but you just were you just said just
work today we're going to review smart
coffee scales this review I thought
would be easy I was just gonna buy these
sets of scales do some basic testing on
features and declare a winner that isn't
what happened that's not what this
review is going to be what we're going
to dive into the world of smart scales
now briefly I want to tell the story of
scales in coffee I think going back to
2012 was when the sort of the the Harry
o coffee scales launched right when we
started to get really serious about
weighing our pour of is our V 60s
whatever we were making now I confess I
had a little bit of a hand in these the
reason that they have varying levels of
accuracy but they're they're kind of 0.1
at zero to two hundred grams or 0.5 at
200 to 500 grams that's that's my fault
that was my suggestion I own no money
from these I was never paid for this
advice to Harry oh but but it was my
suggestion as a way to let you go all
the way up to two kilos but have
accuracy where you needed it to make it
point one gram accurate all the way up
to two kilos would have made it much
more expensive than it was so this was
the kind of compromise that's by the by
this thing was a set of scales that was
designed or focused on making coffee and
along with your weighing function you
had a timer function and that's kind of
what sets coffee scales apart from other
things but this was the beginning and
these work like just about all kitchen
scales work you have a base here and
then you have a way pan here and
connecting the way pan to the base is a
piece of metal called a load cell and as
that piece of metal bends under weight
you can measure the varying current
across that piece of metal and you can
convert that into a weight that little
load cell is probably the same in pretty
much all the scales here although cells
are very simple things
the software what you do with that
information that's where things get
tricky now no question the game was
changed when a kiya kick-started their
first set of coffee scales home the
Pearl set of coffee scales and they did
something kind of interesting they took
this little way pan on top of this
little base and they just turned it
upside down so suddenly your weight pan
was your base and your base was on top
is where everything was and this means
that the scales were kind of spongy
because everything you pushed was
pushing down on the way pan but it meant
that water would run off the edge and
down and couldn't get back up inside to
mess with the electronics in most sets
of scales having it this way around with
the way pan on top left the electronics
exposed to water and that was bad now
here in front of me I have seven sets of
scales most of which I've paid for
thanks to the support of patreon that
people support me each month on patreon
giving me a budget to go out and buy
these things and therefore have an
unbiased opinion about them and that way
I'm not relying on manufacturers giving
them to me and I'm not spending the
money out of pocket because there's
about a thousand dollars worth of scales
here which is which is a lot here I have
the Tim amore black mirror scale it's
about 99 euros 100 euros I think I paid
for this here which I already owned is
the scale this I have because it
connects to the decent but it is a smart
scale worth talking about this is $99
this is the Brewster smart scale I think
this is about a hundred pounds this is
the Felicita incline it's about a
hundred and fifteen dollars here is the
new Akaya pearl Model S which is a
hundred and eighty five dollars or about
195 pounds in the UK and on the end is
the heroic Jemmy which is about two
hundred and seventy pounds or I think
like two hundred and eighty-five two
hundred and ninety dollars online in the
US which is a lot initially we're going
to do two tests we're gonna do a boot up
test which is how long does it take from
pushing go to being ready to weigh and
then we're going to do a test to see
what the lag is like so I'm just going
to dose about 30 grams of coffee onto
each scale and see how long it takes to
register the correct final weight then
we're going to talk about apps but we'll
come back to that in a second so let's
just dive into those two tests first of
all so now we need to talk about apps
because apps are the way these things
become in theory smart so each of these
does have an iOS app or that I have
downloaded onto my phone I think most of
them support Android but I'm not sure
how well I'm not gonna make coffee with
each scale because that would be
reasonably wasteful and I tried to waste
less these days I'll just be pouring
water from pouring capital into a brewer
to mimic the kind of pouring you would
have with a be 60 it should let us see
how the apps work and I'll let you see
what I see on my screen so let's start
with the tim'm or black mirror so that's
good news and it's crashed immediately
and there we go
let's try that one more time and crash
right what an auspicious start for a
smart scale
we finally have an app connected to the
phone which is terribly nice only took
deleting and reinstalling the app which
is perhaps not the ideal user experience
now what you can see from the app is
that you have some level of pre-loaded
recipe in here and if you jump into the
settings it'll let you play with your
ratio which is very common thing here a
lot of them won't do that kind of 1 to
40 1 to 15 thing which I have said I'm
not an enormous fan of then what's
frustrating to me is that I might want
to brew 30 grams to say 500 but because
