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Very cool. $200 cheaper (plus an extra $300 off, for a limited quantity, for $69/yr. ChefSteps subscribers). US-only, 1800W-only, for now. It looks like it's not a "washdown-style" unit like the regular commercial units, but most homes aren't looking for that high of a level of water resistance. Breville slimmed down the machine a bit to make it more manageable in homes, without reducing the coil size or residential cooling capacity. Commercial kitchens and residences in very hot climates may still want the commercial version though, as it's designed for higher ambient temperatures. The touchscreen interface, the custom program creation, etc. are all nifty. I see that Breville removed the 6 screen-edge buttons and the time knob. I'm not sure that the time knob got used much, but I sure hope there's an easy way to use the knob to adjust heat intensity (i.e. not rely on the screen). That middle-right button is virtually the only button I ever use other than the power button. Here's the comparison chart: https://d3awvtnmmsvyot.cloudfront.net/api/file/jFOrapLTBOLzkuxAf65w I'm really tempted to pick one of these up. Even with a couple regular Control Freaks and one Control Freak home, it's usually easy to move a pan from one unit to another without losing the pan temperature or the current temperature setting--so it wouldn't be hard to integrate this into a daily cooking workflow at home.

Sorry, I made a typo (or egregious grammar error) in my original post. In the US, most kitchens are either wired with a single 50A 240V outlet (12000 watt on the nameplate, 9600 watts after the necessary 20% de-rating for continuous usage) plus one or more 120V 15/20A circuits...or they are just wired with lower-wattage (often 120V 20A) outlets. The 50A 240V outlet is usually shared by the oven and stove cooktop, and the reason it's often missing (especially in homes built decades ago) is because the assumption was that gas stoves don't need a big electrical outlet. Contractors tend to omit circuits they don't have to install, to save money (or increase profits). If there's a 50A 240V outlet that is not also shared with an oven, it could provide 2400 watts continuously to four induction burners (or focus a lot more power into a smaller number of burners). But when one is trying to boil water, warm up a pan, and warm up the oven all at the same time...that 9600 watts of power can quickly look inadequate. Putting a battery underneath a cooktop is a really interesting idea because it could make things feel more instantaneous for induction cooktops, similar to what people are used to with methane. That said, putting a battery indoors and near heating elements is certainly an engineering challenge. I prefer to keep my batteries far away from heat sources. Especially if they're combustible. The whole bidirectional inverter talk in that video above, by the way, is also curious. I'm not sure how much help 3 kWh of power is going to be to support the grid outside of very short outages. A typically home battery is 4 to 5 times that large, and typically the current one can pull from a battery at any given time is relatively proportional to the capacity of the battery. So that all seems more like marketing than a killer use case. In any case, I would love to see Breville build a cooktop like this (even without the battery feature). If we're lucky, they're already working on one. I will gladly buy one, especially if one or more burners are larger and can go up to 2400 watts like the EU/ANZ Control Freaks--or in my wilder dreams 3600+ watts--for quicker boiling of water, aggressive searing, etc. And if it's Impulse Labs that does it first, well, hopefully they plan to stick around for a very long time so I can justify buying one.

I just saw this, and thought some folks here might find it interesting. I don't know if they're licensing Breville's patents or if the cooktop will even ship, but it's definitely something interesting. All four burners are supposed to have large pan-contact temperature sensors, and the UI touchscreen down the center seems to be able to specify set temperature (and maybe also power temperature). I'm not quite sure on all the details. Website (product page): https://www.impulselabs.com/ Since most 50A 120V (US) kitchen outlets are somewhat limited in their power output, the cooktop has a 3 kWh battery inside it...so that it can boost energy for short periods of time, for getting water to a boil quickly or for searing. It's not inexpensive, roughly the same as four Control Freaks. I wonder how large the coils are underneath those oversized glass-like burner covers.

