The technology was conceived in the early 1900's I believe. So I am going to guess a cleaner look, less bulky and less weight. Precision control is easier to achieve using electronics rather than mechanical controls. It's not necessarily that electronics are bad, in many cases the components are cheaply made and simply are not built for longevity. The components are mass produced and I am sure quality control is non existent. Add heat to the equation and you have a recipe for failure. How well manufactures keep the components cool is directly related to how long these units last.

In one of my rental properties I have a Whirlpool 30" stand alone range that failed because of a fuse. Simply changing the fuse would have brought it back on line. Why did the fuse fail? Turns out one of the internal fans failed. So $23 later new fan and fuse and I have a perfectly good spare control board. Will something else on the board fail...probably lol. At least I have two of them to play with. As long as I can test the components and replace them it should last as long I don't get tired of messing with it. Good news you can buy quality components and replace them as they fail if your up for it. Worst part of the design is that air is pulled from the oven cavity. Which is fine as long as the oven is not in use. Of course when the oven is on cooling a heat sink with 350F air is not exactly ideal.

I also have a Frigidaire Professional 36" cook top with knobs (electronic of course). I have never had an issue with this unit so far. Working on 3 years. It is pretty featureless though. Not many extras and that was on purpose. No timers, lockouts or touch controls. You turn to the desired settings and then shut it off when your done. One red light to indicate the unit is active and a display over each knob to let you know the setting. I have never had a need to open it, so other than schematics I don't really have a grasp on the electronics involved, but it seems reasonably sound. Time will tell.

Gas and low end electric ranges don’t have “precision“ control of burner temperature. That isn’t a must have feature for price sensitive buyers. They can always up sell to a higher model for people who want that.

Too much complexity and overpriced spare parts make the appliances disposable.

It’s crazy that my less than 9 year old Electrolux range that still looks new will be in a landfill next week.

@kaseki is right -- as always. An induction hob needs a certain minimum of electronic parts for even its most basic functions. And if you want things like 1) protection from damaging the stove when an unsuitable pot has been placed on the stove, 2) auto-power-off when no pot is detected, 3) multiple power levels, rather than just on-or-off, and all the other things people expect from induction stovetops, then you do have to add some additional complexity to your circuit. By comparison, the extra complexity from including touch controls is really negligible. There are standard components that do that these days.

None of this is rocket science. In fact, most of it is a pretty straight-forward application of basic circuit design. Most EE students should be able to design a working induction hob, if you gave this assignment to them.

It also is absolutely no problem building reliable electronics. I have many electronic devices that work just fine even decades later. It is well-understood why electronics die and what you have to do to extend usable life. After all, people regularly drive cars that are 20+ years old and those rely on things like electronic engine and ignition control.

But all of that costs money, both in parts and in NRE costs. If the appliance manufacturer designs for a 20+ lifetime, then they have to invest this extra money upfront. But they have no incentive to do so, if they know that most people move home every 10 years and many of them remodel at least once during this time. So, the appliance manufacturer can often get away with designing for something like a 7 year lifetime. If that allows them to sell their appliances cheaper, it mathematically is the optimal solution for doing best in the market.

I really don’t think most people remodel their kitchen at least once every 10 years.

The touchscreen on my Electrolux failed and would cost more than $1500 to replace which is slightly more than 50% of the original purchase price of the range. That‘s ridiculous. It didn’t add much value over more simple controls and made the range completely useless when it failed.

Also, if people aren’t satisfied with the the longevity of their current appliance, they’re more likely to switch to a different brand and badmouth the brand they have rather than buy more of the same.

They can sell different grades of quality at different price points so there is always a cheaper option available. You should expect at $2800 range to last longer than a $500 range, but due them to putting the money towards more electronics rather than better quality, the more expensive range often fails first.

Induction ranges are much less expensive in Europe and Asia than in the US because induction isn’t marketed as a luxury feature there.

The hardware required for induction-specific features such as pan sensing doesn‘t add hundreds of dollars to the cost. Look at the prices of portable induction cooktops.

None of the mainstream big box stores had any induction ranges on display when I was shopping last week. They all only have them online so you have to buy sight unseen.

