What To Look For

Coffee, tea, ramen, hot chocolate, oatmeal cereal–there are a lot of different foods that require hot water, and with an electric kettle, you speed up the process. These handy devices are typically not very expensive, ranging between $10 to $150, and a great model doesn’t have to cost you more than $30, so it’s a price that’s easy to justify for the convenience. 

The problem is, they all have different features, and you still don’t want to waste $30 on something you’re not going to use. That’s why our team of ShopOwl researchers put together this quick guide to help you choose the right electric kettle for your needs.

How Do Electric Kettles Work?

Electric kettles are designed to boil water faster, which decreases your time in the kitchen, and in a world where we want everything as instantaneously as possible, that’s a good thing. But how does that happen? 

All water boils when its saturated vapor pressure equals the atmospheric pressure.¹ To make water boil faster, you need to speed up the process by adding more heat and by preventing cooling or steam from escaping. This is why a pot on the stove will boil faster with a lid on than one without a lid. How electric kettles work is by pairing those two elements together to make water boil faster.²

There are many different kettles on the market, and in addition to having different price points, they may vary in features, boil times, power, and aesthetics. It’s true, while they all do basically the same thing, not all electric kettles are the same, and that’s what makes it hard to pick one.

What To Look For And What To Avoid

Beware Of Size

Make sure you check how many cups the electric kettle makes. The more cups it can handle, typically, the longer it will take to boil because there’s simply more water to boil. But if you have a large family and everybody wants coffee, or if you’re just one person, but you drink a lot of tea, then you may want a larger electric kettle. 

On the other side of the argument, if it’s just you and you have one cup of tea per day, then you won’t see much benefit from getting a 7-cup capacity electric kettle. In fact, it might be faster to warm your one cup of water using the stove, but you’ll really like what a small electric kettle does for your wait time.