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Comment by semireg | Hacker News Reader

While I’m curious of this design, can someone tell me why my cafelat robot is inferior? It’s performed for years with zero maintenance and minimal cleaning. It pulls excellent shots. It takes up minimal counter space. The only downside I can think of is it’s not ergonomic - disabled or less strong individuals may not be comfortable with its physical operation. But short of that … it’s perfect. It is my peak coffee optimization (not one narrow measure of perfection). What am I missing?

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“Inferior” is a bit silly in a comparison to this, considering this entire hobby is about small quirks and incremental changes. They seem to have similar offerings except for the big difference that this one has a pump. If you don’t care about a pump, a robot will do fine for the rest of your life. I’m personally bored of lever pulling multiple shots, but my counter space is limited, and I’m interested in purchasing, after seeing a review.

It's not inferior, it's just a different kind of machine!

The main advantages are in the workflow - heating, brewing, cleaning, etc are all done by pressing a button, and the pressure itself is going to stay at exactly what you set it to.

It's also a fair bit smaller than the robot.

This comment feels disingenuous. You're comparing a manual machine. You obviously know a decent amount about the topic if you ended up with a cafelat robot and reached "peak optimization", but here you are acting confused and incredulous. I'd rather read an account of how a manual machine stacks up against a normal one in your experience than whatever this is.

Sorry, my point is I’m not in the market for new/shiny and I’m wondering what I’m missing. Nothing against new tech, that’s why I’m here. But if we can satisfy our personal espresso needs with something non-electronic, I think that’s worth discussing.

I enjoy coffee and espresso, I don't enjoy the ritual of making it. I don't want to have to stand and focus on getting my pressure correct on the leaver in the morning when I'm half awake. I want to dump premeasured beans into a grinder, then dump them into a machine and press a single button. I realize this machine would require more work then just that but it's still less then a leaver machine.

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