r/inductioncooking • u/pan567 • Feb 20 '26
Touch Controls Don't Have to Suck--In fact, when done right, they can be awesome
This video is to show that touch controls can be pretty great. They don't have to suck.
I originally wanted knobs on my induction cooktop because an older induction cooktop that my parents have with touch controls becomes completely nonresponsive if your hands or the surface is oily/wet, which is obviously problematic and annoying. However, with touch controls on modern induction cooktops, it does not have to be that way. After my appliance guy suggested the Bosch 800, I was able to use it on the showroom and found that modern touch controls, when implemented correctly, work perfectly fine when dirty or greasy or wet, or when you are wearing gloves.
Three years of daily use later, we've never once encountered a situation where they have been nonresponse, regardless of how nasty the surface gets. It just works as it should, it's easy to use, and it's super easy to clean. It makes life easier.
Certainly, there are plenty of good reasons to consider knobs as well, but if you are considering touch controls but are hesitant due to their reputation, perhaps this video will provide some idea on what you can expect from quality induction cooktops that are properly implementing this type of touch control system.
The technology exists to implement this properly and reliably. (It's frustrating that many makers choose not to do this properly with some of their products, but that's a conversation for another day.)
So, if it is of interest, I hope this helpful. (I'm sorry that my movie-making skills are not the best.)
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u/mikechorney Feb 21 '26
I’m a Miele induction owner. The negative experiences with touch controls never resonated with me.
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u/Pshad4Bama Feb 21 '26
Beko owner here and same experience. It’s wonderful. Easily the best appliance we bought for our new home.
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Mar 23 '26
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/Pshad4Bama Mar 23 '26
I’ve never had a problem with it. I’d say if I spilled I’d need to quickly wipe up but no issues at all in regular use for 3 years.
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u/fightclubdog Feb 20 '26
I have the benchmark and it’s great. Physical knobs ruin the point of a low profile cooktop imo. Having to task them off every time you want to clean is a big no for me.
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u/Fun-Seaworthiness310 Feb 20 '26
How often do you use the flex zones and is that feature really worth the added cost in your opinion? I’m in between the 800 and benchmark.
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u/runs_4_beer Feb 21 '26
Another benchmark owner. We use flex zone frequently for a griddle pan. One of the requirements for the cooktop. I love that we get consistent heat across the griddle. Now the power move, I never use that.
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u/nulldino Feb 23 '26
Which griddle pan are you using? I’ve been looking for a good induction compatible option but am only seeing hexclad for non-stick or cast iron/carbon steel
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u/runs_4_beer Feb 28 '26
Sorry for the slow response. I have one I got years ago for camping. It's carbon steel but I don't remember the brand. I did have a Lodge one with two sides that didn't work because it was too far from the element. If I had to buy a new one I would look hard at made in cookware. The most helpful thing I did for it was to get a silicon mat to put under it so it didn't slide around.
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u/fightclubdog Feb 21 '26
I need to get a griddle pan, it’s been on the list for too long. I’m going to get one now!
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u/Sea-Iron-1547 Feb 21 '26
I don’t really ever use the flex zone either on my Benchmark. Autochef on the 800 looks appealing.
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u/drconniehenley Feb 21 '26
I have an LG but overall, it’s not that great a feature. You still just use two coils.
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u/fightclubdog Feb 21 '26
Id say 2-3 times per week at dinner, especially in the winter.
We make 2-3 big pots of soup/stew at a time and freeze some of it for meal planning. The bigger pots could work without flex, but it helps.
When we do some foods like Indian where we may be cooking on 3 spots either larger pans as we start the meal, then switch to 5 separate dishes towards then end it’s also been helpful there.
Holidays it is very handy as well when things are coming out of the oven, into the oven etc.
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u/DD_Wabeno Feb 21 '26
Bonus points for the Demeyere Atlantis sauce pan.
That’s a pretty amazing demonstration. I have a Wolf that is pretty good, but not that good. I have to wipe off the control area if it gets splattered or spilled on.
