ALDI Ambiano Portable Induction Cooking Plate

Terrible low temp just burns the food ok for everything else Show details

Works OK to start with - then kapoot! – Used about 10 times and it broke internally. It starts to work then beeps and turns itself off. I have rebooted it (like a computer) to no avail. A waste of money. AVOID! Show details

SAVE YOUR MONEY – Looks impressive and well priced but that's about all. Didn't even get to use it before it started flashing EO meaning "error internal circuit". DO NOT BUY!! Show details

Can't fault it! – Bought from Aldi for our month long caravan trip around Tasmania. Our van already has a stove/oven so this was just a backup. It is super quick to get hot, cooks evenly and nothing burns. As it is so much easier to clean than our caravan stovetop (just wipe down) we sit it on top and it does all our meals. Best $60 we've spent. Show details

Very happy with. Used for several hours to make a big pot of spicy tomato sauce – Each year we make ourselves a very spicy tomato sauce. It takes hours to boil it down. The $50 Aldi Ambiano portable induction hotplate worked great. I could adjust the heat immediately. The pot was 270mm diameter, bigger then their recommended maximum but no issues. Before that we used the gas wok burner on our BBQ and found it often burned onto the bottom of the pot Show details

Great then not – Was so happy with the speed it used to boil my espresso coffees, but after 5th or 6th use it beeped and flashed E0 and sometimes E1 :( so sad, returned and at least they refunded Show details

E1 error msg – E1 error msg pop up after start button. The device was Albion Professional Induction cooker purchased from aldi kogarah station store. How to delete? Just being used 3 weeks now stuck with E1 Show details

Great little portable induction cooktop – Can’t fault this cooktop. Has been a godsend. Use it ALL the time given our rental gas a rubbish gas cooktop. Been a godsend. Once it failed - E2 error so my husband gave it a good thump and it never faulted again! Show details

Works great, until it doesn't – After about a month of use I'm finding constant 'E2' errors with cookware that it previously had no problem with. I certainly won't be paying an electrician $90 an hour to fix a $60 appliance. Show details

Excellent uses up to 1800 Watts on full power – We use it at home and when camping. Works well and can cook with Neoflam or Aldi cast cookware. Pretty good temp control unless you want a really low simmer. Usually by selecting hotpot you get slightly less heat than other ‘pan’ ‘fry’ etc settings. Show details

Cockroaches got in destroyed the electronics – Cockroaches got in destroyed the electronics. Tripped the breaker and stopped working. It worked well while it was working. Cast iron pans don't distribute the heat evenly. Special aluminium pans do better. Normal aluminium doesn't work.

Induction cook top – Looks good and works fine. You need to purchase the correct stainless steel pots etc but overall the unit is a good buy! Longevity unknown but has 3 year warranty! Show details

Chef's worthy equipment – Im a chef and I have my own cafe. This cooktop allows me to cook the poached eggs to perfection! Easy to use temperature control, allows to manage the right amount of heat for each preparation. Show details

warm milk, scalding HOT – jug of milk on the lowest setting, it boiled over. I thought an appliance with a baby bottle setting would not raise the temperature, more then say 35 degrees but no 100+degrees Celsius seams like the go... Show details

Aldi should have know better – 1st time use the hot plate loved it. After that wouldn’t turn down or up.Can’t get the timer and preset working. I thought it’s might be fingerprinted on it.So gave it a good clean. Still not working. Turns on but when you press a button you can’t turn it up or down. So back to the shop it go’s. Show details

Love love love – Love that it is so easy to use and so easy to keep clean. It is fantastic to take along to campsites as long as there is electricity. Really the only cook source that you need. That you Aldi's. Only problem is that I wish I had bought 3 more. One for each grand child. Show details

Excellent product – I have to be careful here because I think we could be reviewing at least two different products. One review says there are eight settings, ours has twenty. That's ten power settings and ten temperature settings. Many complain that it is noisy, ours is quieter than the Panasonic microwave, the Siemens extractor or the Neff oven. Loud beeps? ours is… Read more

about the same as the oven and the Bosch dishwasher and quieter than the microwave. Poor heat dispersal? it's very uniform across the whole of the surface of the pan, much better than the gas hob. We use Tefal Ingenio pans so I guess that helps. Temp control is very steady and presets like stir fry etc work very well indeed. We're probably going to use this in out camper van and caravan it is so fast, compact versatile. We bought ours from Aldi in the UK so I guess it's possible that I'm reviewing a different product from those in previous reviews.

