After a year still love it; did have one repair
DBump
1/13/2019
We've owned this for just under a year, and we are still thrilled with it every time we use it. We did encounter the problem that several reviewers here mention with the induction top controls being unresponsive (two beeps when you try to turn it on, nothing else), and had to "reboot" it via the breaker panel each time that happened. We contacted support, and it was fixed under warranty in less than a week (the new touch panel is much better--see end of review for details).
Pros:
Induction is fantastic. We came from a high-end, but non-pro gas range with an 18,000 BTU power burner, and a very small, dedicated simmer burner. The induction top is vastly superior in speed and responsiveness, boiling water faster than our old power burner, and having finer control than the old simmer burner. We are also much more likely to use the range on really hot summer days, because it just doesn't heat up the kitchen like our old gas range--all of the energy goes directly into the pot.
When making pasta, using the SpeedBoost (think "11") we can dump a pound of pasta into the pot and not lose a rolling boil (then quickly turn it down to about 8 to keep a low boil going). On our gas range, we'd lose boil for about a whole minute, all the while the power burner was dumping massive amounts of heat into the whole kitchen.
One thing we like about the Bosch induction top compared to others we tried was the fine control that is allowed by having 0-9 with half steps between (17 increments in total, not including keep warm). Most of the other comparable tops we saw had 10 or fewer increments.
The oven is also excellent. We bake extensively, and have had much more consistent results in the Bosch. Convection is really effective, and not just for sweet baked goods. It browns things like roasted potatoes perfectly. For cookies, baking two sheets at the same time turns out identical cookies on both sheets without rotating or swapping the sheets (and loosing oven temperature while doing so), like we had to do with our non-convection oven previously. I particularly like that the oven light can be turned off with the door open (if you want to let the warmth of the oven escape into the kitchen in the winter). We make our own pizza regularly, and using stones preheated to 550, and switching the oven over to convection broil when we put the pizza in makes the best home-pizza we've ever eaten. The Bosch also has very impressive insulation on the oven, and does not heat up the kitchen nearly as much as our 10-year old gas oven did. We don't hesitate to make pizza in the middle of summer; it's only after baking cookies for about 3 hours that we noticed the kitchen heating up.
Cons:
The glass top does scratch more easily than we expected. After a year of use, however, it's not something you'd notice casually.
It can be hard to know exactly where to place pans, as the burner dimensions are covered up once the pan is on the surface, unless you're using a pan that is smaller than the burner. Practically speaking, this hasn't been a problem, as the bottoms of all of our pans are very good at re-distributing heat when the pan isn't quite centered on the element. The combination of this and the scratching means that we have gotten out of the habit of shaking our pans to move the contents around like we used to on the cast iron grates of our cast iron, using a utensil to stir/flip instead. Again, practically this hasn't been a downside--and we end up flipping less food out of the pan by mistake, honestly. We also moved to using a carbon steel pan in place of our 12" cast iron skillet--the carbon steel has a smooth bottom and weighs less than half as much as the cast iron, yet performs as well if not better, and due to the weight/smoothness makes us less worried about scratching the glass. You could simply set paper towel, parchment or an oven liner over the burner if you were worried about scratching (or splattering, for that matter).
For the oven, only minor complaints: there isn't a delay oven timer (so we can't set the oven to turn on to 550 an hour before we get home from work to make pizza)--however, it heats up so quickly compared to gas that this hasn't really slowed us down much. It would also be nice if the display would indicate the current temperature as the oven heats up--it only has a progress bar. Finally, the oven's control panel is on the front, and is touch sensitive, so if you like to lean up against the oven while using the induction top, you may end up inadvertently activating a button for the oven by mistake. We found this was an easy habit to unlearn.
For our warranty service, we called Bosch, and in one short call had an appointment scheduled less than a week away. A very professional repair man replaced the touchpad ("operating module" part # 11019145) under warranty--no cost to us. We haven't had a problem since--in fact, now the touchpad is much more responsive. Previously, we had to press firmly to turn on or select burners. Now a very light touch is sufficient. I wonder if a batch of boards had an issue, reflected here in the people who love theirs, and the rest with this exact issue. The part runs about $150 if not covered by warranty, and I'm not sure how much the service call would cost (it took just under an hour), but anyone competent with working on electronics or computers could do it (remove front control panel, rear metal vent, and several screws along the side, as well as a few under the cooktop, that you can reach once you take the front panel off, then lift off the entire glass top--touch panel has a single wiring harness--take a picture of how it connects before removing it).
Originally posted on Bosch.com
Yes, I recommend this product