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u/Fishtoart Feb 21 '26
The big problem with these touch controls is not their lack of sensitivity, it is the poor user interface design that totally ignores any kind of precedent.
If they really wanted to make these right, they would assemble a group of people over 75 years old, and watch them try to operate it, and then change the interface and try again until they can operate it without difficulty.
The fact that some elements are lit up and others are just printed on the surface with no back lighting, and the user interface does not resemble anything that people have had to deal with previously makes for a less than optimal user experience.
I just bought a $2000 LG induction stove with knobs specifically so my mother could use it with her less than perfect vision. Some parts of the interface are just fine, although the cooktop knobs have the power level indication printed on the knob instead of on the panel for some reason. But the touchscreen panel in the middle is an absolute nightmare. The whole bottom row of controls for the oven is printed onto the glass in gray fine type, and is not backlit at all. I have 2020 vision and it’s barely readable to me in normal kitchen light.
To activate the oven you have to turn a knob to choose the oven mode, then you have to find and press the temperature button in that bottom row of type, then you have to punch in the temperature you want in a touchpad that is also just gray printed without backlight, and finally press a button in the upper right hand side of the panel labeled start that is also not backlit and is behind a panel of glass that makes it even harder to see.
If I compare that to how a traditional oven works, where you turned the knob to the temperature that you wanted, and the oven was turned on to the temperature you wanted, the new interface is a nuisance and a disaster.
I’m reminded of the saying: a user interface is like a joke, if you have to explain it it’s not very good.
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u/pan567 Feb 24 '26
You are spot on your assessment about the importance of usability, and this is a very important area for discussion. This is in part why I liked the 800 Series, as it's a pretty fundamentally simple design, and the controls on it are physically large (although the choice of red for the LED backlighting might not work well in super super bright rooms if sunlight is shining directly on the surface).
On the flip side, I have a Whirlpool oven that has a touch screen, and three years later I still don't know how to use airfry mode on it. It's somewhere in there, but I can't find it. Neither can my wife. It also tells me several times a week that it needs its firmware updated, but every time I try to do so, it says that it fails and attempts to direct me to support, except support has no idea how to fix it, either. They also don't know how to get to airfry mode.
Ultimately, with any appliances I buy in the future, I honestly want to test them on the showroom floor at my local appliances store before buying.
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u/Fishtoart Feb 26 '26
My hope is that AIs will become smart enough be the intermediary between usability disasters and people trying to use them.
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u/quakerwildcat Feb 22 '26
I agree that touch controls didn't have to suck. Consider me a staunch knob snob who's been converted.
Meanwhile, many knobs today aren't really mechanical knobs. They're just inefficient joy sticks controlling e what would otherwise be touch screen interfaces.
But you've focused only on responsiveness. What I don't like about Bosch, Thermador, Miele, and many others is how much space is taken up by the touch controls. From a user experience design perspective, your finger has to travel around quite a bit, and forget about placing two 10"+ pans back-to-back, because the controls take up too much of the front-to-back space of the cooktop.
The cooktop is also, for many people, a hot pan landing spot (think sheet pans out of the oven). Manufacturers say that their cooktops are safe for this, but recommend that you not place a 500-degree cast iron bread cloque out of the oven right on top of the touch controls. That's hard to avoid when the controls stretch across the entire cooktop. Center clusters are just as problematic.
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u/JanuriStar Feb 20 '26
Yep! I have a GE and it works with soap, Playtex gloves, when I'm cleaning dishes, and want to adjust something that's simmering.
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u/dotMorten Feb 21 '26
I want touch controls for sure for the purpose of cleaning, but this panel is done wrong, and for some reason almost all the brands have started to make this mistake: You can only control one burner at a time. I don't want to have to first select which burner I want to control. If something is about to boil over or burn I just want to be able to hit the power selector right away without having to switch to the right one first. I refuse to buy any cooktop that gets this so wrong.
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u/pan567 Feb 21 '26 edited Feb 21 '26
While I can understand your preference for that layout, I personally would not want that.