I'm stuck in a ratio slider I can't
actually get it to do that the closest I
can get us 510 now you can select your
bean really quite an odd selection here
you've got mandela guatemala a weirdly
spelled Yirgacheffe saddam oh but no
ethiopia you've got yunnan which is good
but also pak'ma'ra which is a variety
blue mountain geisha Kona Kenya I don't
get it I'm really a little bit confused
ok so we're ready to brewing a brood
just over here to try and prevent too
much sound of brewing coming through on
the microphone so let's go let's let's
start with a loud beep so what you get
here on the screen is a pretty typical
kind of blueprint I think that's a hires
term for it but a sort of simple chart
showing cumulative weight over time so
you have like a bloom phase you let it
run for a while more and then add more
now one thing where the scale is it will
tell you off if it thinks you're brewing
a bit too aggressively loudly will tell
you off I don't really know what
triggers it there's not already an
obvious setting to control that it
obviously just thought I was pouring my
water too quickly but it doesn't beep to
tell me I've hit my target weight seems
odd and it doesn't really care that I've
got in there too quickly just if you hit
a certain g/s I think on the flow rate
then that's that's bad let's save and I
get to comment is it excellent is it
good average poor bad let's talk about
that later there's some flavor
descriptors here you could add them you
can use theirs there's pretty limited
choices I can track which device I used
then you get your blueprint down there
and I can save that as a record and you
can share it but into WeChat which is
something that a lot of people outside
of mainland China are really using and
there you go you've brewed
that is the that's the black mirror when
it when it works so a little bit buggy I
know it's really just kind of just out
of beta but certainly a slightly
frustrating experience there to start
with and I'm not hugely sure that the
way is trying to guide me into brewing
is particularly intuitive or helpful and
now we have this scale app which has I
think the ugliest app I think I could
think of it looks like someone who's
designed this has done like a bad job
porting it to iOS from something else
the layout is all screwy and messed up
they're kind of mixed sort of typography
and and everything else it's it's not
it's not much fun now you've got a few
little things here you've got a timer
it's got a it's got a kind of unit
function which it might be some sort of
brew ratio thing I don't really
understand but anyway let's start and
all it's doing is is sort of tracking
weight and tracking time which is
pleasantly simple frankly there's no
charting of this data it's just a simple
graphical display it's just an ugly one
if I'm honest so as much as it might be
smart it's not it's not hugely smart
there's a start-stop for the time where
there's no option to save anything here
but that's that that's the app it's not
remotely intuitive to me it's not
particularly helpful and it's not in any
way beautiful yeah it's more good okay
next up on our list is the Felicity
incline let's open up that app let's
open up this scale give a little boot up
and something's crashed or hung I don't
really know it just is saying Felicity
on the scale are you annoyed do you put
weight on you so secret here apparently
is to to open the scale first and then
open the app which seems to me probably
like a bug not the first so again a
pretty minimal app a little bit more
beautiful than the scale app though
essentially showing you the same data at
the beginning there is the opportunity
to build out a rest
why this is black type against a dark
background I have no idea again we've
got a weird selection of origins which
come with to protect oh no can we take
multiple what's happening here we've got
a misspelled Columbia always a win
Brazil Pama I don't understand Salvatori
I assume is supposed to be at El
Salvador
Cameroon let's pretend with brains to go
from Cameroon we can track their brute
tools and our kettle I don't know why I
track those things I guess if I was
tracking everything I might and then
let's add some coffee in here oh
goodness me that's an unpleasant way to
put it in data now it's quite easy to
miss tap the ok' button and then end up
moving your ratio out there and again i
can't change my water to be what I want
it to be I'm stuck with a fixed ratio
thing deep breath and let's hit go let's
see what happens so a hot water
injection that's happening here oh my
lord
this is hideous and confusing this chart
is the least intuitive thing I think
I've ever seen so you're getting a
blueprint but at the same time this
ridiculous sort of very large brew rate
I guess pour rate flow rate display that
looks like it was designed in the mid
80s let's go with that I mean that
orange and blue combo is delightful the
pixelated nature and the slow refresh
rate it's it's all bad don't I don't
feel good it's steaming oh wait we're
blooming but it's not blooming its
steaming so not smart enough to realize
that I poured my entire water weight in
here but now it knows that I've paused
its pause the timer which is
particularly weird because you would
usually include your bloom time in your
pour time and in a moment eventually
when we're done steaming in so many ways
we can begin again the coffee is good
the coffee is good click Save I presume
that's just touch the button when I get
a blueprint and I can edit my remarks it
was a flowery and nutty no it's either
