> The only saving grace of those is the ease of cleaning spills.

Disagree. Spills can turn hobs on & off, and at best cause the entire control surface to lock up and start beeping - which can quickly turn worst, if a hob happened to turn on a split second earlier.

Knobs. On the front, not on the top.

Knobs on the side can be fine too.

That only works for full stoves, something I don’t think I’ve seen in 15 years.

How do you do knobs on the front (or side) with an embedded cooktop? Raise it by 3 inches so you have space for knobs?

If you're embedding the hobs on the top, then embed the knobs on the front, and run a wire in between. It's not like it was meant to be portable, if you are making one cut-out, why not make two.

I agree with this. I like physical controls in most places but purposely picked a touch-control stove because it is just so much easier to wipe down. The controls are a bit less convenient than knobs but the ease of cleaning makes up for it in my opinion.

> The only saving grace of those is the ease of cleaning spills.

I have never in my life seen a stovetop knob that isn’t easily removable for cleaning. The shitty touch panel on my cooktop is recessed in a way that it is impossible to fully clean a liquid spill out of the seam without disassembling the appliance.