THINGS WE MISSED: • The companion app is now available and allows you to create, view, edit and share profiles way more easily but is still very barebones. • There's no help or beginner guidance built-in. Good UI usually helps with tool tips and suggestions that can be turned off. Things like grind size, temperature and pulse setting recommendations to make the advanced settings less intimidating for someone looking to experiment would be great. • As for filter papers you will need to tweak the settings and grind size to get that constant stream out. That being said I did prefer slower filters with the Aiden even though I love the really fast Cafec T90s for manual brewing. • If you look carefully you'll notice that none of the text on screen is properly centred. Ridiculous! • Most of the water tank opening is covered by the handle and it's near impossible filling it without getting splashes outside. • This should be obvious but you need to put good coffee, ground with a decent grinder in to get good coffee out. • In the US you get generic supermarket filter that will work perfectly. In India you can buy the Kalita NK102 filters for single serve.
I don't know why I feel compelled to watch review videos of a machine I've already purchased and use almost daily, but here we are. Thank you for your review and I'm glad you love the machine as much as I do
@@sjmelsom yep, this. like.....buy some hifi, think it sounds amazing, watch some reviews that tell you it sounds amazing, get a warm feeling (or possibly smugness).
I'd bet the screen is circular because they wanted to use the same screen as the EKG Pro Kettle to save some development cost. The knob looks the same too.
@@DuBstep115 It's a business bro. It makes good coffee, looks great, and doesn't take much effort to operate. If them making money offends you and you're willing to put in more time, get a v60.
I have this machine as well and absolutely love it. With that said, I fully agree with all of the negative things you’ve mentioned. One thing that I feel deserves mentioning more… The carafe is absolutely amazing. I am coming from the ratio six and this new carafe blows it out of the water in every way. I’m looking forward to seeing what they do after seeing this video. Thank you for what you do, sir!
This review was exactly the review I was waiting for. I realized in watching this that I'm not really looking for a pour over replacement because I rather enjoy the process, seeing how one bean draws at a particular grind setting vs others, it only takes a few minutes, and it has next to zero cleanup and maintenance. There are times when I'd like to make a batch for others, and I think the idea of just getting a dedicated batch brewer makes more sense.
The amount of work you put into these videos really shows. So thorough. btw, would love to see a review of the DF83V, but would even moreso love to see a comparison of the SSP MP burrs and the Lab Sweets!
I agree with this video. I've had my Aiden for almost a month and it's the best coffee I've ever had. I'm the opposite of most users. My brews are nearly always at least 8 cups, so I have my batch brew down rather than single serve. The app works well enough and I have my custom brew for my batch. The only downside I've seen so far is when you take the "shower head" off to clean. I thought it was going to get dirty behind it. It doesn't, it's sealed. The "problem" is the coloured green and blue inserts can and will fall out. Don't be like me and drop the minute green single insert rubber down the garbage disposal. Yeah I got it back and won't be doing that again. Even with the bag of Peet's Major Dickson that someone gifted us at Christmas, the taste is next level. Had a friend over that's really into brewing and he raved about the taste and simply would not believe that it was pre-ground Peets. I had the Moccamaster for less than a week before it went back. I really didn't like it at all. Looks cool, batch brews tasted weak and bitter. Expensive, especially for someone like me that isn't into brewing to levels where I'm grinding beans to sub--atomic accuracy using water that's a specific clarity, yes. Is the extra over the moccamaster worth it? Yes. Absolutely. Is it worth it knowing that I now have an extra 15 minutes in the morning and my coffee is ready and waiting for me. You bet.
I backed early, and I think Aiden is awesome. It’s easy and intuitive to use, and my wife and I like it better for single cups than the Original XBloom. Making profiles is easy. I did the same tests with the thermal probe and I was so impressed with the thermal stability and how it met the desired temp. I can say that I agree with the performance of Aiden. From 8-10 grams to full 1500ml batches are really good. Also, dialing coarser than you think you should, because Aiden extracts high.
Thank you for this review. I pre-purchased mine at Chicago Expo, and luckily got a walk through by Nick himself. I think the coolest thing here is the ability to get roasters to design their own profile and you be able to load those into your brewer when you get their beans. I do agree that the water before dose setting is a bit weird. I agree they should allow you to flip that when you wanted. (Especially when you are near the end of a bag of coffee). The thing I wish there was - would be the ability to know the grind size needed for a brew. This is not so intuitive. But, to be fair, it’s an issue throughout the industry. Closet thing I’ve seen is the kruve ruler. Anyway, I’m pretty much enjoying my Aiden. It REALLY helps on days when I don’t have the time to faff with a manual pour over. Also, I think their kettle/server is the best designed one I’ve ever seen and used with a batch brewer. The ability to switch out for your own on single serve is brilliant too!
