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Coffee - do you and how do you consume it?

xray said:
I'm wary of any kitchen appliance that requires an Internet connection to work.
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I’d say that more strongly—it’s a hard no. There may come a time when it is impossible to avoid, but I’m sorta hoping to see torches and pitchforks first. If ever that was motivation for a consumer revolt, it’s the application of rent-seeking software for devices that fulfilled all needs-based requirements with no software at all.

Rick “I need a network connection for a refrigerator? Or a coffee machine? Seriously?” Denney
 
seems no one here even bothered to check out the link i posted for the Meticulous, but did make "an argument" that it must be a cool hipster thing because of its name. whatever.
but let's just make things straight:
it doesn't require an internet connection. it has a screen, buttons, fully controllable integrated scale
of course there is no subscription or whatnot for the software
it's based on a lever machine, with a robotic arm that replicates perfect shots everytime according to a set pressure / weight profiles that are completely customizable (or shared from the internet)
only people who actually used a lever machine can understand how superior it is to a standard espresso machine with every single thing fixed -
this is the best of the two worlds combined.

and no, i don't own one and also haven't ordered one (yet)
 
antcollinet said:
Looking at the order page:



So they want to sell me the firmware that actually makes the thing work - and for £1000? They can FRO
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That is a way to avoid import taxes and duty. You are supposed to declare the software purchase and pay taxes on that. But most people never do. Common than you might think especially from smaller manufacturers
 
anonyless said:
NO. they show the "items" separately to reduce tax costs. you get some sort of activation code once you actually receive the machine
@xray there is no subscription . i double checked it with them. also, the whole software side of the machine is open source on Github
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In most cases the machines are ready to use. They just phrase it like that to make it sounds like a separate purchase. i can't say for certain about Meticulous but Decent and Argos need no activation
 
delta76 said:
but Decent and Argos need no activation
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To this point, as I was reading the Decent site last month, they specifically say that for shipping purposes only the actual value of the hardware being shipped is reported (~$500-600). In the US, import duties and tariffs amount to about $150.

If the full value of the machine were claimed with software included, well… suffice it to say nobody would ever order one! :oops:
 
anonyless said:
seems no one here even bothered to check out the link i posted for the Meticulous
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I did go the site before posting any comment. Admittedly I did not spend a lot of time navigating it. The initial impression on the front page put me off a bit.

“I get goosebumps
looking at it ...”​

Seriously? That's the leading impression they want to give I guess. :rolleyes:

I went to ordering process as it seems that's the only way to get a price.
"Optional Advanced Software & Services are downloaded to your machine once delivered and connected to the internet."
Optional, so I should be able to order one without right? No way to remove it from the order. It may have something to do with the tax/duty considerations mentioned above that it has to be "Optional" yet not optional.
 
anonyless said:
NO. they show the "items" separately to reduce tax costs. you get some sort of activation code once you actually receive the machine
@xray there is no subscription . i double checked it with them. also, the whole software side of the machine is open source on Github
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Yes, I gathered there was no subscription...currently. There have been cases where a vendor's free service becomes a paid service after a while because it's no longer viable otherwise. Or worse yet, they shut down operations all together.

Case in point is WeMo which was not a paid subscription service. I had 25 WeMo devices I had to replace because Belkin decided to close down operations. The WeMo devices will not fully operate without the WeMo services. There are 3rd party solutions to get them working locally but requires a lot of fiddling and setup which I didn't want to undertake. The whole idea of home automation was to make things easier and more convenient not add a bunch of overhead in maintaining and operating my own servers. I now have Matter compatible devices.
 
olds1959special said:
the health benefits of coffee are better when you drink it in the morning and I think the optimal amount is about four cups.
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Ok, three cups to go. Not the best morning in these parts however.
 
rdenney said:
I’d say that more strongly—it’s a hard no. There may come a time when it is impossible to avoid, but I’m sorta hoping to see torches and pitchforks first. If ever that was motivation for a consumer revolt, it’s the application of rent-seeking software for devices that fulfilled all needs-based requirements with no software at all.

Rick “I need a network connection for a refrigerator? Or a coffee machine? Seriously?” Denney
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Yes, I'm replacing most everything in the kitchen just now, including the kitchen, and no internet-connected thing has darkened the manifest. But it's hard to see how a robotic lever can exist without software.

xray said:
Yes, I gathered there was no subscription...currently. There have been cases where a vendor's free service becomes a paid service after a while because it's no longer viable otherwise. Or worse yet, they shut down operations all together.