OK if all you need to do is boil water. Very easy to burn things – This is my first foray into portable induction cookers. I took a punt despite previous reviews as it was reduced at my local Aldi. Unfortunately some of the prior criticisms definitely apply, and this cooker will be going back. It certainly is powerful and if all you are using it for is boiling water and cooking pasta it is brilliant and brings… Read more

water to the boil much quicker than my ceramic electric cooktop.

However it is very difficult to use it properly at lower temperatures.

Firstly it does pulse but rather quickly on 600W and 300W settings. It will hold a steady 900W and anything above this. I measured it going up to 2000W at maximum.

Unfortunately anything 1200W or above heats up your pan so quickly that the part of your pan above the induction coil is super hot and the pan barely has time to conduct this heat to the sides. Any oil in the centre starts to smoke within seconds but the heat is very uneven. Trying to stir fry anything would result in things getting burnt within seconds.

The temperature markings above the power settings basically don't mean anything. I doubt there is a temperature sensor. This is obvious as even 1200W (150C) would heat canola oil well above its smoking point 210C.

The beeps are loud and the fan is moderately loud but with the rangehood on it just blends in with that. These didn't bother me.

It is possible that if you had some very good specially designed induction cookware that was fantastic at spreading the heat quickly, this cooker could be OK, but I'm sure some other brands if they have a true temperature sensor will work better than this one.

Unusable at lower temps - its going back – I cook a lot and I bought this to use in place of the very elderly coil element cook top in my rental. Wish I'd done some more thorough research first as I have three major gripes with this unit - the first two seem to be common to the cheaper of these types of appliances. Firstly, the temperature control is terrible - it burns and boils… Read more

everything even on the lower heats. The heat adjustment just isn't fine enough or low enough as I now understand that at lower heats these cookers 'pulse' - so they stop and start to try and maintain a lower temp - and IMO they fail dismally.

The second problem is the size of the actual induction ring - its too small and heats even middle size pans very unevenly - to the point I now won't use my good pans on it at all.

The last problem seems to be particular to this unit - and that is the timer. It can only be adjusted upwards so the plus sign adjusts the hours up and the minus sign adjusts the minutes upwards - so you have to go through a whole 24 hour cycle to adjust the timer. Doesn't work for me.

So this one is going back to Aldi and I'm now on the hunt for a portable cooktop that will simmer at low temps properly - does one exist? If I find one I'll let you know.

Short Circuit – Started off amazing,.. that lasted 6 months of being used perhaps once or twice a fortnight, then all of a sudden starts making a smell and short circuited the whole apartment. I’ll be cautious of anything electrical Aldi sells now as a lack of quality control is the price you pay for an appealing sale price.  Show details

Handy To Have – Easy to use. Supplement to the main electric oven. Comes with a 3yrs warranty. It has glass top. Easy to clean. Menu has default "Warm milk, soup, stir fry, fry, hot pot and a variable power setting. Additional has cooking time function. Preset time for delay cooking except for hotpot, fry and stir fry. Very quick cooking thus saving on energy bills. Happy with purchase.  Show details

