[Closed] Induction Hob Recommendations

We bought the cheapest one going, Logik I think. Works fine, I've used fancy expensive ones before and can't tell the difference. Mine's maybe a tad less quiet but not noisy by any standard

I moved into a house with an AEG one and I've been really impressed with it.

We have an electric oven and it’s a new build so guess we have a suitable circuit to wire it into (big red switch next to hob)?

Probably - but worth checking the "fuse box" for the rating of that circuit - its certainly not impossible for a new build to skimp on wiring if they don't need it themselves! You can get hobs that will work off lower rated circuits - but generally you probably want to avoid those as they won't be able to deliver full power to all "burners" at once.

Do you have anyone who cooks regularly who is fitted with active medical devices (pace makers, insulin pumps etc?), if so you probably want to spend some time understanding if there is a problem. Certainly we have gas because consultant said no closer than 1m if its turned on; I suspect this risk is overstated but neither the risk of killing the wife nor having to cough up £4k for replacement equipment has tempted me to find out.

We have a big expensive Neff one at home and a cheap one I bought used off eBay at the place by the beach - both basically do the same thing but these are the differences in our two:
Cheaper hob - touch controls, has just 4 plates all the same size, the power delivery is a little on/off (i.e. power pules on and off quite noticeably with the time between pulses dependent upon the power setting)
Neff - removable magnetic twist control (kinda nice), 5 plates of different sizes and I can tie two together to make one massive plate which is great for making gravy in a big roasting tray. Much less pulsing and has options for various boost levels.

Both have timer functions which are brilliant even though MrsSB never uses them for some odd reason.

I like them both - Neff is great but probs about £1k
Currently simmering some home made minestrone soup.

Re the wiring I just wired into the 'big red switch'. As mentioned above just check it can handle the ampage

You should have a separate circuit for the hob, not on the same one as the oven

Gf has a beko induction hob. Bought in a kit which included a new oven for £250 around 4 or more years ago. Both still work, not over worked tho, schott ceran glass. Great for dumping stuff on top of and wiping clean.

You should have a separate circuit for the hob, not on the same one as the oven

Ummm, what if you have a range with induction hob? Same circuit surely?

I know you mention a size of 600mm already, but my main advice would be that size matters more than features and brand. The ability to have more on the go, or more space to work is probably more important than how you adjust it and what brand name is written on the glass.

If you can spare the workspace, I would strongly consider sizing up. When it isn't in use, the beauty of a totally flat area is that you can use it (carefully) as a worktop, so the impact isn't as dramatic as having a larger traditional electric or gas hob.

Otherwise, KISS (keep it simple stupid). Dials are easier to use than touch screens when your hands are sweaty and there's lots of steam around, and you generally don't get particularly sensitive touch screens on cheaper appliances which can lead to frustration and losing some of the instantaneous adjustability that you should get from an induction hob.

We've recently got a hotpoint one, only 4 cooking zones but different sizes and 2 can be linked together. Works great and is soooo easy to clean its amazing. Everyone should have just for the ease of cleanung alone.

Ours has loads of functions but tbh i've no idea what most of them do. Really need to dig out the manual and have a look.

Only time I've missed gas was when doing some pancakes the other day and wanted to flambeau one with grand manier!! Had to find a lighter....

We have a Bosch with a 13 amp plug.
As mentioned above, if you try to have a couple of zones going at full chat, it can’t handle it.
Luckily , I had the socket wired in 6mm , so when we change the worktop, I will change the hob at the same time

Never bought an induction hob but, when we moved, our new house came with a Neff one; I was sceptical as a die hard gas hob user but have been pleasantly surprised. One thing I do miss from the gas hob is Id like individual twist control knobs for each hob as I find it tedious swapping control from one hob to another then tapping away at the +/- to get the right temp

We have an IKEA one, it’s been faultless and works very well. My main criteria was a control for each ‘ring’ for simpler operation, as alluded to above. Not a knob, but a scale 1-9+P for each one so no tapping + or - loads.