For searing, I'd consider the Searzall over using the Control Freak with any sort of pan. Unless you're trying to cook the food at the same time. For searing on the Control Freak, if you're looking for a very fast sear then using a copper or aluminum pan may not cut it simply because they're usually good at transferring/distributing heat more than they are storing it (with higher-mass/thicker pans storing more, of course). When I drop a sous vide steak on a piping hot copper pan for instance, the pan temperature dives quickly before starting to ramp up again--defeating some of the instant sear I was going for. Preheating a cast iron searing stone (in the oven ideally, for pervasive heat) and then using the Control Freak to replenish the heat level may be a good pick. But honestly the Control Freak is a medium-wattage induction burner; I'm not sure that it's really meant for high-speed searing. Now you're talking about the adventure I went off on for a while, buying 2 pans each from like a dozen sets of pans and testing them out with various cooktops and infrared cameras. Sigh. It was fun but, yeah, not something I'd recommend for everyone.

As @Laurentius alluded, induction cooktops are going to put energy into the pan where it sits above the coil. I bought a large round flat cast iron slab to visualize this with an infrared camera. The heat pattern is above the coil, and then it bleeds into the center and out towards the edges (with such bleeding depending on the pan material composition, thickness, etc.). I try to buy pans to match the size of the induction coil. The #1 problem I see with induction cooking is that we can't see the size of the induction coil visually and we tend to stick pans on there which are far too large. I am guilty of this as well; I have a Copper Coeur 28cm frying pan I use all the time, and I know it's at least 2cm-4cm too big for the Control Freak's coil, yet I persist because there are some things I need to cook which are just too long for a coil-size-appropriate (16cm-24cm) pan. This isn't dissimilar from a traditional electric hob, but people who use gas stoves with large burner sizes may be a little surprised when moving to induction. Doubly so if they use pans which don't distribute heat well. The Control Freak has a medium-size induction coil (bigger than some inexpensive units I have tested), so I comfortably use it with pans that have bottoms between 14-16cm and 20-22cm (which usually equates to 16cm-24cm pans). I have found that pans with a lot of copper in them (or really thick aluminum pans) tend to push heat to the edges better than cast iron pans. When I need to use a cast iron pan, I either preheat it for a while so that it gets to a consistent temperature or I preheat it in the oven. The two sets of pans I have found so far which work best at distributing heat are the Falk Copper Coeur line (for a gradient of heat across the bottom and up the sides) and the Demeyere Atlantis copper disc pans (for the most even heat across the bottom that I've seen). With the Control Freak, I wouldn't go above 24cm with either of these unless I was cooking something liquidy (which would itself distribute the heat somewhat). For me, as far as Control Freak vs. other induction cooktops go, well, the big benefit isn't the induction coil or the fact that it's built for round-the-clock operation. It's the whole new way that the direct-contact temperature feedback works. I can preheat pans without standing around. I can create temperature-and-time based recipes for food and get consistent results without needing to train as a chef. I can leave food cooking without worrying about starting a fire. I have a couple other cooktops--including a 3800W Vollrath unit that stands off to the side; I hardly ever use any of them anymore, unless I'm boiling pasta. If I could justify another $1500, I'd pick up a third Control Freak at this point.

@horseflesh The temperature for simmering and for boiling water will depend on your elevation. For simmering, 90C (194F) to 95C (203F) is usually the right range, depending on what you're trying to simmer (since simmer is not exactly a precise word). For boiling at sea level, I'd probably use 105C (221F) if you're looking for a roiling boil, and closer to 100C (212F) if you're just wanting a bit of a boil. The thing that complicates these things is altitude. For a lot of people, living at higher urban altitudes, water boils closer to 95C (203F). So that reduces the delta between what a simmer is and what boiling is. There should be quite a few sites on the Internet that can tell you what temperature water should boil at for your altitude. Here's the first Google result I found: https://www.engineeringtoolbox.com/boiling-points-water-altitude-d_1344.html As always, for any given temperature setpoint, the Control Freak will basically transition from pushing lots of heat to raise the temperature mode to pushing a little heat to maintain temperature mode. So if you want to actively boil water, you want the temperature setting to be a little higher than the boiling temperature. I just wouldn't go too much higher, or you might find yourself dumping a whole lot of extra energy into that water. Edit: I just saw @Smithy's post, so you're probably already on top of the altitude thing.

