I have a bunch of coffee pots of all types. Well perhaps I should say coffee brewers, and yes even a technivorn. The one thing I can say they all have in common is, they all spit out water at whatever temperature THEY decide to.
the fact that you can 'dial in' the temperature this thing spits the water out at, is imho very innovative. The pretty much 'agreed upon' ideal temp to brew coffee is at 185 to 205 degrees. Now where the problem lies is, ok in that band WHERE is the perfect spot? Some like it hot, some like it not. Yet others will say it depends on the coffee, and the grind.
Even with the technivorn, which has to this date essentially been considered the flagship or 'standard' for coffee brewers of the drippy variety, you are stuck with whatever it is going to spit out at you. With this pot you get to decide the temperature, and although you can calibrate it (pretty neat) even if you could not, ... if you find that the water is actually 3 degrees cooler than you dialed it in at, well just set the temperature up 3 degrees and problem solved!
I think this is the first coffee brewer that lets the user select their brewing temperature. Even for the espresso / cappucino folks, everyone has their 'opinion' on the ideal temp to do what at. Hence the 'trick' of putting a PID on the machine, to better refine the process and control it.
For someone who puts a PID on an espresso machine to let the user dial in the temperature they want it to work at, it's kind of odd that you would yawn at someone wanting to do the same for the drip pot folks. For those who are not coffee nerds, having something that lets them experiment and try different ways and temperatures without having to do all kinds of hardware hacks etc really is a good thing. It exposes more folks to what is really out there in the coffee world, without having to have a PhD to figure it out.
Given some of the terrible things I have done to my Behmore roaster, (I still have one sitting in the closet I never got around to putting a motor into grrr), if this is built half as tough as those are, I think we are seeing the birth of a really decent coffee brewer.
I would be interested in trying one of these out. To be honest, for those who like tea as well, if this can spit out hot water that is controllable as well, I believe he will have two firm markets to sell it in. I paid 200 for a tecchny, so why not one of these as well and sell the TV?
One question. I know this is not something that is easily controlled within the specs you have to work with on an 'appliance' but how fast does it spit the water out? I know some pots you will grow grey waiting for them to gurgle out a full pot. Mr. Coffee comes to mind as one of the slowest brewers I have ever seen.
Aaron