Case in point is WeMo which was not a paid subscription service. I had 25 WeMo devices I had to replace because Belkin decided to close down operations. The WeMo devices will not fully operate without the WeMo services. There are 3rd party solutions to get them working locally but requires a lot of fiddling and setup which I didn't want to undertake. The whole idea of home automation was to make things easier and more convenient not add a bunch of overhead in maintaining and operating my own servers. I now have Matter compatible devices.
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True, but unlike Belkin, Meticulous is unlikely to disable their only product line. They could later, or they could go under, of course. Straightforward open-sourced software apparently used in this case should mitigate the risk to the user (just not to zero).
 
ryanosaur said:
Are you trying to out-sarcasm me?!!
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Sorry, it must've been my simple-Simon quad shots.
I dread my [any] digital scale, only because that is the only digititus hardware, for our morning shots!
olds1959special said:
the health benefits of coffee are better when you drink it in the morning and I think the optimal amount is about four cups.
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If you drink 4cups/day for 'health benefits', you should probably be infusing the grind w/some multi- mega-vitamins!:D
 
anonyless said:
seems no one here even bothered to check out the link i posted for the Meticulous, but did make "an argument" that it must be a cool hipster thing because of its name. whatever.
but let's just make things straight:
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I looked at the site before posting my opinion, which still stands btw so I’m glad we’re now straight
 
anonyless said:
only people who actually used a lever machine can understand how superior it is to a standard espresso machine with every single thing fixed -
this is the best of the two worlds combined.
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That statement is a stretch. The essential difference of the lever machine is variable flow rate. That in itself isn't necessarily an advantage if operation isn't correct or consistent. I'm not sure what you consider to be a standard espresso machine but I can control temp and flow rate to a certain extent on my E61 HX machine.
 
anonyless said:
....only people who actually used a lever machine can understand how superior it is to a standard espresso machine with every single thing fixed -
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Say whaaaaaaaat?
Hi, my name is xanalog and I am a user.
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Why on earth would I (as a user) want to automate something, which does not need automation?
What would be the object, besides being a KISS-defeatist?:facepalm:
 
xanalog said:
What would be the object, besides being a KISS-defeatist?:facepalm:
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I'm a manual lever partisan & meticulous is not for me, but imo automation is more KISS: manual lever operation involves countless variables, and automation pares them down to the minimum.
(Again, still not of any interest to me because I like the variables of learning an action "in my body" so to speak, the slow build of intuition and muscle memory over many months and years.)
 
xray said:
That statement is a stretch. The essential difference of the lever machine is variable flow rate. That in itself isn't necessarily an advantage if operation isn't correct or consistent. I'm not sure what you consider to be a standard espresso machine but I can control temp and flow rate to a certain extent on my E61 HX machine.
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This is technically incorrect (the way I am understanding what was written) or misunderstanding of the two different technologies/applications. Levers exert immediate pressure into the puck by the design. You would know this by the simple fact that coffee drips as soon as you push the lever, whereas E61 takes ~8sec for the first drip. Remember that one of the contributing factors in espresso is contact time. In E61, the space between shower screen and the puck creates pressure loss to be filled by water flow, and therefore the top of the puck will sour quicker than the bottom due to longer contact time.

This is why flow control is a gimmick. The popularity of the Slayer brought it into mainstream, but the application of it is quite specifically to fill the space between the shower screen and the puck before dumping down pressure. You can do this yourself without flow control by simply disengaging, waiting, then fully engaging the E61 lever around 5-6 seconds (or when you see the first drip form).
 
delta76 said:
Both are conical. I could not notice the difference when I moved from a Eureka Mignon XL to NZ, so I don't really bother. For me a grinder that grinds well, very low retention and static is a winner. Taste profile is not important
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If you don't care about taste profile...do you just buy the same coffee for caffeine? I don't understand what you mean. Perhaps you only drink brew? Conical vs flat makes a noted difference for espresso.
 
mk05 said:
If you don't care about taste profile...do you just buy the same coffee for caffeine? I don't understand what you mean. Perhaps you only drink brew? Conical vs flat makes a noted difference for espresso.
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I said taste profiles not taste notes. I believe that different beans bring more noticeable difference than different burrs. If I want to pursuit some specific notes I would rather buy beans with that notes than finding it in different burr sets.
 
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