Yes, it turns on quickly but it also has to vary on and off to maintain the temperature which leads to it either running too cool part of the time or too hot. Gas allows you to set the exact temp you need and it makes a smooth, quick transition and then maintains it perfectly.
No gas stove I’ve used has had this functionality. They let you set the exact output you want, which is not the same (and induction cooktops can do that too).
Yes, if you want to set a specific temperature induction cooktops will cycle, but you can also use them the same way you’d use a gas stove and then they don’t.
Would you spell it out for us? If induction cooktops are capable of continuous control of their output, why do they cycle significantly in set temp mode? At least, I would expect them to cycle minimally for fine tuning, relying on the continuous control of output as much as possible instead of cycling.
This made me look it up because you’re right, that should also be possible. It looks like some indeed are capable of that, while others are not.
My experience with induction cooktops is admittedly mostly with portable ones, because I’m renting for now and can’t install my own stove. I suspect mine’s just not sophisticated enough. :)
Well they don't have perfect output control, but also cycling is just usually a good way to maintain a temperature when you've got a pan and some food sitting on top of it since there's quite a bit of inertia in actually changing the temperature of whatever is on the stove. There are very expensive ones with separate temperature probes that do a lot less cycling and hold the temperature really steady, but most people don't really need that.
Gas stoves would likely cycle as well if they had a temperature set feature. It's what gas ovens do.
> cycling is just usually a good way to maintain a temperature when you've got a pan and some food sitting on top of it since there's quite a bit of inertia in actually changing the temperature of whatever is on the stove.
Why precisely is cycling more effective than attenuating down (better word please?) the output? I don’t see what the thermal inertia of what’s on the cooktop has to do with making the optimal (for cooking) choice between cycling and modulating the power.
Without detailed knowledge of the precise energy and time costs, I think it’s a fair default assumption that continuous power modulation should be more efficient, because it’s in a sense a superset of cycling, with much more fine grained control, but you can always set the continuous power output to 0 or 1 to accomplish cycling if in a specific scenario it is helpful.
Maybe when you say “a good way” you mean “a good enough way”? That makes sense, but doesn’t really sell induction stoves relative to gas (if you want to sell induction stoves relative to gas, I suggest to downplay any cycling and promote the continuous output modulation)..
Decreasing temperature isn't a function of the range.
Increasing temperature is a function of the range, and in my experience induction is significantly faster.
To the extent that "it must vary on and off to maintain temperature" is true, that's not really relevant. As a sibling poster states, you're not setting a temperatures. You're setting a level of output on both induction and gas. Your food is separated from the output by a heat reservoir and cannot possibly respond quickly enough to induction's on/off switching for this to matter. This does however, seem to be an area where induction can vary greatly in quality, and I suspect most of the complaints people have about induction have more to do with dodgier induction units than they do with the technology versus gas.
My experience of induction stoves is that they are v expensive and have a very short lifespan.
Induction heaters to release fasteners on cars are excellent though