We got an AEG IKB64401FB 600mm 4 zone and it's been great - both as a specific unit and the whole induction experience.

One thing to consider is the use of Woks: induction works OK, but only on the flat base in contact with the hob, not the walls. That means a typical Wok is "OK" on induction, but I believe you can get woks with extra wide bases that should work much better. Personally I do a lot of Wok cooking and decided to go for the 4x induction unit plus a separate high power gas wok burner beside it, and that has been marvellous.

We did not have a suitably rated fused circuit available so the electrician just tied in an extra high rated fused circuit to the electrical system.

I put an IKEA one in my old house - was really impressed with it.
Not sure if they still are, but they used to be rebadged Whirlpool ones.

We have had an AEG IKE95471FB for the last two years, very happy with it. It allows for setting power levels from incredibly low all the way up to blisteringly hot (it boils water faster than a kettle) with more fine adjustment than gas, which is incredible. I have used a 'cheap' induction hob in a holiday rental accommodation, and the difference was very noticeable, our AEG hob had significantly more control over the power levels and higher max power. It has a flexible zone on one side which is useful if you want to use a teppanyaki and cook with different power levels. The only negative is due to the way the flexzone works, it can make a quiet 'ticking' noise in use. I'm told this is common with many induction hobs. The other three 'normal zones' are mostly silent or close to silent.

Ours integrates with the AEG hood wirelessly, so it can detect when more extraction is required and turns up/down the hood automatically.

We bought a large (800mm?) Neff induction hob, with variable size pan areas (which we never use).

The biggest bugbear is the interface, the one thing that gas hobs trump over the hob is the ability to just turn a nob to trun the temperature down is a boon. With ours you have to select the hob that you want to change, and then adjust the heat. Sounds fairly simple but the number of times I've absent-mindedly turned the wron hob up / down to max could be counted on 2 hands.

The clear hob makes it great for cleaning, but the touch controls are a PITA.

We recently bought the top end IKEA one that you can link out all of the zones in various ways and the jury is still out. One thing that it does do is make a right racket!! Whining, sqeeking, and humming.... It actually drives the wife mad and shes clearly not over impressed. I'm not convinced with the outputs either....one set of zones work well and heat quickly but the others not so much....yet I got it because it had all equal power zones?

800mm wide Bosch here, Schott glass surface, 5 "rings", touch controls. Best part of the kitchen. Apart from a couple of light scratches, looks good as new after 2 years daily use. Completely silent until you activate the "boost" mode (rapid boil) when it hums. Boils a large pan of water faster than the kettle. Downsides - if a pot boils over, the water goes everywhere (a gas hob would act as a tray). Also ours has the smaller rings at the back, i'd prefer then at the front so i don't have to reach over a big pan to get at a small one 🙂

We have a Siemens induction hob. Strangely enough we were only discussing this morning that we would never go back to gas or ‘normal’ electric now as it is so much nicer to use and keep clean.
If woks are important then you can get ones that are specifically designed with a flat base for induction hobs.

We have a 600mm Bosch and it's been great. 500 from John Lewis. Didn't opt for the 2 zones that can merge to 1 but haven't missed it yet. Peak power and control are first rate. Touch controls are way better than expected. But I've only used mine so can't compare

But I did learn one thing. Some cheap ones are are 13A supply and that limits the power output. Ours is into a ring and 7.2 Kw. Our only limitations is boost is one ring only. But boost is insane

Another AEG fan boy here. Had it 4 months as a swap for a gas job. It’s bloody brilliant. The auto boil function is worth the premium on its own. Excellent bit of kit.

Just got a new house with a Neff which we are adapting to OK after a lifetime of gas.

Watch out for minimum pan sizes - I got bought an induction friendly coffee pot at Christmas but the hob won't work with anything smaller than 13cm diameter. Have considered the various adaptor plates but seen a lot of reports of them trashing hobs.

