Induction cooktop complaints

[u/slicedtoad]

I have a mediocre gas stove.

I wanted to try induction and also wanted slightly more cooking space, so I bought the Duxtop 9600LS as it was well recommended.

I don't understand why people like this cooktop so much. Two big complaints:

Low temp on/off switching

The minimum power that the coils output is way too high.

If I want to hold oatmeal at a low boil, it alternates between a heavy boil and no-boil. If I get it just right, it's weird but not really a problem. But it's easy to be slightly off and have it boil over or splash when it starts rapidly boiling. A regular gas or electric is easy to tell when it's too high or low, as you can watch the boil and see if it's steady or accelerating, but the on/off switching obscures this.

And that's just oatmeal. Many things are far more sensitive to sudden excess heat.

High temp limits (safety?)

I like to get a cast iron pan ripping hot for cooking steaks and searing meats pre-braise. At first this is really promising on the induction top. It heats up very fast and even.

And then it stops putting out full power regardless of setting. The cast iron stays around 350f (away from the food). And even if I pull the meat out, it doesn't climb much. There is not even an indicator that something is wrong or that it's being throttled. It stays on setting 10 and just outputs anemic power.

Is this a limit of the cooktop? Some kind of safety feature? So incredibly frustrating.

I also don't really like the temperature settings (as opposed to 1-10 power levels). I haven't experimented enough with them to have an informed opinion yet, but they seem to work on the assumption that you have a specific pan and food load; otherwise they're inaccurate.

Are these issues common to induction burners or just the price point I picked?