flowery or nutty it's a little bit of a
mess
I'm not sure why ruff deserves a beam
symbol either that's kind of weird
and let's save that and there we go I'm
now back at a screen where it's telling
me to click Save again but we know I'm
done if I click Save when I go back to
here but it's lost all my data so let's
just come out of there I've saved it
where does it go
red where does it go get your recipe is
saved somewhere magically that you can't
access anymore did I just lose my mind
I'm done I'm done with this particular
scale for today this app is also bad so
now before we dive into the suite of
acai our apps we're going to talk about
the Hajime the most expensive scale we
have here so let's try turning it on
first good let's open I'm Jimmy our
friendly app and we're greeted by yet
another reasonably an attractive screen
you've got espresso mode pour-over mode
training mode and display mode I'm not
sure where the letter J is is there to
represent display mode but but that's
essentially just gonna mirror what we
see here on the phone which for a scale
with the remote detachable thing I don't
know why you'd need the whole point of
this scale is that you you know you got
this thing to put where you want to be
and then also have your phone I don't
know when I would need to have two
displays at any one time let's look at
training mode now this will train you to
pour at a specific flow rate we're going
to train for 30 seconds at 5 grams a
second let's start training so how
skilled am i at the old flow rate so
aggressive there we go
six grams well I guess score we can
compete and see who is the slow careful
pouring champion thing I've got a four
out of five score well done me and you
get a little brew printer that's quite
pretty actually I've got to say this is
a nice looking blueprint to style thing
I'm not going to try again
I think I'm done now we do also have a
spresso mode just to Jupiter that
quickly now here it's kind of
problematic because what your choices
are with these three espresso states are
the way that the timings on starts as on
or
stardom that kind of stuff so you know
auto tare auto start none of this is
useful because none of the starts will
correlate to your pump being switched on
it'll be correlated to liquid hitting a
cup in some way or a cup going down on a
scale and only being tare doubt but none
of it connects to your actual pump
starting which is the correct time to
track your espresso from so I don't
really understand the why of this here
which leaves us with poor of a mode
we've got a previous brew in here let's
design a recipe we Liberty 30 grams
we're gonna brew a ratio of 1 to 17 but
I can edit my water which is nice I can
brew 30 to 500 so here we've got a
suggested to thing where it's gonna give
us a two-to-one and then a 20-second
bloom and then to pause of to varying
speeds let's see what happens so we get
a little flow rate thing here again
let's go oh it aggressive it says slow
down and then I'm an old bean fills up
and I know to stop and then it counts
down the appropriate time to bloom
that's just fast-forward that now it's
distracting me to brew at four Mills a
second here which I probably didn't
notice when I was designing that recipe
is actually an incredibly slow brew rate
let's go with quicker let's make it
cross oh it's red it's angry I ran out
of water that's okay we're done we're
done and so now we've actually got a
sort of tracking of what happened and
then you can choose to save it if you
want to and the record is now saved
there's no tracking of did you like it
did it taste fruity or nutty or floral
or any of that sort of stuff it's just a
track of this is a brood that sort of
happened that is broadly speaking the
hajime and now onto the Akaya which is
gonna be tricky now of the apps in my
little coffee apps folder four of them
belong to a kya which is an interesting
reasonably frustrating choice and they
all do different
things and some of them are more focused
on this scale which is extremely
feature-rich
and as I said I'm not gonna have a
chance to go into all of the things this
thing can do but I'll make sure there's
links down below so you have obviously
an update which is not hugely important
right now you've got a nakiya app a
brewmaster app and a brew guide app
let's begin with just the Akaya app you
have a feed of kind of social media
stuff that I'm just not going to go into
and a very simple tracking type thing so
let's hit play and then we can track
water going in can we hit play no we
can't I don't know why I can't hit play
just let's reset everyone here let's
tear you out let's go to a different app
and here is the problem and this isn't
actually a Caius fault this is actually
the way iOS works you would think of
that my phone and this scale are now
connected and so if I open let's say a
different app like brewmaster then this
this app would be able to access this
scale but it can't it can't because that
connection is locked up inside the
previous app so if I try and add a scale
where are we settings slaves and I cut a
scale there are no scales and range
that's because this scale is no longer
visible because it's connected to a
different Akaya
app there's no way around this you got
two choices I could turn the scale off
and back on again which would kill the
connection or I can kill my previous app
or it could kill my Bluetooth on my
device all of this is ugly all of this
is a hacky unpleasant feeling thing to
do in this case I'm gonna turn it off
I'll turn it back on again lo and behold