A non-induction electric range makes no sense other than for the very cheapest bottom of the line models or for people who have invested large amounts of money in non-ferrous cookware and don’t want to buy any new pans.

The main reason they still sell is because most induction ranges are so overpriced and poorly marketed in the US that most people have never seen one in use and don’t understand them.

I actually had to look it up, as I was unsure about this, as I am certainly the big outlier ... I don't like moving. But yes, the median number of years that people stay in there homes in the US is just over 10 years.

And psychologically, if during your stay in your home, you need to replace an appliance once, most people probably won't get overly upset. This is especially true, if it was an appliance that the previous homeowner bought and where you can blame another person for making a bad purchasing decision.

I am sure appliance manufacturers have studied this problem in detail. But in the end it is a simple optimization problem. What is the minimum amount of investment that you need to put into your appliance so that you can charge a price that encourages the maximum number of purchases? And from everything I can see, the answer to this question is somewhat less than 10 years of typical lifespan. This also explains why many German appliances have a reputation of lasting longer; Germans are more reluctant to move and when they do move, they take the appliances with them. So, longevity is more important in this market.

I agree with you that this is very frustrating for people who expect to stay in their homes for a long time and don't actually want to replace their appliances all the time. You often can get higher quality appliances, but you need to up the cost a by quite a lot more.

Also, I don't think that "more electronics" is necessarily the root cause of the problem. Rather what I think you are seeing is a false correlation. Manufacturers are decreasing investment in the type of work that I described earlier. Building for longevity is expensive and the market doesn't ask for it. On the other hand, the market does demand that you have new and different product features each model year. So, that's where you see investment.

One thing doesn't really have anything to do with the other one. You absolutely could build a reliable appliance with all sorts of crazy features. But nobody demands it. So, you now erroneously determine that the crazy features are what makes it fail, whereas it really is something like underspec'd capacitors, inappropriate trace widths, borderline power transistors, undersized heat sinks, or missing surge protection -- or simply just flimsy mechanical parts.

There are plenty of rental grade simple electric and gas ranges that last 20 years or more and probably cost $500 or less when new.

Paying more often doesn’t increase reliability and longevity.

The people who move the most frequently are renters who don’t buy appliances like ranges. Renters are likely skewing statistics of how often people move.

More electronics is a problem because they can’t/won’t install high enough quality components. The end result is that they fail prematurely. The end result is all that matters.

Maybe they could improve the quality, but they don’t, so you are better off without the fluff if you want an appliance that will last without repairs that rival the cost of a new appliance.

M

" whereas it really is something like underspec'd capacitors, inappropriate trace widths, borderline power transistors, undersized heat sinks, or missing surge protection -- or simply just flimsy mechanical parts. "

I think you said this with more finesse and grace than I ever could have. I am convinced that I could build a much better control board (time permitting) and make it bullet proof with the properly spec'd components and rerouting air for proper cooling. For some people a new appliance is a very large investment. Some don't have $1000.00 plus to throw at a new appliance every couple of years so I can understand them being upset about it. Then you have to spend additional money for a warranty to feel secure in your purchase. I like many buy for the long haul however I am not afraid to open them up and find out what's wrong. Sometimes it's easy to just order a new component and bring it back to life, sometimes not.

Jaxo

If that Electrolux unit were mine and I was happy with it I would just fix it. I do understand not knowing how to do so and someone telling you $1500.00 for a new board. At that point I would just buy a new one as well. I am not a big features guy, I just need it to cook my food. I don't need all the fancy useless gizmos. Although I agree that it more than likely will make a negligible difference in reliability if my stove has blue tooth or not lol. I know for a fact that I will never return to cooking on resistance heating though, so I will just have to live with the poor quality. As long as I never physically break the cooking surface I should be good for a while.

What about "home warranties" instead of extended service contracts on appliances? I think 5 years is the longest extended service contracts available on appliances.

If I had a home warranty, would that cover repairing a range longer than what you can buy coverage from the manufacturer or retailer?

If so, I could buy another fancy $3K to $8K higher end range and keep repairing it for as long as parts are available.

Here is what came up in a quick search.

https://www.ahghomewarranty.com/media/docs/AHG-HW-AZ-15_Brochure.pdf