The battery induction stoves are pretty neat. You can plug them into a normal 120v outlet instead of needing to rewire. Plus they can be battery backups in the event of power outages.
How long can you run them before they run out of juice, though? I’m not sure I’d want to have “range” (pun intended) anxiety making Thanksgiving dinner.
You know, I’m not sure.
But “range” anxiety gave me a giggle so thanks for that.
https://copperhome.com/products/charlie
This one, as an example, has a 5 kWh battery. Having seen it in action it’ll run itself for several hours unplugged. Pretty much indefinitely if charging.
Remember, while induction ranges typically have high power ratings (10+ kW), they aren’t actually running the whole time. They use a decent amount of power for the initial heat up, or if youre running all of the burners on high trying to boil several large pots of water, but realistically that’s not how you use a range.
Once the oven is up to temperature, it just kinda oscillates on and off, using comparatively little energy. Induction burners rarely run on full power because if you’ve ever cooked with induction you know you’ll burn…everything… on high - they can really dump heat into a pan.
Actively cooking a big dinner with multiple burners, you may average about 2 kW. With 1 kW coming in from the wall, that gives you about 5 hours of sustained peak cook time.
A 5 kW peak stovetop is already more power than anyone can reasonably use with the amount of space available on a standard stove. Literally the only useful thing you can do at full power is bring water to a boil, because no actual cooking can happen at full power unless your diet is carbonized food. I have a 3.5 kW stovetop and it’s perfectly adequate.
After the first 15-20 minutes of cooking (bringing water to a boil while preparing some onions/garlic/sauce/seasonings) it gets very hard to keep using 1 kW. By that point you’ll be leaving things on medium heat at most. I can’t think of a single home-cooked meal that would require continuously drawing a full 2 kW from the stove for multiple hours, that’s a truly crazy amount of energy. Even an oven at full blast won’t use anywhere near 2 kW once it has reached 250 °C.
How long can you run them before they run out of juice, though?
They run by either an electrical outlet or by battery. Another article stated the battery backup for its induction oven was one hour. Hardly worth being a feature.
One hour of being able to cook in the midst of a 12+ hour blackout can make a world of difference to hungry people.
One hour of being able to cook in the midst of a 12+ hour blackout can make a world of difference to hungry people.
There are plenty of meals that don’t require electricity:
- Salads & fruits
- Tuna sandwiches
- Deli sandwiches
- Shrimp dishes
- Peanut butter & jelly
- Cakes, pies, pastries, breads
- Pickled/smoked meats
- Potato chips, popcorn, nuts
Meals can also be cooked on a portable grill.
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Congratulations! Now run the piping for gas to every apartment in a major city. Do it for the same budget as battery induction cooktops. Then we’ll talk.
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I wouldn’t assume the pumps moving that gas would keep working for an extended outage. If an outage lasts that long, it’s usually over a big area.
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In the last 15 years, my electricity has been out for 10+ DAYS three different times. Gas doesn’t stop.
In fact, 2 out of 3 homes in the neighborhood have Kohler style natural gas whole house generators.
There’s plenty of reasons to hate gas, but that ain’t one.
They should’ve run the electricity wires next to the gas wires, i.e. buried.
The reason you were down voted was in the first paragraph of the article - including breakdowns that can last for months at a time
Surely someone’s got an example of natural gas service failing during an electric outage?
however capacity and wear they have? Battery science is pretty curved.
Just a shame how expensive they are. Copper stoves (the ones that won the contract in the article) start at $5,999. They’re a small start-up without economy of scale on their side, but that still just seems wildly overpriced for an induction stove with a lithium battery stuck inside.
To put that price in perspective, an electric convection toaster oven that can handle most oven needs can be had for $150 to $250, and a high quality countertop induction cooktop can be had for $116 (or less used), both of which run on standard 120v outlets.
Standard 240v induction
ovensstove start at around $850.Still probably cheaper than retrofitting a building with gas pipes 🤷♂️
For a larger building, that definitely could be the case.
Induction oven? How does that work? Is it better than a classic electric oven, does it ‘just’ heat up faster?
Sorry, I guess I meant stove, not oven. I tend to conflate to the two. I think all induction stoves have standard heating element ovens.
