Smart or Dumb Coffee Maker

I’d personally go with the best “non smart” coffee maker you can get, then just use an automated plug. I haven’t done it yet because I just don’t like the idea of the coffee and water sitting out all night. It feels like it’s not fresh or something. Still good machine + cheap plug is my advice.

My wife loves her Clever Pour Over. She boils water in an Ovente Hot Water Kettle. This model is discontinued, but you’ll get the idea.

She uses an iHome ISP5 pocket socket to automate the kettle.

If you go this route, make sure that the kettle you pick has an auto-off function.

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We just acquired a Bunn Speed brew. Pour water into the top of the unit and in less than 4 minutes you have up to a 10 cup pot ready to enjoy. No programming necessary. However it brews excellent coffee quickly because the water poured thru the top forces the same amount of preheated water out of a tank for brewing. Because water is constantly heated in the tank, we’re thinking of a smart outlet for energy savings and safety.
With the smart outlet we can set a schedule to power on the coffee maker for a period to accommodate our regular coffee brewing and drinking time. For added safety, whenever ST determines we are not home, the outlet and coffee maker can be turned off.

Hey everyone. I appreciate all of your responses – a lot of clever folks here.

I wanted to provide an update in hopes that it will help others.

I went the route of the Mr. Coffee WeMo Coffeemaker only because I don’t have the resources or the know-how to “build” something on my own. It would have simply been a switch coffeemaker with a smart outlet.

As I am sure you all know (or maybe not), WeMo does not place too nice with SmartThings, so to accomplish what I wanted, I had to create a number of routines and recipes across various platforms. I can say I am 90% happy with the final result.

To start, here is a glimpse of physical pieces of my smart home setup:
• SmartThings hub
• Amazon Echo
• Sonos
• Harmony Hub
• Cree Connected Bulbs
• GE switches and dimmers
• Nest Cam

On the app side, I use SmartThings, Alexa, IFTTT, Stringify, Harmony and Sonos.

To connect the coffeemaker, I had to add WeMo into the mix. The challenge, then, was to connect the coffeemaker to Echo/Alexa, which I use more almost all interfacing.

The problem was that Echo interfaces with the WeMo coffeemaker via IFTTT. I have never been a fan of the IFTTT-Echo integration is the utterance required to start a recipe: “trigger.” I don’t feel like “Alexa, trigger XYZ” is natural language, and I much prefer the SmartThings-Echo utterance “turn on.”

Because the coffeemaker and SmartThings do not have direct integration, I created various virtual switches in SmartThings for the WeMo trigger – power on coffeemaker, water level low, change water filter, coffee ready, clean coffeemaker.

I then used Echo to turn on those virtual switches. Obviously, though, this had no tangible action, so I created recipes in IFTTT so that when SmartThings virtual switch X, Y or Z turned on, WeMo coffeemaker would perform my desired action.

The problem, then, was SmartThing did not know when the coffeemaker was off. So I used the Power Allowance SmartApp to set an amount of time for the virtual switch to be on. I set this for one minute in the case of all of my virtual switches.

So to turn on the coffeemaker with the commands “Alexa, turn on coffee,” “…coffee maker,” “…coffee pot,” “…java,” this is how I had it set up:

  1. Echo sends SmartThings signal to turn on “Coffee Maker” virtual switch.
  2. “Coffee Maker” virtual switch triggers IFTTT recipe to turn on WeMo coffeemaker.
  3. “Coffee Maker” virtual switch turns off, but coffeemaker stays on and continues to brew.

For the water filter, here is the set up:

  1. If the coffeemaker water filter needs to be changed, an IFTTT recipe is triggered.
  2. IFTTT recipe turns on SmartThings virtual switch “Coffee Maker Water Filter.”
  3. “Coffee Maker Water Filter” triggers SmartApp Speaker Notify with Sound.
  4. Sonos announces that the water filter needs to be changed.
  5. “Coffee Maker Water Filter” virtual switch turns off.

For the alert to clean the coffeemaker, the set up is the same as the water filter: WeMo to IFTTT to SmartThing to Sonos.

Now, one more piece I wanted to figure out was the alert that my coffee is ready. The WeMo app sends a push notification, so I know there was some way to get that information to my set up. To do this, I’m using the Yonomi app.

Here’s how I’m doing that:

  1. When the coffee is ready, Yonomi sets my Sonos volume to 50% (I’m using in-ceiling speaker in my kitchen connected to a Sonos Connect.
  2. Yonomi tells Sonos to “play,” this essentially wakes up the Connect.
  3. Yonomi sends a message to Sonos to announce “Your coffee is ready.”

I really like the British voice from Yonomi :slight_smile:

I also have a Yonomi-Echo interface set up so that “Alexa, turn on morning routine” trigger a routine I have set up in Yonomi. The coffee starts brewing, and over my Sonos speakers in the kitchen, I hear “Good Morning,” followed the day’s weather report.

My only complaints are the water level alerts – I haven’t figured out how to make those work when I truly need them – and having to use the WeMo app to schedule my morning coffee.

Again, thanks to everyone for the input. I’m going to have a cup of smartly brewed coffee now.

