This full surface electric cooktop combines cooking with Tetris

By Natt Garun April 20, 2012

Siemens Full Surface Cooktop — Image used with permission by copyright holder

This week, we showed you how you can update your regular, plain refrigerators into something more stylish with large panel Kudu Magnets. Now, it’s time to revert the attention back to your primary kitchen appliance: The Cooktop. Siemens has released a design for a full surface induction cooktop that will allow you to place your pots and pans anywhere on the surface without aiming for one fixed circle and still receive maximum heat.

We’d like to think of this design as playing Tetris with your pots and pans while cooking. Because you can place them anywhere, you can adjust the locations of your containers to best fit everything on the surface. Underneath the cooktop ceramic surface is 48 conductors that allow for continuous heat no matter where pans are placed. As you plunk your pot on the cooktop, induction modules recognize the added weight and rush to connect and form a heating unit underneath.

However, since the cooktop has limited conductors, the maximum amount of cookware it can accommodate is four a time. A touchscreen display can also show you the shape of the pots currently on the surface, and how much power each is using. If you want the leave the pots on the surface without continuing to cook, you can also turn down the heat for the particular location. Since heat is distributed only when a particular area is used, Siemens believes this technology is also more energy efficient than fixed surfaces. Just be careful not to touch any part of the cooktop now that all of it can conduct heat!

The new Siemens cooktop is available to use in 15 different languages, and the company is currently releasing a demo at Eurocucina 2012, a kitchen design exhibit going on in Milan this weekend. There are no pricing information available as of now, but we’re definitely expecting a tag upward of $5,000 for the unit.

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Former Digital Trends Contributor

An avid gadgets and Internet culture enthusiast, Natt Garun spends her days bringing you the funniest, coolest, and strangest…

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