Has it's limitations – I bought this unit as an intro to induction cooking. I do allot of cooking and don't have an issue with power levels or correct temperature control......I can just adapt. BUT you cannot get even disbursement of heat in a large pan. If I try to use a 12 inch cast iron pan only the center of the pan (about 7 inches) gets hot. So when trying to… Read more

fry something you have to rotate the pieces as well as flip and rotate them again. It appears to me that this unit must have a 6 -7 inch induction element where the better ones at 9 - 9.5 inches. It is a shame because other than that it does exactly what I want it to do. I want to pan fry a number of foods but grease splatters all over the Stainless cooktop which is a pain to clean! With this unit I can cover my cooktop with old towels under the hood and fry to my hearts content, not only removing fumes but also have a clean cook top afterwards. Because there is no heat generated by the unit, there is no risk of the towels igniting. So, I am sold on the value of a portable induction cooker, just not this one. I looks like Amazon has a good NuWave and good return policy.

I must also say I generally love Aldi products and prices

Excellent – My hubby bought this last year for his project but it was too small, so I ended up with it, all I can say, it is wonderful! I love this little cook top, is perfect for all my kitchen needs, I just wished that he had bought two of them. The price was also very good at 39.99 you can't go wrong. I wonder if Aldi will have more in stock soon.  Show details

Noisy and cannot control heat settings – At first I thought this unit was good value with a 3 year warranty but was surprised by the noise given off by the fan during use, and also I have since discovered that induction gives off radiation. That is why I always had headaches when standing near it. When trying to fry simple things like eggs, I found they would nearly burn on the bottom… Read more

and the yolks would still be runny. Even on the lowest setting, the heat was still too high. I am glad that Aldi give a 60 day return on their products as this one was returned.

Great – I'm renting and the cooktops that we have are very old and take forever to heat up and cool down and costs a lot in power. The wife does a lot of cooking on the BBQ side plate, but during winter it's not a joy. Bought 2 of these and absolutely love them. Easy to use and clean and cheap to use. Had to buy some more pot, but, worth it. $50 and 3 years warranty worth every single cent.  Show details

Fantastic! – I initially purchased the Ambiano Portable Induction cooktop from Aldi as our kitchen cooktop had coil elements that took forever to boil a pot of water. It works well and will boil a large pot of water within minutes. It was very handy during renovations where we had no kitchen for 8 weeks over Dec/Jan. It is quite light in weight (approx… Read more

2.7kg) which makes it very portable around the home and I imagine it would be handy for camping / the caravan too.

Good adjustable temperature range, from a low of 300w which I tested with lemon curd. I found it got a little too hot for this so I just offset it on the element a bit so the saucepan didn't take up as much heat. Up to 2100w which was fine for stirfrys etc. needing high heat.

There are also preset temperature buttons for things like Warm Milk (temperature will cycle in and out slowly), Stir Fry, Hot Pot, Soup and Fry.

Mostly we always manually adjust the temp though.

Downside of the cooktop is it's noisy. The fan is noisy when it's on and when cooling down and the beeps are loud when pressing buttons. It will loudly beep if it's turned on and is not in contact with a pot or pan on the 'element'.

3 year warranty is great and with 12 months of use, ours hasn't missed a beat.

Even though we now have a new kitchen with an induction cooktop, I still use this portable one outside occasionally when we are BBQing.

Control not as advertised – To me, this product was a $50 lesson to stop trusting Aldi products zealously. I have always been a fan of Aldi products, because for the price you pay, the quality and reliability is very, very reasonable. I’ve never (previously) had an Aldi product that didn’t meet/exceed my expectations or broke down within reasonable use. So when they came… Read more

up with an induction hob at $50, you would expect it to perform at least on par with Kmart’s $49 induction hob.

And I do refer to Kmart’s second revision with the all-glass top.

The Ambiano, as branded for Aldi, advertises 2100W, and “8 power settings AND 8 temperature settings”.

The first part about 2100W was particularly exciting, because there aren’t many portables out there that exceed 2000W.

Unfortunately, it’s the second part that brought about my disappointment. The power control.

There isn’t a specific “manual” setting. Once you turn the unit on, you make a selection between Warm Milk, Soup, Stir Fry, Fry and Hot Pot.