I’ve been waiting for someone I respect to review this. It’s now happened. I was rather hoping you’d say it was awful, then I wouldn’t be tempted to buy it. That backfired. 😊
Hi! Aiden update!! After about 1 week & only creating a couple of my profiles, my coffee tastes simply awesome!! Maybe my pour over technique has sucked for a long time?! I have dozens of pour over devices - V60, Kalita Wave, Both Fellow Staggs, Clever Dripper, Hario Switch, etc, etc. Also both Moccamasters (the Select & Cup one). All of these are great devices & machines. I have learned many tips tricks & hacks for most of them too. But nothing has made my coffee taste this delicious as the Aiden! Really hard to believe with a drip machine but I am very happy with it. .... I want to add that your review was spot on & very very helpful. Yes as u pointed out the Aiden is not perfect. But it's still better than anything else that I have tried. Thank you so much!
@@garycomp6494 Fairly simple: I set 2 profiles, a Light Roast & a Medium Roast. I only set a bloom time (40 seconds) & brew temperature for each. As well as ratio I prefer 1:15. Nothing fancy but all much the same as I did pour over. The only other consideration is altitude - if applicable it's important. I also did not wait for Aiden to tell me how much coffee to grind. I consistently like to use 25g for my coffee. On Aiden this is usually is around 2.5 cups @ 375ml water for both roasts
It's a shame that the Aiden made for such an entertaining video, but there's no doubt that all of the suggestions would make it the undisputed gold standard for its category. Fantastic rant as always
one more wish please: we want different colors! the green one would be super cool thank you for the great review, it's nice that that thing can not only perfectly brew for my imaginary friends but also for me alone
Great review. Of all the things listed, the one that sticks out to me as a miss is what you mentioned about flip flopping the grams of coffee and milliliters of coffee. I just want to eyeball and grind some beans and whatever my output happened to be, let the machine dictate the water needed and dispense that.
For the water vs coffee first in the UI. Yes, most non-coffee-nerds want to set water volume first. This comes from a more batch brewing mentality, not a single cup mentality. "I want 8 cups of coffee for 3 people" is the formula.
Thank you for the review Raghunath! You touch on all the points that I wondered about and you don't pull any punches. I will probably pass on this version (unless I can get it discounted) but hope for an improved Aiden 2 in a year or two. I got burned by the Kickstarter Xbloom; it looks and feels great, makes good coffee, but the UX was just hoooorrible and the machine died on me after few months, so I'm much more cautious with any type of automated coffee maker now.
As others correctly pointed out, they use the circular screen likely because they are already using it elsewhere, it’s a pretty classic way of lowering R&D and manufacturing cost, secondly they likely defend it by saying it help streamline it with the form language of the other products. The knob also look very much like the one on my kettle But I agree having that screen on the kettle was fine because, well, it’s a kettle, there not really much it needs to do. On a machine this advanced, it is just an odd corner to cut and drastically reduce the user experience, as you really need a much larger screen and more physical control to ever want to dial in on the machine. I’ll likely purchase it once v2 is out, as there seems to be quite the few child diseases on it as with many new consumer products, but dos seem very promising once they ironed out all the small issues and weird design choices and fixed the UI I agree that machine definitely strike me as an app controlled machine, in that it seems a bit odd the app isn’t ready.
I like my Hiroia Hikaru, very consistent and helps me out when I can't stop what I'm doing to make family and friends a cup. They just grind, add water, filter...etc.
@@scottintexasAmericans don’t want manufacturing jobs at the wages they want to pay. We’re just going to pay more, grumble a little bit, then finally accept it and continue to enrich the ruling class.
I couldn't agree more with this review. It's both the greatest brewer of all time and the most annoying brewer I've ever owned. Like the ode I bet a gen 2 will fix most of the quirks. The three year warranty is nice and I bet a lot of people will be making claims. Those hinges don't feel like they'll last. Comparing it to something like a moccamaster is pretty wild. Yes this has awesome tech and makes great single serve coffee, but the moccamaster is the king of reliability. I question the long-term reliability of the Aiden.
