⚠️ Warning:
This project is provided for educational and experimental purposes only.
Modifying electrical appliances—especially high-power devices like induction cooktops—carries significant risk, including electric shock, fire, injury, and property damage.
If you choose to replicate or adapt this project, you do so entirely at your own risk. Ensure all work complies with your local electrical safety regulations and building codes.
Do not attempt this project unless you are competent and qualified to work with high-voltage electrical systems. The internal electronics of the cooktop are not isolated from mains voltage. This means that touching components operating at low voltage (e.g., 5V logic circuits) may result in electric shock. Connecting a non-isolated oscilloscope to the cooker while it’s powered can cause serious damage—to both your equipment and yourself.
Enough disclaimers for now—you get the picture!
I was looking for a cheap heating solution for my DIY beer mashing and cooking machine.
My first attempt was a standard resistive cooktop—but it had way too much temperature overshoot during regulation. I then tried an immersion heater, which was fast, but unfortunately, grain kept sticking to it and burning.
Eventually, I found a relatively inexpensive (€40) 2 kW induction cooktop at IKEA. I knew that controlling it automatically wouldn’t be as straightforward as with a resistive cooktop, but a quick search online showed that others had hacked similar devices before—for example,
I probably should have watched the whole video before buying it, because it turns out the hack was never completed. Still, it gave me a decent idea of what to expect.
Then I came across this project on Hackaday, which explored a similar Amazon-branded induction cooker. Interestingly, it uses the same 10-byte communication frames, suggesting these devices might share a common platform or manufacturer.
Unfortunately, that project was also left unfinished.
So, I decided to reverse-engineer the IKEA cooktop myself and finally move forward with my beer machine!