[ELI5] How does a rice cooker “know” the timing to switch from cook to warm when there’s no more water in it?

Question

[ELI5] How does a rice cooker “know” the timing to switch from cook to warm when there’s no more water in it?

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Answer 1

While there is water the temperature will never exceed the boiling temp of water. This is the natural of boiling water (or anything) when you boil water the water *can not* get hotter then the boiling point until it has infact completely boiled.
This is one reason a lot of recipes will tell you to bring water to a boil. It’s an easy way to make sure you cook at a specific temperature. You totally could cook pasta at a lower temp. But good luck getting the timing right without a thermometer and constantly adjusting the temp.

Once all the water has boiled away the temperate will rise and the rice cooker knows to shut off. There are a lot of different types of temperature sensors so I cant tell you which ones a given model uses.

Honestly rice cookers are one of the coolest devices because of how deceptively simple they are.