Do you know what would solve this? What would make the problem go away and eliminate this unnecessary barrier to entry for induction cooktops with a twist of the wrist? Knobs.
Yes, the simple, old-fashioned knob. That thing you turn to light it and adjust the temperature on a gas or electric burner. Which didn’t need to be reinvented. Which undoubtedly works better than its modern, smooth-roofed successor and would probably accelerate induction adoption. Those knobs. Let’s “go back” to the knobs again.
This idea crystallized in a recent cooking class I took in Oaxaca City, Mexico, where the stove we used was a four-burner induction cooktop, smooth and therefore knobless. For the next few hours, people had all the “hard to turn on, hard to adjust” problems. A couple of times I heard someone say, “Hey, why did it go to zero?” Someone also burned their finger trying to turn down the volume because the heat had spread from the nearest burner to the touch panel. Later, a frying pan slid over the main power button, turning everything off and stopping the cooking, something no one noticed for five minutes. The moment that took the cake, however, was when someone walked up to the stove, looked at the instrument panel, and asked, “How do I do this?” This was not ineptitude on his part; The person asking had been cooking his entire life. This would never happen with knobs.
“I don’t like this,” said Pablo Scasso, a cooking classmate from Montevideo, Uruguay. Scasso studied product design before becoming a software engineer, and the difficulty of controlling the stove reminded him of the way many automakers have abandoned dashboard knobs and buttons to the detriment of the driving experience (and potentially security).
As he said this, he mimed driving while adjusting a knob on the dashboard with his right hand, all while looking straight ahead.
“I want to keep my eyes on the road. If I need to change the air conditioning with a touch screen, I have to look at it. With a remote control, I know exactly where it is.”
This is not a nostalgic plea for the good old days. A knob is a direct and dedicated connection, an instant response to the turn of your wrist. It’s still the best technology out there. Once you get used to using it, you can turn it on blindfolded. The touch screen always needs you to look at it.
Remember those years when MacBook keyboards sucked so much that Taika Waititi took the time to make fun of them The same night he won an Oscar? And how, after being repeatedly criticized by tech journalists, did Casey Johnston in particular approach the issue harshly in a way series of stories—Did Apple give in and go back to the old keyboard style? Returning to the controls could be like this.
However, change is likely to be slow in coming.
While I’ve read some reviews that imply these “fully digital” induction stove controls are something to get used to, after nearly a decade of use on my stove and other people’s stoves, I’m completely used to them and they don’t work as well as knobs.
Casey? Taika? Are you out there? Can you save us?
This inspired me to write a three-line poem:
Call it a dial, call it a knob,
your life would be better
with one on your badge.
Induction burner manufacturers may be taking the hint. A handful of them, such as Samsung and Fisher & Paykel, now incorporate knob burners into their lines. Impulse Labs has a promising looking model scheduled for release in late 2024. Breville makes an amazing and expensive freestanding burner with buttons and knobs that make it easy to control.
The lack of knobs on induction cooktops around the world is not a problem in the grand scheme of things, although making them more common would make people’s lives easier and speed up adoption. There are certainly larger fish to fry, but it would be better and easier to fry them on a stove with knobs.