Ah that makes more sense 😁 cheers and a happy new year!
Also some newer ones have temp sensors so you can keep a thing at the exact temp you need.
I saw one with magnetic removable knobs to make cleaning easier.
Also the outlet bits make installs drop-in for anyone, no electrician needed.
Also some newer ones have temp sensors so you can keep a thing at the exact temp you need.
I swear by induction cooking (for both soapmaking and food) for this reason - precise temperature control, even low temperatures that aren’t even possible to get on a gas stove.
- Setting the heater to exactly 40C means you can melt chocolate reliably, without the hassle of a bain marie
- At 60C you can combine cetostearyl alcohol and vegetable oil for moisturizer without boiling off your glycerine
- At 80C you can cook soap to trace without overcooking it and making it lumpy
- At 100C you can evaporate moisture and reduce a sauce with minimal effect on other ingredients
- At 100-160C you can cook a sugar syrup to a precisely desired level of concentration (as the boiling point goes up as the concentration increases) for making different types of candy
Those batteries can be used to provide backup power when the grid goes down.
https://electrek.co/2024/02/29/induction-ovens-with-big-batteries-solve-lots-of-problems/
I did not know this exists and I love the idea. However, the author clearly never has used an induction stove: “Because of this, they are more efficient than typical electric resistance stoves and also safer because the surface of the oven doesn’t get very hot.”
I actually thought both of those points were true.
I have induction and this is certainly true. The surface only gets heated by the pot on top. So only after a long time does it get very hot and never even close to a regular electric stove.
Okay, go ahead and touch it, if it does not get “very hot”.
That’s literally one of the advantages of induction over resistive. Resistive heat an element, that heats the pot. Inductive use a magnetic field to induce a current in the pot. That electric current then heats the pot directly.
The only heat in the stovetop is either bleed back from the pot, or resistive losses, which are quite low.
Again, go ahead and touch the surface after cooking.
Wanna make a bet that I can boil some water and safely touch (for a short time) the stove top right after? I’m willing to bet a lot of money. 'cause I’ve done it. And because of physics.
The pot is 100 °C (because of physics), which is heating the glass. Glass is not as conductive as metal, so it’s not as dangerous to touch. Touching a pot of boiling water is not pleasant, but not very dangerous if you immediately remove your hand, and touching the stove is even less dangerous than that. Completely different ball game to vitroceramic resistive heating which heats the stove itself well above boiling temperatures.
Nope. Had induction. The ceramic gets just as hot, because you heat up the metal on top and the metal is touching the ceramic, thus it gets hot. Enough to cause severe burns.
Sounds like you didn’t have induction but had a normal flat top stove with electric burners.
Your mom says otherwise.
This is important for those replacing gas or propane stoves and don’t want to add the cost of running a 240V line that most resistance and induction ovens require.
OK this makes sense. It answers my WTF reaction at the thought of a battery-backed range.
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For real? In Europe one can get induction for less than €200. Significantly less. And a “real”, full size one, 4 spots.
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You’re right, I’ve updated my post.
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For comparison, in Australia, gas and induction are at price parity (a budget 4-hotplate setup costs about $200-300 either way). You can buy a single-plate induction cooker for $50 that plugs into the wall and has a temperature configurable from 60-200 C.
Edit: Stopped markdown converting Centigrate to Copyright symbol
PS: Also, electricity is cheaper than gas in Australia, because we have so much rooftop solar, electricity is soon going to be free during the midday peak.
I also see those batteries going bad and complications in the future with such a complicated system rather than a dedicated 240v circuit.
What makes it seem convoluted? It’s slightly more complex than a standard electric stove, but we have and use countless devices on a daily basis with this technology. Very rarely do they have any issues with the charging/discharge circuit.
Yes, the batteries will eventually need to be replaced, and it could be an issue during Thanksgiving (etc) when a ton of power is needed all at once. But I really think you’re overestimating the usage it will get.
In any event, this is why they’re running it as a pilot. Any real-world issues will come to light before a larger rollout.
Has the text changed? I can’t find any reference to 240v
I think this is the new section?
