We’ve all been there. Put a frozen burrito or Hot Pocket in a microwave, pop it for a few minutes, and boom: you have a tube of melted liquid at the ends with a piece of still-frozen gunk bulging in the middle.
Microwaves are incredibly convenient, especially if you’re in a hurry. They can heat food or drinks from refrigerated to nuclear in seconds, and even cook raw foods in a fraction of the time it takes in a conventional oven. But they’ve always been hamstrung by one major problem: No matter how much the turntable spins on your food, you’ll almost always end up with parts so hot they’re almost inedible, while others appear to have barely been heated at all. This is the main reason microwaves suck: they heat unevenly.
Panasonic aims to change all that with its new Japanese microwave (also known as the NN-SF57RM), which uses advanced sensors and Panasonic’s long-standing inverter technology to banish uneven heating to the dustbin of history.
How the Japanese microwave ensures even heat
Panasonic’s new Japanese microwave looks the part, borrowing minimalist Japanese aesthetics to deliver a microwave that feels more like a sophisticated air fryer. It has a drop-down door and inside is a simple flat tray – no wasted space on traditional microwave turntables.
While it’s a beautiful device, the part that grabs the headlines is the technology working behind the scenes. The Japanese microwave uses what it calls the Genius Sensor 2.0, a heat sensor that works across 64 discrete points in the microwave, to carefully measure the temperature of whatever you’re heating. It combines the sensor with its patented Inverter technology, which Panasonic has used in microwaves for almost 30 years, to provide consistent, consistent heat across all of your food.
Traditional microwaves do not cool: they throw your food at maximum power in short bursts, then turn off completely, before projecting them at maximum power if necessary. Panasonic Inverter microwaves can modulate the amount of energy they deliver and apply it consistently and continuously throughout the cooking time, leading to more even heating. In combination with the sensor, the inverter allows precise temperature control, unlike a normal microwave which must blow and then cool the food to reach a specific temperature. That said, it’s still a really horrible idea to heat plastic (and especially any type of metal) in a microwave.
