with a halogen hob food split bakes onto the hob and cleaning can be hard, and the hob is very slow to react to controls it takes time to cool so the slow touch controls made sense, with an induction hob the hob is a lot cooler so food does not bake on the same, and the control is instantaneous so when the milk starts to boil there is no need to lift the pan, you simply turn it off, this was not possible with halogen so the delay pressing all the areas to turn down heat was not an issue, it is an issue with induction, it causes unnecessary danger as some one lifts a pan rather than simply turning it off.

I will admit not all touch controls are the same, some can be altered quickly, but some you need to select ring before you can turn it down, so at least two touches, and also spills can stop touch controls working, and with knobs you can get the magnet type which still leaves an easy clean hob and the knobs can be put away so no chance of children turning on the hob, and children do tend to grab and furniture, and the controls are often at the front, so children not only can turn them on accidental, but due to the angle of their eyes to the hob, they are unaware they have done it.

OK unless some thing magnetic left on the hob it will not turn on, but the other day we accidental turned on hob and there was a baking tray on it, only just on so only warm, but I would say the safety features of the induction hob get taken for granted, my wife did some cooking in daughters house and left the hob burning, she simply expected it to auto turn off. She also realised how slow gas is. I regularly walk past the cooker and turn off hobs where wife has forgotten, does not harm since no pan and auto turns off, but then she forgets when using non induction.