The winning submission came from Copper, a California-based company which designed a battery-equipped induction stove that plugs into a standard 120-volt outlet. That means the units can be used in existing NYCHA kitchens without the need for major electrical upgrades.
What’s so hard about 240v since it takes a thinner wire compared to 110v?
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Not sure but maybe, thicker insulation?
For new construction, nothing.
For existing construction, it requires you to run a new circuit.
I just got an induction cook top and it’s amazing. WAY more efficient than alternatives, better indoor air quality as compared to gas. One problem: can’t cook if the power is out. Good ideas all around.
Some gas stoves require electricity to continue operating due to electric safety sensors that shut the stove gas off if the flame goes out. They too would be useless in a power outage because the valves would not open. So it’s not just electric stoves that would be out of luck.
If you have room to store one, a used camp stove and gas cylinder are fine for basics. No need to buy a fancy new one. Or even a gas bbq grill.
Don’t forget about the electric ventilation being out if theres a power outage. You don’t want to cook with a gas stove indoors with that off.
Regulations in my country require that the ventilation doesn’t rely on any device, it must be some hatch you can’t close. I’m pretty sure it’s the same elsewhere in the world, it’s too dangerous otherwise.
I mean sure… but without the fan it’s not going to work nearly as well.
It doesn’t even work WITH the fan as we’re now finding out it’s still creating toxic air in homes.
How often does your power go out that this is a major concern?
You are #3 on the “your power sucks” roster for this thread!
I would just use my camping stove or BBQ if I had to due to an extended power outage. Runs on anything that will burn pretty much.
For me, enough for it to be a problem.
You’d be looking at another 2-3k but you could get battery that can support that (and other things in an outage)
That starts you down the rabbit hole of okay well what about solar panels to charge it in an extended outage…
Also not practical for so many people.
Really a microwave or single plate induction would be better for outage and cheaper battery.
Or just use a camping stove/BBQ if you ever have a power outage for more than 5 minutes and want to cook
There are lots of things you can’t do without power, how bad is your power grid that you need to plan everyday life around powercuts?
It’s winter in the northeast, and it’s been pretty brutal, so power has gone out repeatedly. I’m not planning around them, I just want to cook in the event there’s a multi day outage. And there’s been two this year.
I’m seeing a lot of derogatory comments exactly like this shitting on the power grid. Either there’s a bunch of southwestern kids on here who never sat through a storm in their lives and can’t imagine weather which impacts infrastructure, or the mockery bots are in play.
This Copper model (and also the cooktop that Impulse makes) has enough battery to do some cooking even in a power outage.
The video of the stove setup seems great till they get to the part that you have to connect your stove to WiFi and pair it with their phone app. This means I’m never buying the Charlie stove.
If it was just a standard Matter device, I’d be fine with it. But fuck one off apps for smart devices. They are always shitty, and always get neglected or abandoned.
Yeah I’m using homeassistant first thing I do with devices is change firmware or change their phone home server address so they don’t leak data.
As an added benefit besides the environmental ones - you can’t blow out a wall and collapse a house with careless use of an induction cooker. :)
That’s true. I’ve watched Fight Club.
All it takes is someone not knowing how to handle a grease fire, and you can make one of those on anything called a stove.
I don’t know what you’re trying to convey with this.
Also, very unlikely. You need a source of ignition to start a fire. So unless someone is letting grease get so hot that it is ignitable, then lighting a cigarette within inches of the, again, very hot grease. Then the likelihood of starting a grease fire with an induction cooktop is near zero.
I’d consider the health benefits a bigger benefit than the energy savings. Less chance of getting asthma and/or cancer is a pretty big boon.
And just yesterday people were arguing with me here, on lemmy, that induction is too expensive. There are literally single plate cook tops for like $50! And how expensive do you think the cancer will be?
I picked up a used/open-box Duxtop induction burner to avoid using my gas stove, and it works amazingly well. The only downside is that most countertop induction burners have relatively small coil sizes, so with bigger pans, like my 12" cast iron frying pan, the outer part of the pan doesn’t get hot enough to brown things.
As a solution, I’m planning to pair the induction cooktop with a separate infrared burner that has a much larger burner size for my bigger pans (and for my older pots that aren’t compatible with the induction).
