[lolinder]

A touch interface on the stove seems like the canonical example of a straightforwardly bad idea. Sure, let's use a capacitive touch interface to control the most dangerous appliance in the kitchen, one which also happens to frequently be the most humid spot and also the most likely to feature splashed oil! What could possibly go wrong?

[redwall_hp]

My favorite design issue with those: capacitive burner controls on the cooking surface mean you can spill something on them and be unable to turn the heat off to clean the thing keeping you from turning the heat off.

[kubik369]

Have you encountered any that work like this? In my small sample (n~5, Europe), all capacitive cooktops turn off whenever you spill something on the controls.

[account42]

Which, while better than buning your house down, is still needlessly annoying.

What I really want is for the controls to not be on the cooking surface at all but that only seems to be available for stovetop + oven combinations which have their own annoying limitations.

[occz]

Induction ranges stop heating when you remove the cookware from them however, making this somewhat less of a concern.

Still bad design on many levels, but not quite what I would call a safety hazard for this reason alone.

[scotty79]

I actually love that I can easily wipe everything when it's dirty. I'd hate cleaning knobs and most of the tactile buttons.

Some touch controls are incredibly good at filtering false inputs. Unfortunately you can't tell which.

[rrix2]

> I actually love that I can easily wipe everything when it's dirty. I'd hate cleaning knobs and most of the tactile buttons.

the knobs on my manually operated range pull right off their posts and go soak in the sink with some soap and hot water once a week while i spray the range's control surface with whatever spray cleaner and wipe it off with every other flat surface in my kitchen.

after ten or fifteen minutes of soaking, anything left on the knobs fall off with a dry rag that goes in the cloth washer afterwards.

[ninkendo]

I’m in full agreement with everyone here who hates touch screens, and I also spent a long time looking for induction ranges with physical knobs (IIRC there was only one model in the universe with them), and was so mad that I had to get one with touch buttons…

But I gotta say, the ability to just simply wipe the whole stove surface with a towel and be done has more than made up for the touch buttons sucking.

With physical knobs: Take knobs off and soak them, use a towel and wipe a circle around the nub that’s left, try not to leave a circular streak pattern, put knobs back. Or just wipe the knobs with the towel and get close enough on the surface.

Touch buttons: wipe the whole thing in big strokes, you’re done.

I clean the whole surface after every use now, because it’s just so damned easy.

[masfuerte]

You can have both. My mother's induction cooker has a flat top and knobs on the front. It's easy to clean and easy to operate.

[ninkendo]

I think that was the one model in the universe I was referring to. I don’t have the layout in my kitchen to put knobs in the front, my stovetop has to fit in a pretty well-defined area. Knobs in the front would have been totally ideal.

[lolinder]

Yep, every knob I've ever had on a stove works this way and makes them trivial to clean. In the meantime, during regular use they're guaranteed to never stop functioning because they got wet or oily.

[Dwedit]

You can easily wipe a membrane keypad clean. Those require force to trigger the buttons, so they are not at all like touch buttons.

[Ekaros]

Oh, and on exactly over what surface we usually lift or holds lids that most certainly have at least some condensation... You know when taking a peek or stirring it for a few seconds...

[account42]

OTOH, a flat surface is easier to clean.

Ideal would be to put the control surface further away from the cooking surface but that won't integrate into semi-standardized kitchen designs.

[lolinder]

Moving the controls solves the problem of splatter but doesn't solve the problem of dirty or wet fingers that can't accurately control a touch screen.