The magnetic control dial thing is better than touch buttons but still a bit hit and miss. Evidently a lot of our neighbours haven't got the dials as the electricians that fitted the hobs didn't know what they were so binned them 🙂

We've had an AEG one (don't know the model number) for about 4.1/2 years and have been very happy with it.

Unfortunately, #2 son dropped a bottle of soy sauce on it a couple of days ago and it now has a large crack right across the middle. Time for replacement... Does anybody know if the toughness of the glass tops has improved in the last few years, or whether any particular brand/model is more resistant to damage?

Samsung here for about 6 years. If I was shopping again these would be my key requirements

All Flexizones not rings, so you can just dump a pan/pot anywhere
Takes any size pan/pot (the samsung is a bit fussy where you place a little moka pot). You def need to check min pan size, a milk pan might be too small for some hobs.
Individual controls for individual zones (I thought I'd get used to one control to switch between zones but still haven't)
Decent fine control, mine has 15 settings + P, so 16, which is adequate. Not essential but would be nice to have the removable magnetic knob option but TBH I don't have a problem with digital touch controls.
The timer gets used quite often

We've got a Lamona (Howden's own brand?). Boils water really fast which is great but it has heat settings from 1-9 and I never use 1-5, and for most cooking I find 6 too low and 7 too high. If it had a 6.5 it would be great but as it is it's really annoying. Definitely get one which allows a bit more fine control.

We have a 4 “zones” neff unit and it’s been repaired twice in 8 years - with the repairs totalling £1300 on a unit that only cost £800 to begin with.

Both times the failure has been the same - two zones have “blown” and no longer worked. The rings are paired in the unit and this is a common problem with Neff and the other related brands (Siemens, Bosch, Bosch, Siemens & Gaggenau) that use the same components.

Neff refused to confirm either way but my hunch is that there’s a design fault and the neff indication controllers get confused when a big saucepan/ tray is placed across 2 x zones on the same controller. The product blurb says that’s ok but the unit has stopped working shortly after being used that way.

Based on our experience of all the Neff appliances we bought (all of which have required multiple repairs or been replaced in the same 8 years) I would never buy them again.

If the reliability isn’t enough to put the OP off then the dishonesty of Neff uk and their service network should be - it feels akin to dealing with a bunch of shysters.

By contrast, the cheapo MFI and ikea own label kitchen equipment I installed in two flats nearly 20 years ago is still working fine. So much for “German engineering”.

A nice thing with the AEG units is that they have separate controls for each of the ‘burners’ making it much easier to tweak the temperatures as you go. I dislike others where you have to select which burner first. This is why I went with AEG and I’m very pleased with it.

AEG here. Probably the same model as others have mentioned. We've no gas, so compared to old school hobs it is brilliant. Does beep a lot and I'm sure it has functions that we never use. As a bonus I seem to remember it was made in the UK?

We have a friend who is now on the their third (or fourth) induction hob - clumsy fool who keeps dropping pans and things, with the inevitable hob and pan interface at some point. Easy to replace though 😅.

A nice thing with the AEG units is that they have separate controls for each of the ‘burners’ making it much easier to tweak the temperatures as you go.

Not just AEG - we have a 900mm Wide Siemens that I chose specifically because it had separate controls for each 'ring'. Shared controls mean at least one extra button press EVERY TIME you want to do anything. There are a few models around with actual physical knobs but no idea of the quality.

A lot of the benefit comes from the higher power modes (being able to boil a pan of water really quickly) so worth getting a proper cable put in. The full power rating of the wide Siemens hobs with flex zones is 11Kw! = 46A so you can see why they need their own dedicated supply.

Thanks, lots to think about here

Do you have anyone who cooks regularly who is fitted with active medical devices (pace makers, insulin pumps etc?)

Never thought of that. My wife is T1 diabetic but not on a pump. No plans to be either. No cooking with automatic or manual wind watches then either...

I know you mention a size of 600mm already, but my main advice would be that size matters more than features and brand.

The opening above is 750mm i.e. space between the wall cupboards, but the space below is a standard 600mm, so extending the worktop cutout would cut into the floor cupboards.