Til cast iron is compatible with induction heating.
I mean I should’ve figured that out by now, but glad I know now. Thanks homie!
No prob ^^
Maybe if we go for 1,000,000 pilot programs we can piecemeal sneak ourselves into some kind of real change.
It’s also a safety upgrade, as the risk of fires is much diminished.
Don’t you need special pots and pans for induction stoves? Would a cast iron skillet work on one of those? Or a standard non stick pan?
Yes, you can test with a magnet. If it doesn’t react, it won’t work. Aluminium for instance doesn’t work.
I don’t know why you were down voted and the user below gave misinformation. I bought a non stick pan before without noticing it wouldn’t work with my induction. Now I bring a magnet when choosing a pan.
Aluminium for instance doesn’t work.
A lot of cheap pans I’ve seen at (AU) Kmart, Big W, Ikea etc are aluminum with a teflon-esque coating, but with a carbon-steel circle attached to the bottom that makes it induction compatible.
It was aldi and not too cheap. But it was a while ago when I induction wasn’t common.
Would a cast iron skillet work on one of those?
Definitely, you just need pans with a ferromagnetic bottom, so cast iron works very well.
The outer material doesn’t matter - only the base. Many cheap induction-compatible pans are made mostly of aluminum with a non-stick coating, but containing a layer of ferromagnetic material in the base that will heat up on an induction stove.
Cast iron would work, though you shouldn’t blast the heat on it immediately because of how brittle they are and how unevenly they heat. You can find plenty of pictures online of people just chucking a room temp cast iron on at max heat and splitting them right down the middle. They get plenty hot when preheated at around the medium setting on most ranges, and if you need more you can blast it after it’s warmed up in like 2-3 minutes.
So, you should start my setting the stove to low and gradually heat it up?
If you want to completely mitigate the risk, then yeah it’s ideal to start on low and progressively ratchet the heat up. Personally, I’ve just left it at medium and then cranked it up two notches on the dial after a few minutes. I’ve really never used the maximum heat for anything other than boiling water on my range, since just over medium is more than hot enough for a lovely sear. If the coil is significantly smaller than the bottom of the pan, I’d be much more careful and start on low no matter what pan I’m using just to reduce the risk of warping.
Yeah of course those kind of pans work fine. You don’t need anything special for induction. It’s standard for a lot of the country.
Old pots which don’t have enough iron or nickel in them for a magnet to stick to the bottom won’t get hot on an induction stove.
Cast iron works fine, but that cheap aluminum pot you bought as a student 20 years ago won’t work.
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I’ve removed this post due to misinformation. Copper and aluminum pots on an induction stove arent forbidden; they just don’t get hot on an induction stove.
Thanks for correcting.
There seems to be contradictory information on the subject.
Aluminum foil is proven to melt on induction cookers (see attached photo). But that’s because foil is thin.
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Foil_on_induction_cooktop.jpg
…as for thick aluminum cookware, or copper cookware, I was not implying that they would overheat themselves, I was implying that the induction cooker would overheat its coil attempting to work with them, because they conduct current better than the coil. But perhaps that’s prevented by protection circuits. I can’t test since I don’t have an induction cooker at home.
EM-fields induce current in copper and aluminum perfectly fine, no ferromagnetism is needed. These metals simply conduct the current very well, so no heat appears. Steel and cast iron, having considerable resistance, heats up in a similar field, conducting similar amounts of current.
This stuff would matter if induction stoves just had a raw component and no cooling or temperatue sensor or pot presence sensor. They’re an engineered product which doesn’t fail in the same way that the raw components do without any of that.
After thinking about this for a while… I can’t say I agree with that.
Sensors can fail. Some companies may even produce sub-standard sensors or faulty logic. I think it’s OK to tell people that copper and aluminum aren’t allowed on an induction top, and the makers of induction tops seem to think similarly, they just add a sentence “unless equipped with a magnetic base”.