Full disclosure; I've been awaiting the Aramse review to make up my mind on this damn thing 😁 It basically confirmed that yeah, the Aiden has very particular quirks. Buuut I'm willing to live with them in order to get as close to an hands-off manual brew as possible, while also having batch brews available for when larger company shows up uninvited (or I just need a big pot to keep me awake to enough to hit a deadline before the night is over...) Going to hold off for as long as my grubby hands can though, because my god does the software need improvement. Just because we can launch with very barebones and minimal software these days and update it later, doesn't mean that we should.
Amazing as usual! Any plans for a side by side with the xBloom? Would be also interesting to understand your perspective on how these technical marble can withstand the pressure of time.
Trying to get our hands on a unit. xBloom refused to send us a unit without signing a contract so we declined. It isn’t available in India right now. But hopefully soon.
Yeah. I’m super interested in this as well. Have used the xbloom and while it’s super awesome it has its quirks as well. I’m someone who cares mostly about cup quality so the higher price of the xbloom plus being locked into their grinder and unknown maintenance costs kind of pushes me away.
@@aramse that's a bummer considering how many coffee-youtube folks are involved with the xBloom. I was hoping they'd be open to an outside reviewer. Love your videos!
Your review is spot on. I suffer from some of the same things that you covered. I pre purchased the Aiden to get the 3 bags of coffee. My most important feature was the single pour over using the app to set up the recipe. I loved the brewed coffee using the profiles provided with each bag of coffee but setting up a new recipe using the menu and button pushing is very frustrating. Fellow, Get the app out for our use. I received my Aiden in mid September. It’s now mid November. Follow has had enough time to develop the app if they properly designed the integration with the firmware.
Finally, someone acknowledging the round screen. As a designer I agree, specifically if they put a square slap of shiny plastic in front of you. At that point just give me the round screen straight up. 😡
Excellent review as usual of course, and some interesting insights into design analysis. I saw this in Copenhagen and it looked cool, but the little circular display is in fact curious. Glad that it does so well with single brewing. Have you by chance ever tried the Cup One by Technivorm? It doesn't have any parameters, so it can't really compare to this, but I wonder what your take on it would be. Cheers!
Thanks Tom. I have the one cup and it’s decent but the extractions are lower and the presentation in the cup just not as sweet and evenly extracted for what I remember. Would be fun to try a side by side but I don’t have one with me right now.
Hey, there are two more brewers that are very similar and focus on single serve coffees, temperature and flow control: Hiroia Hikaru and Hiroia Samantha. I have the Hiroia Hikaru and think it’s a really good, well designed piece of art. Would be curious, what you think of it, also how it compares to the fellow Aiden. What I like is that you can basically but any carafe and any dripper below the shower head. You can also see the brewing, which was one of your main critique points for the Aiden. Maybe that is motivation for you!
Great video, as always! I really appreciate your designer's eye on these products. Nick seems like a very nice guy, and everyone in the industry seems to complement his abilities, but every Fellow product seems like this one. Technically capable, and I want to love it, but it's just kind of shitty build quality. Every fellow product I own (2 carter move mugs and an Ode 2) is a constant hope that it doesn't crap out, it feels like driving an old car that might break down at any time. My Ode makes amazing coffee, but it makes some really odd noises and rattles a lot, plus it's a pain to clean without scratching it or damaging the screws to do the recommended deep cleaning. It's already broken once and was covered by warranty, but I'm sure they wont cover it again.
I really love every fellow product I own (Carter Move, Ode 2, Stagg EKG) but especially for the Ode I feel like I'd rather have paid 10-20% more with a commensurate increase in build quality.
I'd love to hear your full list of auto brew recommendations. I just returned a Moccamaster as the brew time is simply to fast for batches of around 600ml. It's a beautiful, well-built machine but the actual coffee it makes does not compare to a pourover.
This is the one of the best reviews I've ever seen for any product. No wasted words, clean and easy to understand, good pace (a bit fast), thorough, some light humour without being silly. Fantastic video.
I have noticed my Aiden also trends towards over-extraction/astringency. I think the issue is two-fold: 1. Most of us brewing manually are obviously not pouring into a contained unit, we're pouring into an open air brewer. A lot of thermal energy is being lost to the ambient air. 2. Aiden's temperatures are what they say they are. When heating water in a gooseneck kettle, we're getting a temperature reading from the water at the bottom of the kettle. The water in the spout will be cooler by the time it's actually poured. This is to say that we need to recalibrate our thinking with Aiden. We might set a kettle to 93C, but we aren't aware that by the time we pour even moving quickly the spout temperature of the water is maybe only 89-90C. Great review as always!