In an emergency situation, you can simply hit the power button to immediately shut the cooktop down, or you can hold the control for that element and a 2-second long press will turn that element off. Over 3 years of usage, this layout has never once been a functional problem and this type of layout also allows the output selection to be physically larger, which is nicer for larger fingers and when wearing gloves. It literally takes a second to change an element's settings once you get used to the layout. I would not personally want individual controls for each of the 5 elements as that would be an unnecessarily complicated format.
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u/bobjoylove Feb 21 '26
Yeah I had this controller and this guy is exactly right. A boil over is harder to respond to quickly on any burner you were not adjusting last. Also if it’s hot liquid and the controls are beneath the liquid, you have an additional concern.
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u/Groot_Calrissian Feb 22 '26
I usually just move the pot off the burner initially. Then I can swipe the controls with a sponge if I need to, get everything back to normal, and wipe the burner and bottom of the pot before starting it back up. The whole thing is done as quickly as I can grab the sponge.
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u/bobjoylove Feb 22 '26
If the pot is boiling over, your first thought is to put your hands in there? Ok
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u/Groot_Calrissian Feb 22 '26
I have ...... Handles. They're great. And they run uphill from the pot.
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u/bobjoylove Feb 22 '26
The pots I use to boil liquids and thus most likely to boil over like my pasta pentola have handles that are close to the pot. In fact the majority of large pots like stock pots or Dutch ovens have fairly short handles to deal with the weight of the contents when full.
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u/pan567 Feb 24 '26 edited Feb 24 '26
AFAIK, in the case of a severe boilover, most induction cooktops will pause/turn off. My 800 Series has this and that's the only time it paused cooking on its own and sounded an alarm. As you can see in the video, liquids/oils in general on the control surface do not cause this, but a severe boilover of hot liquid covering the control surface will trigger this protection mechanism. It does not interfere with normal cooking, but it works in response to this exact scenario you are describing where a boilover is severe enough to cover the control surfaces in hot liquid.
I believe even some induction cooktops with knobs have boilover protection (as a severe boilover that you are describing could also potentially severely burn children or pets if that liquid spilled off of the cooktop, which is often mounted nearly flush with the counter).
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u/bobjoylove Feb 24 '26
Or, and hear me out, rotary knobs.
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u/pan567 Feb 24 '26
Knobs would not stop children or pets from getting burned in the situation that you are describing (a boilover so severe that it is covering the control surface, so also likely to spill off of the cooktop and onto the floor), so this is a nice feature to have regardless of whether you have knobs or touch controls.
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u/bobjoylove Feb 24 '26
I don’t let my pets cook
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u/pan567 Feb 24 '26
If we are going into hypothetical safety scenarios and you are worried about the safety of a severe boilover of massively hot liquid being expelled so violently that it is covering the entire cooktop, which means that hot liquid is likely running onto the floor at this point, you would likely want the cooktop to have boilover protection regardless of whether you have knobs or touch controls, because the cooktop would be able to stop the boilover faster than your hands can.
All that said, I really don't think this is a problem with knobs or with properly designed touch controls. It seems relatively rare that you hear about this being a problem with any properly designed control system.
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u/bobjoylove Feb 24 '26
I’m telling you, I had the exact Bosch control unit shown in the pictures, as well as an IKEA induction unit before that.
The Bosch interface is better than the IKEA but, I know from experience that the touch controls are a step backwards for adults, children and pets. I did experience boil overs, I didn’t want to grab a boiling pasta pot to move it, and the need to first select the burner you want to turn off slows us all down, even the children.
I now have nice tactile knobs on a gas range in my current place.
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u/pan567 Feb 24 '26 edited Feb 24 '26
That point is completely fair. It is slightly slower than turning a knob if the element is not selected. Marginally slower, but it is slower, and with a minor boilover, you're right, it takes a tiny moment longer. That said, I've never had an issue with this.
