Impulse Labs’ Induction Cooktop Is a Game-Changing Way to Cook
Save this article to read it later.
Find this story in your account’s‘Saved for Later’section.
Comment
In late 2024, amid a kitchen remodel, my husband proposed that we forgo a gas stove for an induction cooktop. At first, I objected. I was attached to cooking with a flame, mostly because it was familiar, and I worried about rare scenarios (like charring scallions or eggplants) where I’d need an actual flame. I was also biased toward what I felt was the more primal, intuitive, and embodied way of cooking.
But my husband had found a specific battery-powered induction cooktop that sparked a kind of mania-laced enthusiasm in his eyes: theImpulse Cooktop, made by a San Francisco start-up. At the time, preorders had just opened up, and my husband, ever the early adopter, had signed up for one (before tariffs and the repeal of the tax credit, it was nearly half the price that it is now). I, on the other hand, am skeptical of newfangled technologies and feel indifferent toward “state of the art,” “top of the line” apparatuses. Despite my hesitance, I was willing to give it a shot, largely because I’d had my eyes opened to the benefits of induction already.
Four years earlier, my husband had brought home an expensive cooking gadget called theBreville Control Freak, a portable induction burner famously used by chefs like Thomas Keller, Grant Achatz, and J. Kenji López-Alt. He had become interested in reducing our gas usage because of the harm it could do to our health and the environment, and he also no longer wanted to support gas companies. At the same time, theControl Freakwas supposed to make cooking easier with its precise temperature-control and automation capabilities. After I learned how to use it, I did find food preparation to be far more predictable and enjoyable; I rarely burned anything anymore.
The Impulse Cooktop is supposed to be a serious upgrade from the Breville Control Freak, with an output of up to ten kilowatts as compared to the Breville’s 1.8. The kind of power that the Impulse Cooktop can deliver to the pan is roughly equivalent to that of an outdoor propane burner used to deep-fry turkey, which would require about 75,000 BTUs — something that doesn’t exist as an indoor residential product, according to Wally Nowinski, head of direct to consumer at Impulse Labs. (The average gas stove has burners ranging from 500 to 18,000 BTUs.) This comes from an integrated battery that can be set to charge automatically during the times of day when electricity is the cheapest. Even when it’s not plugged in, you can still cook three whole meals using the battery alone, making it ideal for daylong outages or blackouts (fortunately, we haven’t yet needed to make use of this capability). One of its selling points, too, is that it does not require any special wiring. Most induction stoves and cooktops require a special 240-volt outlet, as opposed to the regular 120-volt one. “The fact that it is the most powerful cooktop and can also be powered by basically any outlet in your house is what makes it extraordinary,” said my husband.
New! You can now save this product for later.
[Editor’s note: The Impulse Cooktop is on preorder, and the company is currently taking a $250 deposit for orders and will collect the balance when the range is ready to ship.]
The cooktop, which comes in two sizes, either 30-inch or 36-inch, has four burners with corresponding magnetic knobs. The knobs are removable, making the surface extremely easy to clean. A large display panel sits in the middle of the cooktop above the knobs showing the heat level of each burner. There are two modes: In power mode, you select kilowatt output, up to 10,000 W, while temperature-control mode allows you to choose your cooking temperature (from 68 degrees to 482 degrees Fahrenheit) with precision. Power mode is supposed to function more like a dial on a gas stove, where you’re controlling the size of the flame, and is best for liquids and soups.
This technology sounded impressive, but I wanted to know if the cooktop would be easy to use and if I would enjoy using it. My first experience was with a preproduction unit that came with a disclaimer that the company was still fine-tuning things. There had been several delays in production after the preorder, and we desperately needed a multi-burner cooktop, so Impulse Labs compromised by giving us something that was not quite ready for prime time.
I initially found the learning curve to be steep. Switching between the two modes was not as seamless as I hoped it would be; sometimes the stove never reached my set temperature, which meant that I would have to crank it up far higher to get the temperature I wanted, and calibrating the heat proved to be trickier than expected. But the newfound power was obvious. Being able to boil a pot of water in a minute or less while in power mode felt almost like magic. And I also quickly discovered some things that the Impulse excelled at: I could reheat fish without overcooking it (this was often difficult on the Control Freak because it overshoots the target temperature before coming back down). I could be distracted and still brown butter successfully. We even gave away our belovedTatung steamer, because steaming on the cooktop proved to be way faster.
Impulse has since released updates to its software that have addressed every one of the issues I was having, and that responsiveness to feedback and questions is one thing I’ve found incredibly impressive about the company. Even before I decided to write about the cooktop, we were able to communicate directly with Impulse Labs’ product managers and other employees, something I’ve never done before with any other purchases — especially expensive appliances. When I spoke to Nowinski, he helped me to understand a few more of Impulse’s capabilities. One was its ability to replicate dishes perfectly. An example he gave was frying an egg. At 300 degrees, you’ll start to have light browning and patches. At 315, the edges of the egg start to curl up and crisp. At 330, the entire bottom will be crispy. With the cooktop, you can cook your egg to your liking consistently, every single time, without fail. He also told me that he no longer needs to throw out the first pancake. Set the Impulse to 360 degrees F, and the first pancake will always be perfect.
I recently stayed in a home that had a $20,000 Bertazzoni kitchen range. While the stove looked glamorous, I found using a gas cooktop again to be far more finicky and difficult than I had remembered — I had trouble just getting the stove to light. To me, it’s clear that the biggest drawback of the Impulse Cooktop is the hefty price tag, but as opposed to the Bertazzoni, you’re not paying for a luxury version of an existing product; you’re paying for an entirely new product with unprecedented technological capabilities. Though I occasionally miss being able to char a leek or heat a tortilla over a flame, I realized, while using the Bertazzoni, that I feel far more at ease cooking on the Impulse. In fact, in the next couple years, we’re planning on ripping out our gas lines entirely. After that, there’s no going back.
Other induction burners we like
More From The Strategist
- The Back-to-School Hall of Fame
- The Best Things Strategist Editors Have Bought This Year (So Far)
- Everything You Need to Outfit Your College Dorm
- The Strategist Summer 100
The Strategistis designed to surface useful, expert recommendations for things to buy across the vast e-commerce landscape. Every product is independently selected by our team of editors, whom you can read abouthere. We update links when possible, but note that deals can expire and all prices are subject to change.
