5 ms·

Having had one of these, I just want to say: “Never again.” Mine would turn itself on when you washed it and turn itself off when something splattered (like 50%

Having had one of these, I just want to say: “Never again.” Mine would turn itself on when you washed it and turn itself off when something splattered (like 50% of the time when I boiled water). It made me wonder if anyone actually tested the damn design before approval for mass production.

tobr 4y ago
Often they’re also too damn close to the heating elements, so you risk burning your fingers when you operate them.
- zikzak 4y ago
  And this heat degrades the component. And it is almost never worth replacing a control board over buying new. There is, of course, no hidden agenda.
sshlocalhost98 4y ago
Haha that’s true! I am an electrical engineering student, if I have to guess it may be due to random electric charges, probably grounding was not done properly.
- jraph 4y ago
  I know nothing about electricity but water always seems to confuse those hotplates... or laptop's touchpads FWIW. (how do I know??)
LaputanMachine 4y ago
I think this is a safety function. You may not be able to turn off the stove yourself if something boils over, and the buttons get covered in hot liquid.
- cbm-vic-20 4y ago
  Sounds like these stoves could use an "oh shit" / "Big Red Button" that's easily accessible when this happens.
  - corobo 4y ago
    Is there not the switch on the mains where you are? In the UK we have a quick-off* toggle switch for electric ovens. Usually near the oven but could be elsewhere in a bigger kitchen That'd be my go-to panic resolve anyway * For folks unfamiliar by this I mean it takes almost zero effort to turn the switch off, but takes a little bit of force to switch back on
    - ryukafalz 4y ago
      I’ve never seen this here in the US. Sounds like a good idea!
    - Macha 4y ago
      I have a isolation switches near my oven (and also for my fridge, and a combined one for my washing machine and dryer) here in Ireland, which I believe are required on new or newly renovated properties by planning laws, but there's nothing asymmetric about the force required, it's just a relatively stiff switch whether turning on or off.
      - corobo 4y ago
        It's possible that the resistance part isn't even a thing If I'm honest I only noticed it because the last one I came across seemed to be wired upside down (easy on, resistant off) and I'm almost certain the house before had the same but wired the "right way" Could just have been some rogue grease or something either lubricating or gunking up the switch haha
- ridgered4 4y ago
  Seems like a poor safety feature to have it also turn on when you're cleaning. I've never seen one of these soft touch control designs on a cooktop but I did hear they existed and at least one cat had turned one on by standing on it resulting in a house fire. The only dumber idea I can think of is a touch screen, which I'm sure they're hard at work integrated right now.
  - LaputanMachine 4y ago
    > Seems like a poor safety feature to have it also turn on when you're cleaning. Right, that's bad design. The cooktop I'm familiar with always turns off and beeps if something (metal pots or a liquid) covers a part of the button area. To turn it on, you have to press two different buttons within a certain time limit, with a pot standing on the appropriate cooking zone. Most cats probably won't manage to do that. > The only dumber idea I can think of is a touch screen Oh, don't get me started. We own an oven with a touch screen. It's pure idiocy. But the cooktop is actually very good IMO.
    - tpmx 4y ago
      http://www.koreaherald.com/view.php?ud=20211230000501 http://www.koreaherald.com/view.php?ud=20211230000501 Cats responsible for 107 house fires in Seoul in past 3 yrs ... According to the Seoul Metropolitan Fire & Disaster Headquarters, cats are believed to have started the blaze by turning on the electric stove in the kitchen with their paws. ... Electric induction cookers often come with touch-sensitive buttons, which can be switched on by the paw of an animal.
- paganel 4y ago
  I used to always have some kitchen rags around for exactly that type of situation, in fact I still have one that I've purchased from Ikea. I just wrap my hand/fingers with said rag and manipulate that button accordingly (or get a hot dish from the stove itself etc).
gonzo41 4y ago
In my house, my electric stove has a master isolation switch for exactly this purpose.
brozaman 4y ago
On the other hand they are extremely easy to clean. Just get some cloth and ceramic stove cleaner and you're good to go. The knobs are more convenient to operate, but they tend to accumulate grease in the joints and other parts where you cannot reach. And if you want to clean them thoroughly you need to disassemble the knobs and that's annoying as hell. For me being easier to clean compensates everything.
- sethammons 4y ago
  Every stove knob I've ever interacted with easily pulls / slides off its peg and can be hand washed if it gets too dirty. Changing a lightbulb is an order of magnitude harder.
  - matwood 4y ago
    Yeah...when cleaning I take off the knobs and soak them while cleaning the rest of the top. Then finish by hand washing the knobs and then putting it all back together. The other thing is you can buy new knobs which can update/change/refresh the look of an older cooktop.
    - corobo 4y ago
      I just used to bash them in the dishwasher with everything else Got the touch buttons now and am forever turning stuff off randomly. It's like my hand meats are drawn to pressing more than one button at a time I guess the idea is if the water overflows it'll 'touch' multiple buttons and turn the heat off but I've only ever turned it off by accident so far haha
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
alxlaz 4y ago
These ideas aren't born in the actual product design teams, where "don't put touch control near things that get hot" or "no unprotected touch controls on surfaces where spilling can occur" are not concepts that need to be explained. The way this usually happens is that product management hands down the requirement from down top, either on their own or after contracting some expensive industrial design agency (i.e. a mixed team of engineering and art majors who never had to sell, service and especially provide tech support for, any of the products whose outside they designed) to help "refresh" their product line. Then, when in a shocking twist of events it's absolutely miserable, the tests are slightly mangled to highlight the usability gains ("easier to wipe", "looks modern and integrates well in a modern kitchen") and ensure no one's yearly bonus is endangered. Surprisingly, it works out really well despite competition because everyone's doing it pretty similarly. If your next question is "but why on Earth is it done like that!?", well, there are many reasons for that. But the tl;dr is that making kitchen appliances with universal, "boring" features, which last for 20 years, would spell disaster for a lot of companies in a lot of industries, from home appliances to furniture, and for smaller, specialized suppliers in these fields. The market has fine-tuned itself for frequently replaceable junk that's just good enough to that someone can plausibly say "well ackshually" when I refer to it as junk. Anything better would inherently result in much longer growth cycles, which Western management and stakeholders are not capable of handling anymore, and would disrupt "fashionable" trends, which would further prolong growth cycles in both home appliances and connected industries (furniture, home decor, cooking vessels believe it or not, and so on). It would also make it difficult to outsource mass production to cheap factories with poor quality control processes, thus driving prices up even more than the better materials and design would warrant, but that's more of a second-order effect than a cause by now. Sauce: I used to work on consumer products years ago -- not kitchen appliances specifically but I know people who did those, too. Attending meetings was a lesson in cognitive dissonance and doublespeak and it's one of the least rewarding tech jobs you can imagine.
- synu 4y ago
  I get that it's better for the producers if everyone agrees to make throwaway appliances that need to be replaced every couple years, but how do they prevent someone from entering the market and selling high quality equipment that lasts? They would have fewer repeat sales, but more of the market share presumably.
pawelk 4y ago
My oven has touch controls on the front that are rendered useless as soon as I open it and heat/vapor is released onto the front panel. Luckily the touch interface is only for secondary features like setting timers, the important ones - temperature and mode selection - are physical knobs that can be pushed in flush with the front. From my limited experience with touch operated stoves - these would be just as reliably operated by randomly throwing darts at a board.