I have Fissler OP pans. The Demeyere copper disc-bottom pans seem to spread heat more evenly (as seen in both my cooking and under an IR camera). Actually the Paderno Grand Gourmet pans may perform better than my Fissler pans as well. All of the above are nice pans in various applications. Regarding silver, I of course mean induction-compatible silver pans. You wouldn't even notice the stainless steel layer welded on the bottom If you and I were on the same side of the pond perhaps fun would ensue.

Oh, I love a good puzzle! I headed over to e dehillerin's website and found that pan (and the "CURVED SAUTE PAN IN COPPER S/STEEL - INDUCTION"). It looks like those are deBuyer pans (by the logo on the top of the saute pan's handle, maybe...but especially by the design on the bottom which looks just like Prima Matera). Or they're maybe a custom-branded product for e dehillerin. Curious. I dug into the M'6s over on eBay (item 166091634031) and can see that they indeed have a stainless steel bottom (and it looks like the bottom outer rim is stainless steel too, cleverly hid in the photos). Kitchen Universe describes their copper as a "copper polish" and the photo on Kitchen Universe seems to indicate that the pan is actually an aluminum pan with a shiny copper polish layer on the visible perimeter. Do you happen to have a source as to the 1.5mm copper noted earlier? I would love to find some sources from Mauviel. For sauciers, I really like the Falk Copper Core but I could live with the Demeyere Proline/Atlantis sauciers. The Falk are definitely prettier in my eyes and I love the responsiveness, but the Demeyere sauciers are probably quite fine as pans (although not copper, so I don't want to veer off-topic here) Sometimes I use the Demeyre Atlantis/Proline (aluminum) frying pans to make omelets. They don't have any hard edges and they spread out heat pretty evenly. I usually cook other styles of eggs in a 20cm Falk Copper Core saute pan. The Demeyere Atlantis copper disc pans are pretty responsive. I could live with them. I have several Demeyere Proline/Atlantis pans, but for some reason I usually reach for the Falk Copper Core instead. But if I'm making something like grilled cheese and I don't have a big enough induction burner, then I go for the Demeyere copper disc-bottom saute pan since I'm just trying to cook the bottom evenly. I used to always cook things like bacon in the Demeyere frying pans because I cook at a fairly low temperature (137C vs. a more traditional bacon cooking temperature like 160-165C)--and the Demeyere pans welled up the bacon grease and cooked the bacon more evenly. But after going back and forth a few times, I realized that I could get equal or better results with a Falk Copper Core 28cm frying pan if I had a big enough burner or just moved the pan around every time I flipped the bacon (to optimize heat under the appropriate edge). I love "set it and forget it" but I'm also continually seeking the best end product, so I'm torn between the two lines sometimes. Lol, I went through the same thought process. I wondered if the thin stainless steel layer on the outside would make the Falk pan less responsiveness. I guess it could go either way. Now I wish I had a Prima Matera here to run some tests. BTW, two final notes on Prima Matera: 1. There are induction-compatible AND non-induction-compatible versions of that product line. If going induction, please be absolutely sure you're buying the induction-compatible version. I don't know why they made two options, as it's so confusing. 2. If money is not a big concern, it looks like deBuyer has been expanding their Prima Matera line and that there are now more shapes and/or sizes of pans available than when I originally investigated it. So it may be more competitive now with the other copper options, from a variety standpoint. Then again, if money isn't a big concern, there are always silver pans [Sorry, off topic. And way out of my budget. I'll stop there.]

