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Comment by _kb | Hacker News Reader

Same experience with an induction cooktop with touch controls. At least once a week this is what that looks like:

1. Place pot of water on element to boil

2. Enable boost mode

3. Water reaches boil as I'm distracted with other prep / child / HN post, and overflows

4. All controls (including ability to disable boost, reduce heat, or turn off element) rendered completely inoperable due to liquid on glass surface impacting pcap sensing

5. Dry, repeat.

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To my enormous relief, the Samsung stove that came with our house gets this right - even covered in water the controls still work. I was previously dead-against induction just because I couldn't find a good quality stove-top with physical buttons, to the point where I'd already budgeted replacing it with gas when we bought the house. I don't know how they've done it, but it's the only one I've ever used that manages. (For comparison, the high-end Miele and cheap-and-cheerful non-branded ones I've used in various rental houses over the last 20 years have all had exactly the problem you describe above).

A few of the new home models (in Europe at least) come with physical knobs.

My two gripes about induction are the touch controls they typically ship with and the inability to roast peppers over an open flame. But the incredible temperature response makes up for both IMO.

I moved into a new apartment with an induction cooktop and radiators with the same type of "buttonless button" controls and those continually give me problems. You can't just touch them, but you have to slide your finger over the controls in just the right way, and hope that (for the radiator) you've hit the 1 in 3 chance of it actually working.

My next cooktop will probably still be induction, but it will definitely have knobs.

My Whirlpool stove does the opposite thing: after I've finished cooking and it's cooling down, it will activate the Warm oven setting on its own. I find that the Warm touch button is especially sensitive on its own, so there must be some small flexing happening somewhere and activating it.

Solution: Immediately after cooking I walk over to the junction box and turn off the breaker to the stovetop.

Not only that, but if you don't dry it quick enough the whole hob shuts down

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