it's here inside my my scale choices and
I can connect to it I can see it I've
got my information about all the stuff
there and we're back and we're ready to
go with our with our brew so now we can
have we can have bring that you're not
connected anymore why are you not
connected
can't connect to scale but you just were
you just said I'm connected Slate's on
the car scale there are no scales and
right
how are the no scales range we just went
through this we just connected deep
soothing breaths deep soothing breaths
so now we're ready to brew we're in that
the log our brew section so we can hit
start and this will produce a hope a
nice little graphical portrayal of
what's happening here so you have a
logged bar chart a flow rate and then
you've got a kind of cumulative brew
that produces that kind of group print
that is I think their term they coined
it belongs to them I don't for other
apps but it's it's their thing I think
and and again very similar to everyone
else is you can see a nice little graph
and everything is great so there we go
that's done so now we can save it we can
name it we can do a whole bunch of stuff
that's good we can add lots of things a
little smiley face temperature brew time
all of that camp stuff is there oh here
we go there we go I can take a photo
there we go and that will be a
tremendous photo to have in the future
I'll know exactly what that was at that
point so there is the app called brew
guide so one particular feature of this
thing is that you can upload a recipe
into the scale itself the scales large
display at each stage will prompt you to
do the next thing and in theory you can
have this kind of prompting in the
mornings without having to open an app
now of course I can't connect these two
because they're still connected with a
previous app so let me just kill you
there we go we're back again tremendous
and now I can go in and I can select my
app upload okay and then this this guide
gets uploaded and then there is a
brewing mode where I would invoke the
guide and everything would be great and
it would do the prompting for me and
that's it it's surprisingly slow to
upload I've got to be honest this is
ticking along pretty slowly I can't
imagine there's actually a ton of data
here but there we go we're done we're
done so the scale now knows what we're
doing and that's good and it talks to me
on a subtle display and that's nice but
can you feel the lack of enthusiasm
emanating from my body well let's let's
do a wrap-up in just a second here I do
need to talk about the Brewster which
claims to be a smart scale but does not
connect to your telephone and in doing
so I'll begin to wrap up and do a quick
talk through each device before telling
you which is the one that I think is the
best let's talk about the Brewster it is
the the simplest of them it doesn't
connect via bluetooth it is rechargeable
via a nice little microUSB at the back
it is a traditional way pan scale so you
have a solid base it's real tactile
buttons those are good things in a
simple way pan the smartness of it
revolves around some level of
calculation around or ratios every time
I use this I have to go back and get the
instructions out because it just defeats
me with the way that it thinks it drives
me a little bit crazy
whispers these are these are the
instructions that come with it that tell
you how to use it and despite the fact
that I've tried and failed many times so
auto mode so place the brewing scale on
the platform after three seconds it
should zero out oh it did that took some
time that's not an intuitive thing
there's no countdown there's no timer
this is not particularly obvious so now
I can add my coffee let's pretend I've
added ooh 33 grams of coffee and now I
push the ratio button no yes okay and
then that calculates for me my 1 to 16
ratio which is great so the cab like
honors here and I can start brewing and
the timer should start automatically the
timer should start automatically the
time we should start timer no I don't
know what I've done wrong I don't know
how to make anything do what I want to
do I just so defeated by these things
they're just I'd be just very stupid
I can't got the instructions in front of
me I'm just not having a good time and
and ah look look
I must operate
right now these are all examples of
technology that exists because it can
not because it should I don't really
understand who they think is using these
scales in these apps sure there are some
people that want to track every brew but
there has to be a better way than
fighting a Bluetooth connection before
you've had coffee in the morning why we
can't just have a scale that connects to
Wi-Fi securely and then just has a log
button on there you know what I mean
like if you want to record it just push
record and from that point onward to the
scale records what you're doing until
you say stop or you take the the brewer
off or all that sort of stuff that's
easy to detect I don't want to have to
find and use my telephone before I've
had coffee I don't and I figure most
people don't either and I would say most
people that have a smart scale don't use
the app measure at the time by having
these feature-rich scales that have two
buttons that have to be used at a bunch
of combinations you make people feel
stupid I often feel stupid I've often
found myself stuck in a place where the
display is doing something I don't
understand and I don't know how to get
back because because there's no guidance
on the scale I can't remember the button
combination I'm supposed to use it's not