One thing to consider is the use of Woks: induction works OK, but only on the flat base in contact with the hob, not the walls. That means a typical Wok is “OK” on induction, but I believe you can get woks with extra wide bases that should work much better.

I thought our super-duper Scanpan wok was an induction compatible one.... turns out it may not be. I'm sure the box is somewhere, but comparing it to models online it doesn't look hopeful. This is a bit frustrating as I thought we would be able to use it. It was a wedding present and don't think it was cheap. An option is a dual induction and gas hob, not seen one less than £1k, so an induction only hob and a new wok will be way cheaper.

I checked the fuse box. The cooker circuit has a 32A breaker... am I ok to have the hob and oven (and kettle) on that? No idea about the wiring size. The other kitchen sockets are on another 32A breaker, then the ground and first floor sockets on another 32A breaker.

I checked the fuse box. The cooker circuit has a 32A breaker… am I ok to have the hob and oven (and kettle) on that?

probably not. Most standard ovens are wired in direct and are meant to have a 16A breaker (obviously if it's on a standard 3 pin plug its 13A).

the 600mm Siemens hobs are 6900W so will draw 28A. A kettle will max out a 13A plug.

Looks like you need a new 6mm cable for the hob

Running another cable without major replastering would be tricky unless I got lucky with where they were routed.

The kitchen has two 32A circuits, one for the cooker and one for everything else. (The other ground floor sockets are on another circuit). The current electric oven is on the 32A cooker circuit and is 4.1Kw. If I add up the other fixed appliances that's dishwasher, extractor fan, microwave and fridge freezer, I get 3.26Kw. Kettle is 2.5-3Kw.

This might be a silly suggestion but could the oven go onto the other 32A circuit and an induction hob and kettle go on the 32A cooker circuit? That would limit the hob to around 4.2Kw? (But the hob and kettle would never be on full blast altogether)

AEG here. Its a free standing cooker and runs on its own 32A B type RCD max power consumption for the whole shebag is 11.8kw.

Individual controls, with 1-9 and halfway stops between each. I can't see us ever voluntarily going back to other electric types or gas.

Even mrs.SO agrees, and she was so anti I bought and installed it without her knowledge.

Its been great for teaching kids cooking because of no naked flames or major burn risks, its incredibly easy to clean compared to gas, removes combustion products from the house and is easier to control temperatures with precision.

Boils a pan of water quicker than our kettle too.

We were fortunate that our long standing stainless pans were all compatible. We lost the use of a griddle pan, but that was it.

Just to disagree with the negative Neff reviews, we have had a Neff induction hob for 10 years now, not only is it great to cook with but the glass finish is hardly marked even after 10 years of use. Not sure whether this applies to all but very impressed with the durability of ours. Also possible slightly niche but ours is a long thin one with the 4 plates in a row, which is really nice to cook with.

This might be a silly suggestion but could the oven go onto the other 32A circuit and an induction hob and kettle go on the 32A cooker circuit? That would limit the hob to around 4.2Kw?

Actually if the hob was 4.2Kw or less, I'm sure it could safely coexist with the 4.1Kw oven on a 7.2Kw circuit due to 'diversity factor'? I assume that's how it works.....?

I can move the kettle to another socket.

I'm in a similar position to the OP and had been looking around. It seems pretty hard to beat Ikea in terms of value/fetures for the money. This one for £500 is our favourite so far - 78cm wide, bridge zone, individual controls, will do a 11cm moka pot. Think that's all our boxes ticked. Anyone else got this model?

Siemens here, absolutely superb to cook on and after seven years of daily use not even a mark on it.
Would never go back to gas or electric.

With my partner being partially sighted needed an induction hob with knobs, and have fitted a SMEG SI564DUK, not cheap but can recommend. The installing electrician recommended a separate supply as the combined load with cooker/hob would be close to capacity, in the overall cost of a new kitchen the extra supply was relatively small extra. It handled the Christmas cooking without drama.