With the exception of the first two, you can then vary your output by using the +/- buttons.

The output scale is a simple LED display where there are corresponding text on top and bottom indicating the temperature and power.

It doesn't tell you whether the marking is pointing to the corresponding temperature or the corresponding power. The user manual does not reveal much information either, but it implies on Page 8 that the power corresponds precisely to the temperature. This means a steady 300W corresponds to 60 degrees Celsius, 600W to 90, etc. I call crap, as there are variables that it can’t possibly take into account. Such as, the size and shape of my pot, how much loss there is coming out of the pot (varied by material and thickness of the WALLS of the pot), the ambient temperature of the environment around the pot, etc. So that said, it can either be a steady 600W (or some pulse-width modulated equivalent, let’s not get into that), OR it’s automatically keeping a steady temperature of 90 degrees Celsius. Can’t be both unless under very, very specific conditions.

So it looks like it doesn’t have 8 power settings AND 8 temperature controls after all. Because at the end of the day, you can only control 8 settings, not 16, as the product advertisement has led me to believe.

Setting the unit on 600W (second lowest power) with a 7-litre pot of soup filled to about 6 litres, I was getting nasty spills. If I was to believe in the manual, the soup should not have boiled in the first place, as the boiling point would have been 100 degrees Celsius (it’s not like I’m up in the mountains). As an aside, I got even nastier spills on the “Soup” mode.

This is in big contrast to the Kmart’s second revision portable induction cooktop. When you turn the unit, you first press the “power/temp” button to specify whether you are controlling the unit’s power, or asking the unit to automatically keep to a certain temperature. I expected the Ambiano to have some equivalence in its operation, but unless someone could tell me otherwise, I am thoroughly disappointed.

Unfortunately, I don’t know where I’ve dumped my receipt.

That’s how much I trusted Aldi. And that’s about to change.

The clerk at the Chatswood store wasn’t very accommodating about the lack of receipt either, even though the brand is obviously exclusive to Aldi. Something about the possibility of me having stolen the goods off them and trying to score some cash… I don’t know, not worth my time to stay and argue. I’ve never had problems with Kmart or Bunnings when it came to returns when it’s obviously their item.

For the time being, I’m still having trouble imagining how one steals an item the size of a full A3 ream without sparking major suspicion.

At the time of writing, the product manual is available from:

http://www.ambiano.com.au/_media/Products/EA-1295-inductioncooker/EA-1295%20-%20Instruction%20Manual.pdf

My advice... don't buy it. The Kmart revision 2 is a MUCH better choice.

Edit: This review wasn't published by the moderators when I wanted to make a crucial edit, but better late than never. I would like to point out that I visited the Top Ryde store a day after writing the review. They were much more accommodating and refunded the item with not much question besides asking if the product was used.

Much, much better quality of customer service at Top Ryde, so kudos to this store in particular.

Value for money – We recently purchased this portable induction cook top from Aldi for $50., At this price it provides sensational value for money, provided it is reliable and lasts for over 3 years. Over the last 5 years or so we've tried various portable induction brands and models. Some, notably the Kogan brand, have been most unreliable and poorly designed.… Read more

Given our experience I would suggest the following of the Ambiano ..

Pros ..

1 .. Rated up to 2100W. At this rating (which is hardly necessary for most cooking) it heats a pan very quickly. Quite useful for quickly heating large pans holding large amounts e.g. sauces, chutneys

2 .. 300W step ups in cooking rating from 300W to 2100W. About right for most cooking purposes.

3 .. 3 year warranty. Many cook tops only have a one year warranty.

4 .. Simple touch controls that are reasonably straightforward. Includes timer.

5 .. Single cooking plate over whole of cooker. This reduces the risk of boil overs getting into the internal electrics of the cooker.

Cons ..

1 .. The touch beep is a little too loud for my liking

Maybes ..

1 .. Reliability is yet to be determined. However the 3 year guarantee is reassuring.

2 .. How it handles consistently high temperatures for an extended period.