I have Demeyere Proline/Atlantis and Falk Copper Core in the test kitchen here (several dozen pieces total). I've looked at Prima Matera. Mauviel makes me nervous for various reasons which I'll get into, but it might be very nice cookware. First of all, I believe that the Demeyre Atlantis sauciers are fully-clad aluminum pans (as are the frying pans...sometimes marketed separately as "Proline"). They have a very very thick aluminum layer that goes all the way up the side. When you start getting into the pot-style Demeyere Atlantis pans (with the copper disc bottoms) than the copper becomes a thing. I use the Demeyere gear for certain applications, and it's generally quite good (and one of two cookware sets I can generally recommend)--although the lack of consistent pan covers and pan cover sizes drives me nuts. When you get into the pot-style pans (with the copper disc bottoms) you'll probably see some fairly impressive temperature consistencies across the bottom of your pans, assuming that your burners are sized appropriately for the pan. I think that the Demeyere Atlantis gear looks a little space aged, and it's the easiest to clean out of all the cookware I have used. A few folks have had compatibility issues with certain advanced induction stoves and their Demeyere Atlantis pans, but it's been smooth sailing for me. Most of the cookware in active use here is Falk Copper Core. It's all fully-clad, so I get a nice temperature gradient. It's copper, so I get very responsive heating and very quick preheating (which is doubly great on a temperature-controlled induction hob like the Control Freak). I think that the exposed copper is beautiful, and they're easy to keep clean. Be advised that they are hand-wash only. Because these are fully-clad, you'll get more of a gradient across the bottom of the bottom and up through the sides, although if you have sufficiently-sized (i.e. appropriately-sized) induction coils that issue goes away. Using these with a Thermador Freedom induction range for instance is probably the ultimate scenario for me. The deBuyer Prima Matera have been on my list solely out of interest because of their exposed copper. Basically they're like the Falk Copper Core except the copper is a little thinner and there's no cladding along the outer edges (which probably drives up the cost a little bit). If I were buying copper pans for someone and they really wanted the outsides to be exposed copper, this is what I would buy. I presume that they probably perform reasonably similar to the Falk Copper Core, but I like my pans clean and my psyche is not yet compatible with cleaning copper pans...so I haven't brought myself to buying one of these yet. As far as Mauviel goes, I believe they're "copper on the outside" which gives me several concerns in relation to induction compatibility. I believe they're counting on the induction hob energizing the stainless steel behind the copper, or at least that's how their marketing materials read to me. At 1.5mm of copper (per your chart), I wouldn't expect to get the performance out of those that I'd get with a Falk or deBuyer pan. If I had a really nice induction cooktop, I would buy the Falk Copper Core due to the broad variety of pans, the easy matching lids, the fairly easy cleanup and the beauty (in the eyes of this beholder). If I had to have the full-on copper look and money was no object I'd buy a deBuyer to sample and then buy more if that one worked out (realizing that there is a limited set of pans available in that lineup). And if I wanted the easiest-to-clean pans and liked the space-age look of the Demeyere Atlantis pans I wouldn't hesitate to snag those. As for me, I bought more than a half dozen different pans and tested them--and then ended up buying more Falk pans after the testing was complete. Your results and goals may vary.

When you say high pitch sound, do you mean a whining sound? Or an intermittent buzzing sound, like a bug zapper? I get the intermittent bug zapper sound on some thinner or smaller cookware sometimes, if I have the intensity turned up to "high/fast". That's a vibration/resonance artifact: the pan can't take that much power that quickly. When I use induction-compatible copper I can heat up at the fastest rate on all but my smallest cookware. A lot of people seem to think that the buzzing is just an irritating part of induction cooking. Sometimes their pans actually dance, shifting around due to the vibration. They don't realize that the wattage (power delivery rate) is too high for the lightweight/small pan. I assume in your case you actually meant whining which is interesting. I'll have to pull out some All-Clad and give that a whirl on one of the units here sometime (and if I can reproduce it, perhaps also on another model of induction cooktop).

I believe Breville is an Australian company. Their first market is 240V/50Hz, and the ANZ and EU units are probably identical except for brand (Sage in the EU, Breville in AU/NZ). The US units are technically an international secondary market for them, but the US market is so big that I suppose they may focus on it first. Their main patent on the machine is also a US patent (perhaps imported from AU). I've heard that they do manufacture them in a few places though, so perhaps there's a slight difference in revision or manufacturing process/parts. I would ping Breville HQ in Australia and see if they have any thoughts. This may honestly be just something that's within specs (just like how a lot of other computers, scooters, etc. have a small amount of coil whine), but it would be good for them to know that it's bothering one of their customers so they at least know to look at it with the next revision.