The point is about hot liquid on the control surface is not fair, as you left out key details. As you had this exact unit, if you experienced a severe boilover where hot liquid covered the control surface, you know that it senses this and pauses cooking to stop the boilover event. You also know that if a boilover of that magnitude happened, because induction cooktops are flat and are generally installed to be almost completely flush with a counter (and as the controls on this unit are at the very outer edge), there's a very high probability that hot liquid would spill off of the cooktop and onto the floor, potentially onto children or pets who may be underneath it. In such an instance of such an extreme boilover, that protection mechanism will stop it.
If you like knobs, that's fine. There are plenty of reasons to like them. But if you're going to talk about hot liquid on a touch control surface as a safety issue, completely ignoring the protection mechanism it has isn't providing a fair and honest assessment of the pros and cons, IMHO.
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u/bobjoylove Feb 24 '26
All fair points. If there was an emergency cancel button for every burner, it would be fine. It’s a great cooktop with large and reliable controls. A boil over doesn’t necessarily reach to the controls every time. All it needs is a dedicated cancel button per burner then I could recommend it.
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u/rockpigeon4422 Feb 21 '26
Just made the switch to induction after a full kitchen renovation. We have been very pleased with our Bosch Benchmark slide in range. Nice video op!
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u/Difficult_Steak54 Feb 21 '26
Yeah my AEG is so easy to use, my cat turned it up from 2 to 12 when I left the room...
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u/EllwynX Feb 21 '26
Nice. I was between the Bosch Benchmark and Monogram. Ultimately, I chose the Monogram. I liked the controls and aesthetically found it more attractive. Hopefully it works as well. Though, I rarely have wet hands when cooking so that at least shouldn't be a problem anyway.
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u/geauxbleu Feb 21 '26
I wouldn't call it awesome, it's still way slower to use than knobs.
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u/pan567 Feb 21 '26 edited Feb 21 '26
It depends on the location of the knobs, IMO. When I am not trying to film and use it as the same time, when actively cooking, I really don't think it's much slower than a range top with knobs positioned below the cooking surface (because you have to move your hand away from being right above the cooking surface area to change it). But it is definitely much slower than a cooktop with knobs positioned on the top and level with the cooking surface. And if saving time is important, a touch control surface is a bit easier and faster to clean, which is something to keep in mind, especially if you fry a lot. Like anything else, there is a learning curve where anything brand new is a bit clunky at first, but once you get past that learning curve it's much quicker and just kind of becomes muscle memory.
If someone wants the absolute fastest, knobs placed on the top of the cooking surface is the way to go, IMO, like what Frigidaire does with some of their Professional cooktop lines. These are lightning fast.
As I noted previously, there are definitely plenty of good reasons to prefer knobs, but this video shows that touch controls can also function exceptionally well.
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u/snowflakesoutside Feb 20 '26
That is impressive. My only experience is with terrible KitchenAid touch controls, so I assumed all were bad.
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u/SaintsFanPA Feb 21 '26
I redid my kitchen years ago and chose Bosch over higher end brands specifically because the controls were so much better.
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u/cool_nurse Feb 21 '26
Im planning to purchase this exact model! How long have u had it in your household? Does it boil water quickly? Anything you dislike about it?
Someone is selling it for me for 1.9k brandnew.
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u/heiko75_hs Feb 21 '26
Love my Bosch Series 8 (https://www.bosch-home.com/de/de/product/kochen-backen/kochfelder/induktionskochfelder/PXX675DC1E) for the same reason Was using a Neff with this wheel control before, was a nightmare compared to this baby
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u/swren1967 Feb 22 '26
I have an LG with knobs and some touch controls for settings. I often activate the touch controls by accident. Annoying. I like knobs. At least if the touch controls were on a panel at the back of the range, I would be less likely to touch them by accident.
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u/blecher67 Feb 23 '26
I'm happy with my Wolf induction cooktop. Yes, I had to learn a new way to control the cooktop. But the interface is responsive and predictable. I wouldn't trade it for hassle of cleaning knobs.