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I see you bought the wemo enabled coffee pot so this doesn’t pertain to your use.
I use a wemo insight to fire up my Rocket espresso machine (to warm it up, the espresso making is all done by hand)

Word of warning to others, make sure you find out what Wattage is required for things like coffee makers, my espresso machine can pull 1350 Watts. I would not use a samsung smart power outlet (only rated for 480 watts). The belkin wemo insight outlet I purchased is rated for 1800 Watts max so I am ok.

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Good tip! I almost bought a Bunn Velocity Brew to connect to a connected outlet, but again, I liked to alerts the Mr. Coffee WeMo Coffeemaker came prepackaged with.

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Would you mind expanding on how and if the water level is measured? The Community might be able to help if you give us some details.

@jseaton can you try out the alexa’s yonomi skill ?
In the skill details is mentioned that is working with wemo and yonomi is just an application so no new hardware required.

My coffeemaker is burning out too now… It seems there are no good options here. The pots with a simple on-off switch? They are junk; they don’t get the optimal brew temp, so the coffee coming from them is not good. The Mr.Coffee in particular makes weak coffee.

As for water in the hopper all night? I can live with that. Because it’s either sitting in the water pipes all night, or in a plastic water jug all night, or in the coffee machine all night… not a drastic difference either way. The ground beans are a bigger issue, but the moment you roll with pre-prepared, timed coffee you give up the benefits of fresh ground.

But there is nothing useful from a ‘connected’ standpoint.

Spinn may be the coffee maker you’re looking for if you’re not fond of leaving the ground beans out.

A few months in, I really like my connected Mr. Coffee. I can’t say I use the connected feature too often, but it’s fun when guests are over to surprise them by asking Alexa to start my coffee. And then the voice alert that the coffee is ready is another fun feature.

Like I said, it’s not really a necessity, but it’s fun. Really, I still have the coffee maker on a timer like my old “dumb” coffee maker. One nice feature is the reminder to fill the carafe before going to bed, but you could set up a reminder for “dumb” coffee makers too.

5 years with a regular (dumb) Keurig K-Cup with the following features.

a. Clock
b. On/Off Daily Timer
c. Auto Off after so many minutes/hours

I found that I drink coffee roughly at the same time daily and it takes all but 1-1/2 minutes to brew the perfect cup of coffee.

This time the wife was right. Although it’s not (smart), it IS automated so…I had to pass on the $$$ Smart Controlled Coffee Maker.

This is as old thread but I’d love to know if Keurig K475 or K575 are ST integration friendly. Also, if you guys would recommend any other coffee makers that have good third-party integrations.

What exactly are you trying to accomplish? On/Off?

It would be great to have a coffeemaker with which you could have different schedules for different situations.

My typical life sees us make a 6-cup pot that is ready by 5:50am daily, for two hours. But on weekends, we like to do a full pot and delay the start until 6:15 (so that it does not wake the cats who then wake us lol) and have it remain on for three hours. Then there are days when the wife can go to work a bit later so we want it to stay on for three hours.

I have to reprogram the maker for any of those scenarios.

It would be great to simply have the ‘usual’ weekday or weekend schedule automatically set itself up… and then perhaps for those instances where the wife goes in later, tell Echo “alexa, have the coffee stay on 3 hours” and have it work.

And really, all it would need is (1) a manual on/off switch on a brewer that (2) makes good coffee. Then a smart plug to handle the schedule. Unfortunately, 1 and 2 cannot be found on a single coffeemaker.

It’s not a cheap solution, but you can do this with the Naran Push Microbot. In fact pushing the button on fancy coffee makers is one of their top use cases. To use it with SmartThings or Alexa you also have to have their Prota bridge, which adds more cost (but one bridge can handle up to 40 Microbots). So this is an expensive solution, but it does cover that last mile when all you need is to push a button on a schedule you can control. :sunglasses:

Oddly I don’t want a ‘fancy’ coffeemaker. I just want one that reliably heats the water to the correct temperature to make a decent pot of coffee.

Unfortunately, those seem to all have electronic control panels… and none of them have scheduling that is variable by day of week. I’m certainly not going to get one of those buttons. Automation is one thing and I admire them for inventing it, but such Rube Goldberg stuff is not on my radar (and even if I accepted it, I guarantee the WAF would drop like a stone lol).

It sounds like you’ve answered your own question.

I highly recommend the Mr. Coffee Smart Optimal Brew, but it doesn’t have native ST integration and it does not have a hot plate to keep the coffee maker on for XX number of minutes. It does have a nice, thermal carafe, though.

To do exactly what you are looking for, I’d suggest a Mr. Coffee CG13 12‑Cup Switch Coffeemaker with a smart outlet. You can program the times you want the coffee maker to come on during the week, when to turn it off, and unique times and durations on the weekends.

My experience with Mr.Coffee so far has been OK but not great. The temperature control is inconsistent.

Give me the Cuisinart temp control with a simple mechanical on/off, and then you’re talkin’.

Agree- nothing beats Cuisinart at the price.

Could hack past the Cuisinart timer and do a simple on/off

  • That said - never had one apart, and do not need a Smart one.

How about the Bunn Velocity? I can’t say for certain it would work because I don’t know if it has a toggle or rocker-style switch.

Rocker style wouldn’t work, FYI.