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Re:Mechanical Induction Cooker by bob1029 on Saturday October 29, 2022 @10:03AM (#33384131)
I would be more interested in an induction cooker that has a traditional mechanism of action, but with a far more user-friendly, analog control scheme.

The primary challenge with induction is that you cannot really control the heat transfer with cookware placement. There are some that try to emulate this but it is "laggy" and inconsistent at best.

For whatever reason, my brain keeps coming back to something approximating a foot pedal you can use to directly control the amount of current that flows through the element. Remove all of the digital control circuitry and let the user be 100% in the loop. Safety issues be damned. Many are cooking with open flame, so I really don't see the relative concern here.

Today, I prefer induction simply because of the speed. I can bring several liters of oil up to 400F in < 4 minutes. Boiling water for tea takes less than 45 seconds. The tradeoff is the heat control. I've got 5kW of power, but its wrapped in these horrible kid gloves right now.

Re:Mechanical Induction Cooker by jeffalyanak on Saturday October 29, 2022 @10:31AM (#33384324)
I'd be happy with knobs!

The biggest issue I've seen with consumer induction cooktops is that all the affordable ones use stop touch/tap interfaces that make it really difficult to adjust heat while cooking.

If the primary input was just a potentiometer (or rotary encoder, if they wanted to be fancy) it would be trivially easy to set or adjust any hob at any time.

Re:Mechanical Induction Cooker by 2Gkashmiri on Saturday October 29, 2022 @11:56AM (#33385173)
https://www.amazon.in/Lifelong-Inferno-LLIC30-Induction-Cook...

this one costs around US$15. me and many millions of consumers in india use devices costing around this $12-$20 priced induction cookers because that's the only thing being available...

everyone has a soft button interface which sucks but because of the relatively cheap capital cost, you are able to buy a new one if the old one breaks. with good care i've used a machine not different from above for 4-5 years nonstop

Re:Mechanical Induction Cooker by jeffalyanak on Saturday October 29, 2022 @01:01PM (#33385876)
Yeah, aside from the actual interfaces I think induction units are great. They are safer than most (all?) other types of cooker, they're super fast to reach set temperature, and they have the potential to last a really long time.

I just really want at least one inexpensive unit like the one you linked to come out with a knob for temperature control. Surely that wouldn't affect the cost that much?

Re:Mechanical Induction Cooker by 2Gkashmiri on Saturday October 29, 2022 @01:11PM (#33386000)
we personally only use the temperature control and one "milk" setting. thats it for the 12-15 year we've used one at home
Re:Mechanical Induction Cooker by jeffalyanak on Saturday October 29, 2022 @01:38PM (#33386244)
Yeah, it absolutely comes down to how you need to use it.

Unfortunately, there are some types of cuisine that rely more heavily on quick, precise temperature control.

Re:Mechanical Induction Cooker by euroderf on Saturday October 29, 2022 @01:42PM (#33386268)
This is so American - to provide (dangerously) high power (great for marketing materials!) and then put it behind a crap interface that gets your kid burned by boiling sauce or spattering oil or whatever. RISKS of inappropriately complex and unresponsive control interfaces.
Re:Mechanical Induction Cooker by jeffalyanak on Saturday October 29, 2022 @02:52PM (#33386904)
I'm in Europe and the induction cooktops are the same here. There are a few models with actual dials/knobs, but they're (almost?) universally very expensive models.
Re:Mechanical Induction Cooker by brnt on Saturday October 29, 2022 @08:25PM (#33389442)
A friend used to have one with a sort of slider; it was still though a digital touch interface but had enough steps to make it feel continuous. Never wrote down what it was, and never saw one since.

I myselr used to have one that would go in 200W steps, that was also pretty great. Also never saw that on another model.