I just got rid of a GE microwave which required me to set both the time and date before heating food after a power outage. I never did figure out what the date was for since it was never displayed and the clock did not automatically adjust for daylight savings time.
On top of that it had a dedicated button for toggling between AM and PM when setting the clock, which served no purpose whatsoever after that point. I wish I knew what the designer was thinking when they came up with that.
I thought I had read somewhere that home range hoods tended to not be deep enough or have high enough airflow to capture combustion products from gas stoves, but I'm having trouble finding that now. I did find this article that says they measured 80-95% reduction of pollutants which seems pretty good with 108 L/s airflow which is achievable:
It's possible that what I was reading before was discussing direct capture of the combustion products, but it stands to reason that if you're exhausting a lot of air with the range hood it's going to limit the concentration of pollutants by cycling the air in the entire kitchen. Alternatively I could just be remembering incorrectly!
My range hood is unfortunately configured to recirculate, and it's not in a convenient location to duct to the outside. If I change entirely over to electric I'll likely keep the range hood recirculating and install a central ERV or HRV that pulls air from the kitchen to manage winter time air pollution throughout the house.
The biggest surprise for me was just how quickly an induction cooktop can heat up a pan. When using gas I would often turn the stove on as I finished chopping vegetables to let it preheat, but after burning a few things on the induction cooktop I realized I need to have everything ready to go in.
Other trouble I had was largely due to the Ikea Tillreda cooktop I purchased first; it only has ten temperature settings which made it difficult or impossible to find the correct setting when sauteeing. The second cooktop I purchased was a Duxtop model which has twenty temperature settings which seems to work just fine, and the Ikea cooktop still finds use boiling water and other tasks where precise temperature control does not matter.
Another problem that I have with both cooktops is that the actual heated area of the pan is only about 6" in diameter, whereas it seems to be common for a full size induction range or cooktop to have at least one 12" element. This is more noticeable than with a standard electric stove because the heated area on induction comes up to temperature almost immediately whereas the unheated areas of the pan take a long time to warm up through conduction.
Edit: I should add in case the above sounds negative that I love using induction and can't wait to have a full size version! The digital control and fast heating give me better consistency and less time standing around waiting than gas. I would however recommend that anyone thinking about switching to induction first buy a portable unit to try out as decent ones are well under $100.
Indoor air pollution due to gas stoves is something I became aware of about a year ago, and I've done some reading about it since then as I have a gas stove and two young children. As far as I can tell it's not an issue of a properly or improperly operating appliance, but rather NO2 is an unavoidable byproduct of gas combustion.
I can't locate the exact sources now, but it's apparently very difficult to vent the NO2 to the outside with a range hood as the hood is so far away from the flame that a massive amount of airflow is required. This introduces an entirely new set of problems where makeup air must be provided to avoid depressurizing the house. If it's hot or cold out bringing this makeup air is a huge waste of energy as heated or air conditioned air is exhausted and unconditioned air is brought in.
My quick solution for now was to replace the range with two portable induction cooktops which have been working great. I've been happy with now they provide the fast temperature response of gas although there was a bit of a learning curve at first.
I spent a couple summers working at a printer in Massachusetts around 2005-2006 and the first year the shop did not have air conditioning. The paper came off a large roll at the back of the press which was pulled through from the front. Part of the process involved sending it through an oven presumably to set the ink, then it would go over a chilled roller to cool it off again. On particularly hot and humid days it would be difficult to restart the press after stopping it as the condensation on the chilled rollers would saturate the paper and it would immediately rip (referred to as a "tear out") and would then have to be manually spliced back together with tape. One night we spent something like 10 hours trying to get the press started up again after stopping it to change the plates.
Anyway, that's just my story about humidity and printing. The second summer I worked there they had installed air conditioning and those problems went away. I'm sure they did it for business reasons and not because they thought it was cruel to force people to regularly work in 100+ fahrenheit temperatures.
On top of that it had a dedicated button for toggling between AM and PM when setting the clock, which served no purpose whatsoever after that point. I wish I knew what the designer was thinking when they came up with that.