Whirlpool Induction cooker nightmare

[bitslice]

Now normally I pick stuff up pretty quickly, stick a bit if hardware or software in front of me and I'll easily work out how it functions and then be thinking of ways to make it better.

Tonight I'm staying over at a relative's house and they have a posh Whirlpool induction cooker, so I'm there pressing the glass surface where the buttons are marked and nothing is happening.
I try twiddling the knobs underneath and that does nothing but turn fans on and off.
I try turning the whole thing on and off (works for PC's right?) and that just puts me further back with a little 'OFF' message.

There are only a few buttons on this thing, +/-, hob selection and a turney knob to select induction mode, a sane person would imagine that there is no way on earth to **** that up, well the glorious tards at Whirlpool managed to make it harder to crack than an Enigma code.

Then I try various pans on the basis that half the pans look like aluminium and may not work with an induction cooker. No joy.

Then I head off to YouTube to try and find some other poor sod having the same problem. But nothing there but videos telling me how simply wonderful whirlpool induction hobs are, but conspicuously no biatches pressing any buttons for themselves!!!

Then off to Whirlpools site for a manual (I know! This is getting seriously desperate when engineers have to read manuals FFS)
Again nothing helpful there as the model fitted must have been last weeks and is now out of fashion. Gah!

At this point I've spent nigh on twenty minutes fiddling with this thing and seriously if I had my camping gear in the car I would have fetched the flipping hex burner out of it by now and be done and dusted, all I wanted was a bacon butty.


I'll admit I was curious as to what these induction cookers were like, but now I know how flipping counter intuitive they are I'll never ever buy one myself.

I did eventually get the sod to work by yet more random button pressing and I can confirm that compared to a simple gas cooker (or £0.79 camping stove), they are truely awful to cook with as well.


*rage*

Anyone else had to struggle with the stupid ideas of designers before?

 

[Aod]

Is the hob "set-up"? A lot of kitchen appliances refuse to work until they've been "set" with the time or something like that - Try different combinations of buttons until you get beeping.

the + and - buttons together is usually a good start

Anyone else had to struggle with the stupid ideas of designers before?

Yes - the aformentioned issue - A hob/Oven combination appliance that wouldn't do anything until the time was set

 

[TheBigCheese]

Are you a 'proper' engineer or one of those three day training courses, there's your certificate, congratulations, you're an X engineer, engineer?

Your answer tells me how much of a nightmare it actually was.

(No I have nothing constructive to add... sorry).

 

[lukeharvest]

Are you a 'proper' engineer or one of those three day training courses, there's your certificate, congratulations, you're an X engineer, engineer?

Your answer tells me how much of a nightmare it actually was.

(No I have nothing constructive to add... sorry).

Don't forget the British Gas "Engineers" who got a MEng in fixing boilers.

 

[bitslice]

Are you a 'proper' engineer or one of those three day training courses, there's your certificate, congratulations, you're an X engineer, engineer?

Your answer tells me how much of a nightmare it actually was.

(No I have nothing constructive to add... sorry).

Studied Microprocessor Design at Poly, ten years as the IT guy for large company, I appear to be cleverer than most people I stumble across but that doesn't mean a lot, maybe I don't get out much
I just loathe stupid design.

 

[Freddie1980]

Theres nothing stupid with induction cookers thier a excellant idea for those people who don't have gas like myself. My first guess and the most obvious answer would be your using the wrong kind of cookware. Induction cooker ring have a series small magnets which rotate and activate when a metalic object is placed above it in your case the pots most likely aren't magnetic so nothings happening.

The limited cookware you can use on induction is its biggest draw bag as a lot of the fancy copper plated pots don't work (as well as cast iorn). When buying for induction look for the induction symbol which looks like striny wire.

 

[Beren]

I was pretty.sure.you just press.and hold the.power button for 2 seconds... then press and hold the.icon for the hob and it goes up in power... youtube it... the first result for turning on a whirlpool induction hob shows one being used... Just like most smart devices there is a bit of a learning.curve for the first five.minutes.until the.mist clears...