Review on 🔥 Empava 30-Inch Stainless Steel Built-in Gas Cooktop with 5 Burners - Model 30XGC5B70C by Jim Ball

We have an Electrolux hybrid cooktop that is half radiant half induction. This works very well, but we weren't sure about the induction. Now we wanted to jump in and get a full induction hob. I thought the Empava sounded perfect. Especially the size of the burner. Unfortunately this hob is very bad, I didn't know that a hob could be bad. The difference between the Electrolux and this hob is huge. This device is not worth it. 1) The biggest problem. Empava advertises its main burner as 10 inches. This is misleading at best. As shown in the accompanying photo, this burner does not exceed 6 inches. You just draw a BIG circle around a tiny burner and call it a 10 inch burner. Not cool. I'm not sure if any of the burners on the cooktop are actually larger than 6 inches. Only the size of the drawn circle changes. The picture shows water boiling in a 12 inch pot (with a 10 inch bottom) in just a small tight circle, at best 6 inches in diameter. With our Electrolux, the entire bottom of the pot would simmer on its 10-inch burner. This is totally misleading and unacceptable. Also scary is that this hob seems to be sold under different brand names like Forno, True Induction etc and is sold in many reputable outlets. 2) Another issue with this cooktop is heat uniformity. Induction cooktops typically have the burner power at maximum and then vary the square wave produced by shortening the turn-on parts to reduce power. But at some point the power amp can't make the switch-on part shorter. Induction cooktops with low power settings resort to turning the burner on and off for a few seconds at a time. Our Electrolux completes an on/off cycle in about 2-2.5 seconds. It's pretty quick, and most cookware will compensate for the temperature change so you won't notice it. However, Empava does a VERY long 10 second loop. At low power, it can be turned on for 1 second, at 1000W, it can be turned off for 9 seconds. 1000 watts is a lot. Enough that even 1 second of 1000 watts can be enough to start cooking food. The end result is an inability to cook without burning or boiling. Again, decent induction hobs turn on and off more frequently and have excellent temperature control that can even be used to melt chocolate. Not this hob 3) The third main question, somewhat similar to the second. Generating more power is easy with induction technology. All manufacturers attach great importance to how quickly water can be boiled. But technology makes it very easy. The most difficult thing is to reduce this power. Most cooking is not done in a frenzy. These are often boiling stands. The 9 power levels of this hob are arranged in such a way that it makes no sense. Maybe it made sense for the developer, not the chef. The corresponding Forno hob lists the actual output in watts for each power level. Empawa seems to fit this pretty well. Ideally, the power levels should increase at the same rate. But not Empawa. As a last possibility with the lowest burner output level 1 = 100W and level 3 = 300W. The transition from power level 3 is 300% more than power level 1 or 200% more power. However, if you switch from level 6 (1000W) to level 8 (1200W), you only get 20% more power. Power levels that are almost the same in practice and there is almost no way to control low power cooking. The end result is that slow simmering at low power is very difficult, if not impossible, to do well. Other comments, The oven looks good but looks can be deceiving. Each burner has its own fan, which is quite noisy. Unleash them all and it's a real brawler. Again, I didn't realize that this would vary greatly between models. Our new Frigidaire runs completely silently, without a fan, at low power settings. And when the fans turn on, they're almost inaudible. It looks like the structure is beyond repair. The glass surface appears sealed or the metal base cannot be easily removed. Additional Info: The glass top of the hob that we received was cracked during shipping. This did not affect his performance. It was fully functional but we sent it back. In the end, we decided on an induction hob from the previous Frigidaire model. It works similar to our Electrolux (same company) except for 4 induction burners. Very happy with it and definitely worth the extra money.