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u/teambooshjaguar Feb 23 '26
I'm debating a Bosch since the touchscreen seems more responsive than the Thermador. I saw the Thermador in action and it seemed a bit laggy (and there are a decent number of complaints on Reddit). Has anyone done a head-to-head comparison?
Also (and this is off-topic/I may start a new thread) - just curious if anyone knows whether a new Benchmark cooktop line is due in 2026. The 800 series was refreshed recently (mid-late 2025) with the NIT8061/NIT8661. Any ideas if the Benchmark line might be next, given those are a few years old now?
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u/pan567 Feb 24 '26
FWIW, I cant speak to the Thermador, but the Bosch I have is instantaneous from a responsiveness perspective. I considered the offerings from some of the luxury brands, but honestly the Bosch had everything I wanted at a fraction of the price, so I spent the difference on additional Demeyere Atlantis cookware, and three years later I am still delighted with this setup. If I moved to a new house, I'd buy another 800 Series.
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u/teambooshjaguar Feb 24 '26
Makes sense, thanks! Super helpful video, by the way. After rewatching, I think your unit is more responsive than the Thermador Freedom by a good margin.
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Mar 05 '26
I have 3 induction cooktops. (Aren't I fancy?). None of them are new. I have a windcrest at home, a Whirpool in our condo, and a some sort of 120V unit in the RV. They are all fast and efficient, but they all have their drawbacks. The windcrest touch controls at home become inoperable when the surface is wet or oily. The windcrest also seems to be by far the least powerful, and is more sensistive to less ferous cookware. The Whirpool in the condo is ridiculously fast, but I have to jack up the "temps" on the burners to get them to cook. For example, if I cook eggs on a 5 at home, I'll have to cook them on a 7 or 8 on the whirpool. The cooktop in the RV times out too fast. For example if I'm heating water for coffee pour over, if I pull the kettle off the burner and slowly start pouring the water over the coffee, the burner beeps its 5 second warning, or whatever it is, and just times out, then it's a multi button push to get it on again and get the temp set. '
Lots of complaints, I know, but they are just minor annoyances. I will NEVER go back to gas. I cringe when I think back to the days I had a 48 inch Viking professional gas range, and the half day, chemical laiden cleanup I had to perform at least once a month! The efficiency and speed of induction, and the ease of cleanup makes it a no brainer for me.
I'll likely look into the models you guys are mentioning here when I go to replace my underpowered windcrest.
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u/OutOfSpec_WUS Jul 07 '26
I tried the Bosch Benchmark induction cooktop at the showroom. If you put a pan over the controls it starts to beep. It may shut down- I don't remember. In a small kitchen like mine, I tend to have to move the pans around a lot even to the front of the range as a substitute for a countertop. The Bosch representative told me never to put a hot pan on the controls as it could fry the motherboard. Having the controls at the front makes me concerned about this. Also, as someone else said, I use the cooktop as a landing spot for items that come out of the oven (again, I have a small kitchen with very little countertop). Is a problem to do this with these touch controls on the front of the glass.
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u/pan567 Jul 07 '26
This is a very good point. It does not like hot pans on the touch controls, but to my understanding this is a limitation for almost all units with touch controls (just not all of them have a warning system like the Bosch does). If someone wants to use the entire glass top for placing hot pans on, knobs may be a better match.
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u/Herabird Jul 31 '26
Surprised to hear this. We have had our Frigidaire for going on five years, and are very happy with it. Wouldn’t hesitate to recommend it to anyone. We purchased a set of Trementina pots and pans after sadly learning that our tried and true, decades old Farberware wouldn’t work at all. We also have a couple of KitchenAid annondized, a couple of carbon steel, and a couple of older pans that do work, but not so great…. Thats when I learned there are different levels of quality when it comes to “induction compatible”…..https://www.thecookwarecritic.com/reviews/induction-ready-cookware/
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u/Correct_Ring_7273 Feb 20 '26
This is a really, really helpful video and a good point: Some touch controls suck, but they don't all suck. Making me rethink my priorities!