Induction hobs and touch controls.

[ericmark]

At home my induction hob has knobs to control it, my mother had one fitted with touch controls which had to be ripped out again mainly down to touch controls, in a wheel chair could could not see the touch controls, and also they were too slow to respond, you had to select the ring and press multi-times to reduce heat, by which time what ever was in the pan had boiled over, only option was to lift the pan, which defeated the whole idea of a hob which although electric is as controllable as gas.

However it seems things have moved on since those dark days, I have just bought a cheap Lidi single heat area induction hob, for use in the main in the caravan, however on testing at home first I have found it has reversed my thinking, the knob works on a incremental rotary encoder like the old mouse, and there is a limit to how fast you can turn down the heat, but the touch control on/off button is near instant, since a single heat area turning the whole device off is no problem, the whole thing has been turned on its head, and touch controls actually work well.

OK there are also some silly bits, child lock simply requires you to press the button for 3 seconds to activate and deactivate, the counter rotated two outer knobs on the Belling actually stopped my wife using the hob, never mind a child, you simply had to read instructions, however pressing the on button does not start the hob anyway you have to press a second button which selects watts or temperature display before it starts to work with in a short time, so accidental switching on is unlikely. Oh and the temperature selection does not seem anything more than setting watts, 80°C will allow water to boil!

The cheap £30 unit clearly does not have the bells and whistles of the full blown cooker, it does not claim to auto shut down if it detects over temperature, although it does auto switch off after a set time and if pan is not replaced within a set time.

But the aim of the thread is to ask how others find their induction hob? If the milk starts to boil over, can you switch it off fast enough with the controls, or do you need to lift the pan? The FSE60i would switch off fast, and the Lidi SIKP 2000 D1 will switch off fast. The HII64401T (Beko now discontinued) was however useless and was ripped out.

So time has moved on, so what are induction hobs like today, do touch controls today work better? can you read display in a wheel chair? can you switch off fast?

As an addendum the display on the Lidi cheap induction hob can't be seen in the morning sun in mothers kitchen, I could not read the power setting, however I could see the off button and the change from temperature to power display button, pressing the latter returns the unit to 1000W or 140°C this was easiest way to reset when you can't read display.

I was so impressed, after 6 months with a halogen hob, actually having a hob with instant response was great, I can understand in pre-induction days why people liked gas.

 

[StudWall]

i got my induction hob about 2 years ago from IKEA (the cheapest 4-ring they did) was about £250 and is a re-badged Whirlpool (says so on the label)

The touch controls are pretty good i think, fairly quick and I haven't had a problem seeing them in the sun. Although whether or not you can see them from a wheelchair is a matter of how high it is mounted.

Mine also has a slider in the centre, ideal for those used to a 'swipe' motion, to change the output setting.

I also have a portable / standalone single ring induction hob with a 13a plug, branded as Andrew James - That is pretty good too, but with 'real' buttons instead of touch controls

 

[ericmark]

I have at mothers house a Gorenje EC310AC 30cm wide Ceramic Domino Hob fitted, it has a 1.2 kW and a 1.7 kW halogen rings, and is really slow, it replaced the Beko HII64401T now both discontinued, it really does need replacing, and since mother no longer cooks there is no reason it should not be an induction, at the moment it is isolated and the Lidi SIKP 2000 D1 is sitting on top of it, which although only one heat area actually works far better. With 10 power levels 200, 400, 600, 800, 1000, 1200, 1400, 1600, 1800 and 2000 watt settings, when making breakfast I use 600, 800, or 1000 watt with large frying pan.

At £30 very cheap, and it is not far off what the full Belling FSE60i can do, however don't really want a full cooker and don't want to spend £700, just a hob Belling IH60R costs around £400 and at the moment we have a domino fitted, the Zanussi, ZEI3921IBA at £200 is cheaper and still has knobs,
but if I went for touch controls I can get a domino hob for £73 OK electrIQ eiQEHIND30 is not very well known but neither is the Lidi one.

So question is if it is worth £127 to have knobs on it? We are looking at the whole kitchen, it was designed for wheel chair use, cupboards on the wall are fitted low with pull out drop down trays which can't be actually pulled out and dropped down because they are grossly overloaded, the under counter cupboards have a huge kick space to allow wheel chair to get close, so not as high as normal, work top duel level so we have some bit high enough, but dish washer is counter top type fitted under the sink, and tumble drier also a special low one to fit under lowered counter.

So we are considering options, including ripping out whole kitchen and starting again. But before taking such drastic action, want to see if we could get away with a cheap induction hob. Hence lack of knobs question.