Yeah, it's important to know that the Control Freak has a medium-sized induction coil and is medium wattage. The Control Freak actually has one of the larger "medium"-sized coils that I've seen in the market, but it's not meant for big pans (>26cm according to the spec) or for applications which require high wattages. No matter how efficient they make the unit, it's impossible for the unit to deliver more than the wattage being pulled from the wall. If Breville would ship a 3600W Control Freak XL with a large coil, I'd be first in line to buy one. I just checked mine. When the unit is powered on but the temperature is not set, I can hear a little fan noise if I put my ear right up against the unit. If I set a temperature I can hear the far whir up a little more--but I have to be pretty close to notice it. I don't hear any coil whine, and I'm pretty sensitive to and at least slightly annoyed by that sort of thing, but if there is some then the low fan noise may be louder or more prominent to me. When you say idle, do you mean "turned on but with no pan on the unit"? Your hearing might be even more sensitive than mine, in which case congratulations and commiserations at the same time. The unit doesn't have to deliver huge amounts of current to a pan immediately upon first detection, but it does need to deliver some, so I presume that it has some FETs powered up and coils cyclically activated and some of that circuitry could make a little noise. That might be something which Breville could tune in an updated version or even in firmware. If it bothers you, I'd be sure to drop them a line and give them your feedback. Please note that I have 1800W US units, so technically we're comparing two different apples here. Has anyone with a 2400W EU/ANZ unit noticeable experienced coil whine when no pan is on the unit or when the unit is in stopped mode (with or without a pan on it)?

Are you using the EU/AU version of the Control Freak (2400W) or the US (1800W) version? Are you using the "probe oil" mode when frying and deep frying? The Control Freak is a medium-wattage, medium-size induction coil. Medium wattage and medium-size coils are plenty for a lot of applications, but some pots are physically too large and some applications require too much wattage for the unit. I have a 3800W Vollrath induction burner for times when I need to do serious frying in oil. I haven't used it for that yet because I don't fry very often, but that's one of the reason I got a "big" induction burner to complement my Control Freaks.

I know some people who use portable battery-inverter units (Anker, Goal Zero, Jacker, etc.) to power cooking appliances. I haven't tried that, but that's probably the way I'd go if I were cooking out "in the wild." Just make sure that your equipment will start up if there's no ground line present (for portable inverters which don't have a ground line), and that it'll handle 1800W of sustained output. One big pro of the Control Freak is that it's truly commercial quality. Most residential gear isn't designed to run constantly in the kitchen. And I'm not sure if Breville has figured out a way to downsize the build quality to right-size the price for residential users without both skimping so much that people are disappointed and also hurting sales of their commercial units. I would love to see a large-format cooktop with several Control Freak elements built into it (especially if one of those elements had a larger coil and higher wattage). I'm guessing that the price point on that would be north of 5000 USD (and more than a Thermador Freedom) and would have a very limited residential market. But I would love to see/have one. And if Breville could figure out how to combine the temperature sensors with the pervasive mini-coil design of the Thermador Freedom cooktops, I'd certainly save up to buy one. I suspect we'll see quite a bit of competition ("innovation") in this arena, but not for another several years in the U.S. due to the Breville patent.

Well you've convinced me to pull this one off my list of cooktops to investigate, at least in its current iteration. An accurate measurement of the current temperature is something I use all the time on the Control Freak, and accuracy within a degree or two is pretty darn useful as well. src: https://www.bestbuy.com/site/cafe-5-7-cu-ft-slide-in-electric-induction-true-convection-range-with-steam-cleaning-and-in-oven-camera-customizable-stainless-steel/6360807.p?skuId=6360807 BTW, here's the photo from the reviewer on Best Buy's website who says that GE's cooktop temperature sensor isn't sealed well, and that it's a design issue rather than a faulty unit. It looks like this is more of a spring-loaded temperature probe than the kind of clean integrated solution I'm used to with the Control Freaks. I also noticed that the temperature sensor is on a small-to-medium coil, not on the larger coil. I am not sure if it's useful for 24-28cm pans (~9-11") pans, or more useful for 14-20cm (~6"-8") pans. Maybe one of these otherwise-capable companies could do a deal with Breville and bring their tech (still under patent in the U.S. market for probably another decade) to a range unit. Or maybe other markets will see innovative large-format cooktops first, and then they can import them to us after we've salivated over them for a few years. I hate to analyze appliances based on the reviews and photos of others and based on manuals which don't deep-dive into the kind of details that matter to me. One of the GE stoves has gotten pretty great reviews otherwise, so perhaps this is just an unfortunate chink in otherwise good armor, a feature that shipped too early.