I dug up a little more information on that GE cooktop (and its CAFE counterpart)--the one which appears to have a contact temperature sensor. It looks like the unit is a slide-in 30 inch range (oven and cooktop combo).
Here is the GE version, with a touchscreen:
https://www.geappliances.com/appliance/GE-Profile-30-Smart-Slide-In-Front-Control-Induction-Fingerprint-Resistant-Range-with-In-Oven-Camera-PHS93XYPFS
Here is the (GE) CAFE version, with knobs for basic operation and capacitive buttons for advanced operations and for operating the stove:
https://www.cafeappliances.com/appliance/Cafe-30-Smart-Slide-In-Front-Control-Induction-and-Convection-Range-with-In-Oven-Camera-CHS90XP2MS1
Here are the manuls:
https://products-salsify.geappliances.com/image/upload/s--arNbW4SJ--/1126fd97a45e8b5019752efdd551b52bf1cc1d22.pdf
https://products-salsify.geappliances.com/image/upload/s--EMiiVzJi--/ee8b4d87498af4ee3253ef14c8b59573b97a2a11.pdf
Here are a few things I noticed in the manuals:
- The front left burner has a temperature sensor.
- When in precision cooking mode, one sets the target temperature for the burner. It looks like the oven may only show the target temperature for the pan, rather than the current temperature of the pan. It does have a preheating indication.
- In precision cooking mode, the cooktop wants to know if the pan is stainless steel or cast iron or "other".
- Hestan Cue pans can be used with any of the four burners, with a temperature sensor in the pan.
- Only one burner can be used in "precision" mode at the same time.
- They tend to talk about temperature in 5, 10 or usually 25 degree increments, Fahrenheit. So the temperature accuracy and precision is probably not in the same neighborhood as the Control Freak.
It looks like this might effectively be a budget version of the Control Freak concept. It's interesting, for sure. I think that "precision cooking" in the traditional sense might be a bit of a stretch of the term, but precision is a general concept so it's not necessarily inaccurate.