@@KrishnenduKeshe’s saying you’re brewing colder on a kettle than you think you are. If you then set the Aiden to the temperature you aim for on your kettle, you’ll brew hotter than you normally do.
@@KrishnenduKes you have it backwards. Aiden brews hotter by virtue of being a closed system and it's precise water temperature. From the point where Aiden heats the water to where it pours it a much smaller distance than a gooseneck kettle. You lose a lot more than you think in terms of temp pouring from a kettle than you think you do.
What filter papers were you using for testing? I had Abacas ready for the arrival of my machine and they flow insanely fast and the coffee is quite oily. I tried to fellow papers after and they drain way slower and a cleaner cup. I still prefer the abacas though.
Here in India you only get the Kalita NK102 filter. I did try my favourite filters, the really fast Cafec T90 folded but I preferred cups with slower paper on the Aiden.
I kinda wish this had a built in grinder somehow. It somewhat defeats the purpose of automatically brewing coffee if it's old grounds in the pot. It's certainly an amazing piece of tech, but if I have to manually grind each batch fresh I might as well pour it too and save myself $300
People designing this kind of machine need to take into account the ritual aspect of what makes manual brewing a great experience. For example: just having a window glass allowing you to watch the water hitting the coffee and the brew happening would make it 100 times better.
Build quality doesn't bother me so much but there is soooo much plastic in contact with hot water here, I'm not really comfortable drinking coffee that certainly has a lot of microplastics in it every day. I would buy a more expensive machine (even double the current price) with the same technical abilities if there was no plastic in contact with hot water.
Question for you: how different is the experience between using a coffee specific profile vs using the built in presets? As a lay person who wouldn’t know how to adjust the temperature and pulse time parameters, would they be entirely reliant on the coffee producer providing an Aiden profile? The sales pitch of importing profiles is appealing, but it feels unlikely that companies unaffiliated with Fellow are going to go out of their way to create product-specific profiles. Unless there is a user repository of shareable profiles (akin to EQ settings for headphones), it feels like a regular user would still need to manually dial in their brew.
The lag could probably be improved(maybe not much without a lot of development work), and the skipped steps if they did the hardware right can be easily fixed with a FW update. I've done several interfaces with similar encoder knobs and you should always give priority to the user interaction in your code, you should never miss a user input.
Did you compare different filters. Maybe Cafec 102 vs. Melitta #2? Any thoughts on brewing dynamics with different type of filter paper? And of course great video!!!
for people who have had this for a while now: how long can the carafe keep a pot hot? I’ve seem a lot of criticism that the coffee (full batch) only stays hot for about 20min.
The criticisms are accurate if you’re brewing lower volumes. Anything over 600ml manages to stay hot for 2-4 hours. Again, the more you fill the carafe the more stable the temp.
I've been doing my dark roasts pretty coarse and using the dark guided brew profile. I ground size 7 on my Ode gen 1 and it was sweet and balanced on onyx's Eclipse and Monarch
Great review!! Can u please answer 1 question: Does Aiden coffee taste significantly better than a Moccamaster? MM is great but usually tastes like a good drip coffee - good but hardly great (no matter what I attempt to tweak with the variables mostly grind size). It seems Aiden tastes more like pour over - is this true? taste is my deciding factor with Aiden. Thank u & keep up the excellent work(and entertaining) videos!
The Aiden tastes like a proper pour over brewed by someone who knows what they’re doing. The MM is a classic and a workhorse but in the cup the Aiden wins.
I adore my Aiden, have used it everyday since I got it a couple months ago. But damn do I feel like a beta tester using it. I have already sent 3 bug reports so far (issues that are being or have now been fixed) and wouldn’t be surprised about sending more in the near future. But I feel exactly the same as you about the brewer and am already hoping for a Studio Edition too 😅
2 місяці тому
You mentioned it brews well even 10g doses, what settings do you use for that?
Great video, fun an informative as usual! I will get one whenever my Sage Precision Brewer gives up on me… the thing is it is a tank, not sure if this will ever happen haha BTW, what paper filters are you using for de mellita style? Thanks!
Unreal they're still having switch issues. I have a gen 1 stagg EKG and its temp dial doesn't register every click as a degree and it is very frustrating. It's my second base as well because the switch went bad on the first.