tobr 4y ago

Often they’re also too damn close to the heating elements, so you risk burning your fingers when you operate them.

zikzak 4y ago
And this heat degrades the component. And it is almost never worth replacing a control board over buying new. There is, of course, no hidden agenda.

sshlocalhost98 4y ago

Haha that’s true! I am an electrical engineering student, if I have to guess it may be due to random electric charges, probably grounding was not done properly.

jraph 4y ago
I know nothing about electricity but water always seems to confuse those hotplates... or laptop's touchpads FWIW. (how do I know??)

LaputanMachine 4y ago

I think this is a safety function. You may not be able to turn off the stove yourself if something boils over, and the buttons get covered in hot liquid.

cbm-vic-20 4y ago
Sounds like these stoves could use an "oh shit" / "Big Red Button" that's easily accessible when this happens.
- corobo 4y ago
  Is there not the switch on the mains where you are? In the UK we have a quick-off* toggle switch for electric ovens. Usually near the oven but could be elsewhere in a bigger kitchen That'd be my go-to panic resolve anyway * For folks unfamiliar by this I mean it takes almost zero effort to turn the switch off, but takes a little bit of force to switch back on
  - ryukafalz 4y ago
    I’ve never seen this here in the US. Sounds like a good idea!
  - Macha 4y ago
    I have a isolation switches near my oven (and also for my fridge, and a combined one for my washing machine and dryer) here in Ireland, which I believe are required on new or newly renovated properties by planning laws, but there's nothing asymmetric about the force required, it's just a relatively stiff switch whether turning on or off.
    - corobo 4y ago
      It's possible that the resistance part isn't even a thing If I'm honest I only noticed it because the last one I came across seemed to be wired upside down (easy on, resistant off) and I'm almost certain the house before had the same but wired the "right way" Could just have been some rogue grease or something either lubricating or gunking up the switch haha
ridgered4 4y ago
Seems like a poor safety feature to have it also turn on when you're cleaning. I've never seen one of these soft touch control designs on a cooktop but I did hear they existed and at least one cat had turned one on by standing on it resulting in a house fire. The only dumber idea I can think of is a touch screen, which I'm sure they're hard at work integrated right now.
- LaputanMachine 4y ago
  > Seems like a poor safety feature to have it also turn on when you're cleaning. Right, that's bad design. The cooktop I'm familiar with always turns off and beeps if something (metal pots or a liquid) covers a part of the button area. To turn it on, you have to press two different buttons within a certain time limit, with a pot standing on the appropriate cooking zone. Most cats probably won't manage to do that. > The only dumber idea I can think of is a touch screen Oh, don't get me started. We own an oven with a touch screen. It's pure idiocy. But the cooktop is actually very good IMO.
  - tpmx 4y ago
    http://www.koreaherald.com/view.php?ud=20211230000501 http://www.koreaherald.com/view.php?ud=20211230000501 Cats responsible for 107 house fires in Seoul in past 3 yrs ... According to the Seoul Metropolitan Fire & Disaster Headquarters, cats are believed to have started the blaze by turning on the electric stove in the kitchen with their paws. ... Electric induction cookers often come with touch-sensitive buttons, which can be switched on by the paw of an animal.
paganel 4y ago
I used to always have some kitchen rags around for exactly that type of situation, in fact I still have one that I've purchased from Ikea. I just wrap my hand/fingers with said rag and manipulate that button accordingly (or get a hot dish from the stove itself etc).

