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Comment by newaccount74 | Hacker News Reader

> All the devices I have used were perfectly fine generating a low, constant heat

I have never seen an induction cooktop that could generate low, constant heat. Even pretty pricy ones (eg. a 3000€ Bora hob with integrated extraction) showed a clear on/off cycle at the lowest heat settings. But maybe tech has improved in recent years, and there are hobs now that have constant low power output?

Maybe the effect also just depends on your cookware? On pots with a heavy bottom with aluminium or copper core you probably won't see the coil patterns and the on/off effect will be less pronounced. If you have a pot with a thin stainless steel bottom, you will definitely see uneven heat, the power from an induction coil is not completely homogenous.

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All of the cheap tabletop cooktop I have seen have terrible cycling at lower powers, there seems to be two power levels and when you need something below the lower one, it cycles power at ~10s frequency. In contrast a Bosch integrated cooktop from a couple of years ago also does cycling, but seems to have more power levels available and the cycling is faster, around 1Hz or so. At least for me that is good enough.

My issues with it are more about inaccurate placement causing hot and cold spots and if you move a pot it can triggers cookware detection, which then clicks different coils on and off for 5-10s before it is satisfied with the new configuration. Both of those issues are probably exacerbated by the "FlexInduction" system that promises one large automatic cook area.

I'm hoping that power electronics development for electric cars creates some innovation in this area, but it's really hard to tell because there are no useful review sites and there aren't any places that let you take a cooktop for a testdrive.

> there are no useful review sites

Right! The only thing there is are occasional reviews on shopping websites, but people can usually only compare it to their previous one, so there really are no useful reviews (spoiler: most induction hobs are faster than whatever people had before, and people seem to hate touch controls)

Especially once you get to the fancy features (eg. internal and external temperature sensors) there are almost no reviews at all and all you have is the manufacturers marketing.

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