Let’s take a manual of a randomly chosen induction cooker:
https://www.caple.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2018/01/C850I-Instruction-manual-May-2017.pdf
Let’s examine what it says:
Cookware made from the following materials is not suitable: pure stainless steel, aluminum or copper without a magnetic base, glass, wood, porcelain, ceramic, and earthenware
On one hand, an aluminum pot won’t heat. On the other hand, aluminum foil will melt, or if placed somewhat closer, catch fire. I think I should be allowed to claim that “aluminum is forbidden” on induction tops and add that “aluminum foil is extra forbidden”.
Will you kindly restore my post? People can downvote it if they don’t like my interpretation, but I don’t think it’s misinformation. It explains some things they might not even know about. I would be sad if people think that ferromagnetism is required for induction heating to happen.
Induction burners are of limited utility in some scenarios like restaurants or with certain cuisines (someone else mentioned woks) but 99.9% of residential needs are readily met with an induction burner. In fact, were I live electric coil stoves are the norm in homes anyway and induction is generally considered an improvement over those.
Their utility isn’t limited. Restaurant chefs love them.
We just don’t have the infra. Buildings and backbone would need retrofits.
And that would obviously be too much of burden for the betterment of things. Small changes but unfortunately dismissed as not a silver bullet.
There is a slight limitation on what kind of cookware you can use on them. The pots and pans have to be ferromagnetic. Aluminium cookware doesn’t work and it looks like stainless can be hit or miss depending on how it’s made. It’s not a big issue unless most of your cookware doesn’t work on it.
I only used induction burners for heating cream to make custard. For careful control of temperature they are great. Wouldn’t use them to saute though
Oh! I’ve heard different reports and noticed I need to make very few accommodations, mostly cutting my lazy bullshit. I’m kind of interested in this.
I mean, when all the gas burners would in use, I would use our portable induction burner for other things like boiling pasta or whatever but for things requiring precise temperature control I started avoiding the gas stoves.
I can tell you’re a genuine line cook, wanna give this one an edit pass later?
Even if you have a gas stove, most people aren’t going to have one that puts out the amount of BTUs to really make traditional wok cooking work anyway, so it’s a bit of a non-issue on at least that front. If I was going to bust out a wok and start trying to nail Chinese food, I’d skip right past my rapid-boil burner and go to one of the portable propane stoves they sell in Asian supermarkets. In the US, at least, I wouldn’t expect to see a stove that can deliver that sort of heat output (aside from something custom made) anymore than I would expect an off the shelf oven to be able to replicate the temps in the pizza oven at a pizzeria.
I love electric stoves. So much more efficient, and you don’t have to pay a monthly bill just to have the option to use it. You pay for what you use when you use it. Wish they were available in more places.
The only thing I hate about electric stoves is how they look.
I like induction stoves because they stick up, and I can see if it’s on from a distance because of the fire. And there less likely I would lay my hand near it.
Electric stoves (the ones that I have and they sell everywhere) are all flat. They’re flat like my table, and it’s easy to just lay my hand near it.
And if I’m moving between stove, to cutting area, back to stove, I have to mentally remind myself which burners are on because it’s not easy to see without looking directly at it.
I like induction stoves because they stick up, and I can see if it’s on from a distance because of the fire. And there less likely I would lay my hand near it.
I don’t think an induction stove is what you think it is…
Good on them. I’ve only ever seen gas ranges in 100+ year old apartment buildings.
I love how all these authorities are stacking 21st century requirements on top of 20th century infrastructure.
it’s like charging your electric car from your 120 year old knob and tube house.
Battery backed seems odd. I just got a regular induction stove and it’s great. No idea why someone would choose to use gas. Oh well, their lungs are not my problem.
Very probable that the apartment doesn’t have enough amperage to support typical electric induction stoves.
The article says they are 120v induction stoves so they don’t have to do updates to the electrical. The battery also allows them to work if the power goes out. For how long? Idk.
Outside of natural disasters, how often is the power out longer than 20 minutes? My last power outage was due to a major car wreck and it wasn’t out much longer than an hour.
Depends on where you live. California in summer, and most places where you have trees+snow will get you outages. The rise of data centers using power scoped for residential areas is also likely to have impacts.
Oh yeah, weak US grid.
That said my house is 62A and doesn’t have any problems, even with a heat pump. I had my gas connection removed.
It can also keep the fridge running in an outage so there is that as well.
