sherri1058: I pretty much agree with you: reliability is key for me, but neither the online reviews nor Consumer Reports always gives one a clear bottom line, at least for me. Negative reviews may overly influence me. But re. the function of appliances these days: I think many digital interfaces are way over-designed with too many layers to go through to set it -- that's what I want to avoid on my oven choice! sjhockeyfan: Thanks for your input -- I appreciate it. Most of the negative comments have been from the Benchmark flex users, I think. I am trying to "gang" purchases as much as reasonably possible, but expect that will still mean 2-3 brands, at minimum (Bosch cooktop and/or side swing oven + DW, for example). htc2015: I was given links some time ago (sorry, did not save) that assured me that there were no significant health risks, except some potential risks to a pacemaker user. I am hypochondriacal and have had cancer, so I took this seriously.

I have had the Thermador cook top a little over a year and I think I've had about 25% down time. When it works, this cook top is great but the combination of untrained service people and really bad service policies at Thermador work to make this unit unusable unless you hardly cook at all. The unit has 36 little Hobbs under the glass, a mother board and 4 other boards to make it all work. The 36 Hobbs are very stable and haven't caused any problems. So there's only 5 parts that can go down. Sounds simple, no? Think again. Thermador has not done anything to train their techs on this stove top. So when the computer on the unit puts out an error code a tech may not even recognize what the computer is trying to say. I've had to look over the shoulder of some of these dummies to point out the error code the unit puts out. When you finally figure out which of the 4 support boards needs replacing you find that the replacement parts are not available and have to be back ordered. This is a matter of weeks, not days. Lastly, the telephone support from Thermador is no picnic either. It's basically a call center staffed with people having only the ability to take messages and pass them to a non-responsive 2nd level. Presently, my unit has been down since early December 2015. It's now January 6. Thermador has decided to replace my unit. As mentioned in previous posts, getting your cook top replaced is a nightmare in itself. I had to do that in my 1st month of ownership. There's a mysterious 'AR department' that is accountable to no one that outsources the replacement activity to a 3rd party. That process can take months. In California there's a lemon law that applies to appliances as well as cars. I think that is my next step.

We just installed our Freedom last week. We love it. It holds consistent temps and it’s really nice not to have to worry about where the cookware is in the cooktop. I really like the myZone feature. It allows you to move the pot in the stove to change the heat. So closer to the front edge gives you 9 further back is 7 all the way to the back edge at 1. This is handy when I have more than one thing going for dinner at once, or something that may boil over. I can quickly change the heat without fussing with the touch screen.

@r, I thought I would chime in here to just say that I don’t think you are “obsessing“ at all regarding the use of knobs in this case. One of the most crucial variables in any kind of industrial design is the way we interface or interact with whatever the product is. Most of us utilize capacitive touch controls or infrared type touch controls on a constant basis with everything from iPads, smart phones, as well as any number of house appliances. But I would suggest that your instinct regarding cooktop or rangetop controls makes a lot of sense. Consider the difference in using a wall oven versus a cooktop. Most cooks in the kitchen can get the opportunity to wipe their hands in order to use touch capacitive controls on a wall oven. Of course, the case could be made that turning a simple dial, can be more intuitive, then going through a series of menus to get to where you want to go, since in the end, the mission of the wall oven has not really changed very much since our grandparents time which is essentially to bake the cake or roast the chicken. The reason I suspect that cook tops and range tops, as well as ranges are a particularly good candidate for knobs is due to the fact that the controls are often placed on a horizontal plane. Many people, especially those who are new to induction appliances for example, have learned a hard lesson as the very sensitive touch controls do not always take kindly to steam, water, droplets, and oil or gravy splatters. It is not hard to imagine why this is problematic because if you put any of these liquids on top of your smart phone screen, you would discover that the touch controls that works so beautifully such as the ones I’m using right now on my iPhone to create this post do not take kindly to having these substances on top of them. There are lots of examples of folks who have touch capacitive controls on these horizontal locations where the entire appliance is either shut down or thrown off its game. Of course, the majority of modern products that have knobs do not use the analog/mechanical controls of knobs of the past, but are in fact, “knobs“ that interface with micro control boards behind them. Still, there is an entire field of design that studies user interaction, and I do think that, at least, in some instances, such as with cooktops, knobs actually, do make a lot of sense. One can certainly debate where the best location for those knobs would be to avoid getting splatters on them since Cleaning knobs is not exactly, a fun time for most folks. Some people would assume that installing Touch Sensitive controls in all sorts of consumer products that once used knobs, levers, and buttons, is simply a design trend, and I’m sure there is truth to that. But a little voice inside also suggests to me, that one of the reasons they have moved away from knobs and especially the electromechanical kinds used in the past, is due to the cost of manufacturing. I do not have a data set to support this theory, but if you consider the labour and the bewildering amount of copper wiring that went into something such as a 1950 electric stove, some of which had lots of extra features, you can begin to imagine the cost savings of having a micro “motherboard“ taking the place of all that complex analogue electrical structure. I truly enjoy all of the benefits and possibilities that I have with my smart phone, laptop, iPads, etc. But I do think your instincts for knobs are not without merit, because sometimes, appliance designers attempt to answer questions that no one ever asked. My two. Cents 🤔.