This paper proposes a field-programmablegate- array-based emulator of the series-resonant halfbridge inverter for measuring the inverter efficiency and detecting hard-switching conditions. The proposed emulator is able to compute the converter operating conditions and efficiency each mains half-cycle, providing useful information for the control unit. In addition, it is designed taking advantage of recent advances in high-level synthesis tools, which provides an optimized and straightforward implementation. The proposed emulator has been applied to an induction heating (IH) appliance as an example of efficient and environmentally friendly appliances with a major economic and social impact. The obtained results are compared with classical offline simulation and experimental measurements, proving that the proposed emulator achieves the required accuracy for the IH application. As a consequence, the proposed system can be used for improving the system safety and optimizing the converter efficiency and reliability.