gonzo41 4y ago

In my house, my electric stove has a master isolation switch for exactly this purpose.

brozaman 4y ago

On the other hand they are extremely easy to clean. Just get some cloth and ceramic stove cleaner and you're good to go. The knobs are more convenient to operate, but they tend to accumulate grease in the joints and other parts where you cannot reach. And if you want to clean them thoroughly you need to disassemble the knobs and that's annoying as hell. For me being easier to clean compensates everything.

sethammons 4y ago
Every stove knob I've ever interacted with easily pulls / slides off its peg and can be hand washed if it gets too dirty. Changing a lightbulb is an order of magnitude harder.
- matwood 4y ago
  Yeah...when cleaning I take off the knobs and soak them while cleaning the rest of the top. Then finish by hand washing the knobs and then putting it all back together. The other thing is you can buy new knobs which can update/change/refresh the look of an older cooktop.
  - corobo 4y ago
    I just used to bash them in the dishwasher with everything else Got the touch buttons now and am forever turning stuff off randomly. It's like my hand meats are drawn to pressing more than one button at a time I guess the idea is if the water overflows it'll 'touch' multiple buttons and turn the heat off but I've only ever turned it off by accident so far haha
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]

alxlaz 4y ago

These ideas aren't born in the actual product design teams, where "don't put touch control near things that get hot" or "no unprotected touch controls on surfaces where spilling can occur" are not concepts that need to be explained. The way this usually happens is that product management hands down the requirement from down top, either on their own or after contracting some expensive industrial design agency (i.e. a mixed team of engineering and art majors who never had to sell, service and especially provide tech support for, any of the products whose outside they designed) to help "refresh" their product line. Then, when in a shocking twist of events it's absolutely miserable, the tests are slightly mangled to highlight the usability gains ("easier to wipe", "looks modern and integrates well in a modern kitchen") and ensure no one's yearly bonus is endangered. Surprisingly, it works out really well despite competition because everyone's doing it pretty similarly. If your next question is "but why on Earth is it done like that!?", well, there are many reasons for that. But the tl;dr is that making kitchen appliances with universal, "boring" features, which last for 20 years, would spell disaster for a lot of companies in a lot of industries, from home appliances to furniture, and for smaller, specialized suppliers in these fields. The market has fine-tuned itself for frequently replaceable junk that's just good enough to that someone can plausibly say "well ackshually" when I refer to it as junk. Anything better would inherently result in much longer growth cycles, which Western management and stakeholders are not capable of handling anymore, and would disrupt "fashionable" trends, which would further prolong growth cycles in both home appliances and connected industries (furniture, home decor, cooking vessels believe it or not, and so on). It would also make it difficult to outsource mass production to cheap factories with poor quality control processes, thus driving prices up even more than the better materials and design would warrant, but that's more of a second-order effect than a cause by now. Sauce: I used to work on consumer products years ago -- not kitchen appliances specifically but I know people who did those, too. Attending meetings was a lesson in cognitive dissonance and doublespeak and it's one of the least rewarding tech jobs you can imagine.

synu 4y ago
I get that it's better for the producers if everyone agrees to make throwaway appliances that need to be replaced every couple years, but how do they prevent someone from entering the market and selling high quality equipment that lasts? They would have fewer repeat sales, but more of the market share presumably.

pawelk 4y ago

My oven has touch controls on the front that are rendered useless as soon as I open it and heat/vapor is released onto the front panel. Luckily the touch interface is only for secondary features like setting timers, the important ones - temperature and mode selection - are physical knobs that can be pushed in flush with the front. From my limited experience with touch operated stoves - these would be just as reliably operated by randomly throwing darts at a board.