natural it's not intuitive to me it's
frustrating and that's the case with all
of these things so I'm gonna run through
them quickly and I'll share my thoughts
as a quick summary on each one I'll
track you become so the black mirror it
has no markings anywhere on it and that
frankly is extremely frustrating trying
to find the power button to turn on is
incredibly annoying it also has the
single most irritating beep I I don't
want to hear that beep that early in the
morning I will be printed to Akaya
they do a nice beep this beep it's not a
good beep I just wish the beep was less
annoying the scale I think is again a
little bit confusing the two button
shapes aren't particularly helpful
it doesn't feel particularly expensive
and it's not I think it's the cheapest
of all the scales here the app is
terrible I the only reason I have this
scale is it because it connects to my
decent espresso machine and that will be
viola reason I keep it for any amount of
time though I know that John a decent is
working on his own set of scales for the
future
this is all-in-all difficult to
recommend it's ok it's just it's just
not very good on paper I quite like the
Felicita in clan scales they're simple
they can be set up to do two things
which is time and weight or just weight
if you want to the app is not
particularly good but that's okay I can
do most of what I need to do with it
it's just there for a pretty expensive
way to do it I'm kind of using the same
features I would have in the original
hairier scale at close to twice the
price I can't recommend this in good
faith though because Felicita
frustratingly completely ripped off the
shape and design of a Caius lunar scales
and that is not OK
so these are kind of out of the
contention from that perspective the
Brewster smart scales I don't think are
particularly smart they're not
particularly intuitive I appreciate
having a base and tactile buttons that
we don't particularly like the buttons
on this that much it's ok it's just
built to do a really specific thing in a
way that I don't really get on with if
this totally fits your workflow you
might have a nice time it's interesting
that for the same money as other scales
here it's about a hundred pounds it
doesn't come with more features that is
not necessarily a criticism is just
notable that it's the same price without
the same kind of feature sweep there's
no price of app development or
maintenance going on behind the scenes
here it's ok it's for poor overs and
really nothing more and it's kind of a
shame you know like by confining the way
it works it reduces its broad usefulness
and then we have the Harwich Immy this I
think is actually interesting because
they took a risk and they did something
new and they had a scale where the
display disconnects and it's magnet so
you can mount it on top your espresso
machine if you want to pull shots with
it but having it this way having these
sort of 5 pin connectors here mean that
neither part is waterproof
it's a traditional base and way pants of
so a style model which again means
electronics are exposed so yeah you can
brew espresso with this but bear in mind
you could damage and destroy an
incredibly expensive thing and that is
so much money for the money I would
expect a better app for the money are
expected to be waterproof for the money
I would expect a longer battery life
and this currently gives a respect that
they've tried to do something new the
build is great it feels solid
it feels reliable it's cool but it's
also nearly 300 pounds or dollars that
is that is too much money that is just
too much money and I can't strongly
recommend something that's just that
expensive when I'm not sure that you get
two to three times the features of other
scales and that leaves me with this
the Akaya scales and I would say Akaya
have set the bar for smart coffee scales
they changed the game with their
original set that kick started a few
years ago and they continue to really
lead the pack it's frustrating that they
have so many apps in the nature of app
connection is is that way it's
frustrating they spend a lot of time and
dev money on features that I don't think
personally are hugely useful if you
really want to track your Bruce if you
want to chart everything and have that
data accessible have that data available
to share this is easily the best choice
it's probably the only choice I think
but I still just feel like they're doing
things that don't need to be done that
creates a more cluttered confusing
frustrating experience as a normal user
I would be very hesitant to broadly
recommend smart scales to everyone if
they fit a really particular need that
you have then yes go for it and I would
say the Akaya is the best in class right
now but if you just want to make coffee
in the mornings then I'm not sure you
need a smart scale I'm not sure you want
a smart scale that's my rant that's my
rant on the topic I'd really be
interested to know your thoughts too in
the comments let me know do you have a
set of smart scales already do you use
the apps that come with it all the time
did you use them a few times and then
stopped did you never release them at
all
do you think that there's something that
I've missed about some of these scales
do you think there's some features that
I didn't talk up enough that I was
unfair I'd be really interested to know
your thoughts share your comments down
below I look forward to reading them and
as always thank you so much for watching
we had a great day
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