UKC

Striking a good balance between affordability, performance, and versatility, the Switch is a halfway house between simpler canister-top stoves and full-on powerful integrated systems. Whether car camping or backpacking, for many users this will be all the stove they need, says John McKenna.

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What's the idea of the ring above the burner, on (attached to?) the pot stands? From the photos it seems to always be below the highest point of the pot stands, be they folded in or folded out. So I don't see what it does or how it adds stability to a pot on the stove? Thanks!

I guess it's there to centre the special hemispherical bottom pot. Otherwise, the pot would rest only on the stands by its edge, which wouldn't be a very stable situation if even slightly off‑centre.

The supplied pot sits on it.

Yes, basically this. The small rim also provides a bit more support than just sitting on the flipped out stands. i.e. it can't slide about.

Thanks all, that crossed my mind, but I haven't seen the stove in the flesh so didn't really get how it fitted together. So if you take the supplied pot, you need that ring. If you take a bigger flat bottomed pan, then you don't need it? I guess something bigger just sits on it like it would on a pocket rocket?

The ring is permanent I think? The supplied pot sits on the ring, if using any other pot you flip the pot supports out and the pot/pan sits on them.

Have you noticed the photo of the bottom of the pot later in the review? I was confused like you until I saw that but then it made a bit more sense.

I’ve used the switch and yes the ring is what seats the provided pot onto the stove, fairly good one stove does it all, base camp stove with a set of pans or mountain water boiler with the provided pot.

Yeah - cheers, I see the ring now. I think I had looked closer at the close up photos higher that show the pot stands being higher than the ring! It makes sense now I think about it with the heat exchanger style pot. I've had a Jetboil going on 20 years, and used the first of the fancy MSRs integrated one many moons ago also, so should have worked it out! Actually I even had one of those copper concertina heat exchangers that MSR built back in the 90s that you put round one of their bigger pots - anyone remember them?