Doubt there are any such plan at the moment. Like I mentioned in the video changing the materials in the brew path would have a huge negative impact on the thermal performance so it would take a lot of rethinking and reengineering to make this brewer perform at the same level with other materials.
Aiden Version 2 will likely have or allow: #1 Tetsu 4:6 or Hoffman brews. #2 Pour ml's beyond Bloom can vary in water amounts. Like 70ml for one pour, 30 ml for another pour when doing multiple pours. #3 Version 2 allows Flow Control Options. Flow rates. Etc #4 Usable Ratio's below 1:14 that can be recommended and taste wonderful. #5 Rectangular Screen Display #6 App Functions completed
I have my zero calibrated to burr lock and I’m usually grinding between 55 and 60. Little coarser even if it’s a very processed coffee that more soluble.
Mine is a prototype without wifi, but I think the interface is great. Scrolling speed feels responsive, etc. I did grew up programming sounds in rack effects units so my bar is not at the highest point I guess. 🙃
An app with an ability to edit your profiles and share them with a community cloud share system would be kind of ace. People could give recipes a thumbs up or down and the top rated ones could be sorted... So if you buy a bag of coffee from a place you can check if there are recipes and pick a good one to start with.
@@aramseit won’t let me bypass the warnings. Maybe it’s a US thing. I don’t want to go to the batch brew based on your review of it, but I always drink 500mL
MSRP here is 415€, for that price I expect it to be made out of stainless steel with zero plastic parts. Sage Precision Brewer is 199€ and its almost all metal, this being doble the price there should be exotic materials like titanium. I bought Melitta Epour for 119€, just get that.
@ haha ohh 😯! Thanks! Honestly i stopped when you mentioned it felt kind of cheap near the lid but I will now watch the full review. Appreciate the response!
THINGS WE MISSED:
• The companion app is now available and allows you to create, view, edit and share profiles way more easily but is still very barebones.
• There's no help or beginner guidance built-in. Good UI usually helps with tool tips and suggestions that can be turned off. Things like grind size, temperature and pulse setting recommendations to make the advanced settings less intimidating for someone looking to experiment would be great.
• As for filter papers you will need to tweak the settings and grind size to get that constant stream out. That being said I did prefer slower filters with the Aiden even though I love the really fast Cafec T90s for manual brewing.
• If you look carefully you'll notice that none of the text on screen is properly centred. Ridiculous!
• Most of the water tank opening is covered by the handle and it's near impossible filling it without getting splashes outside.
• This should be obvious but you need to put good coffee, ground with a decent grinder in to get good coffee out.
• In the US you get generic supermarket filter that will work perfectly. In India you can buy the Kalita NK102 filters for single serve.
I don't know why I feel compelled to watch review videos of a machine I've already purchased and use almost daily, but here we are. Thank you for your review and I'm glad you love the machine as much as I do
i do the same! sometimes reviewers point out things that i never knew 😆
@@justfeelingirie i third that
Nothing like the feeling of confirmation bias! 😂
@@sjmelsom yep, this. like.....buy some hifi, think it sounds amazing, watch some reviews that tell you it sounds amazing, get a warm feeling (or possibly smugness).
I confess to a preference for watching music reaction videos to songs I already like.
thank you for posting this! amazing review. can't believe you have only 40k subscribers with content like this
🙏
Agreed! The quality really is top notch. A very thoughtful, thorough, and well rounded review. Earned my sub. ☕️
Always a great pleasure to watch your reviews - thank you!
Thank you!
I'd bet the screen is circular because they wanted to use the same screen as the EKG Pro Kettle to save some development cost. The knob looks the same too.
They wanted to save money so they could rip off better margins. I recon this costs around 80 bucks to make and they sell it for $365
@@DuBstep115 It's a business bro. It makes good coffee, looks great, and doesn't take much effort to operate. If them making money offends you and you're willing to put in more time, get a v60.
@DuBstep115 I reckon this machine costs around $80 to produce, and a few million $ of r&d and software engineering salary to develop.
I have this machine as well and absolutely love it. With that said, I fully agree with all of the negative things you’ve mentioned. One thing that I feel deserves mentioning more… The carafe is absolutely amazing. I am coming from the ratio six and this new carafe blows it out of the water in every way. I’m looking forward to seeing what they do after seeing this video. Thank you for what you do, sir!
This review was exactly the review I was waiting for. I realized in watching this that I'm not really looking for a pour over replacement because I rather enjoy the process, seeing how one bean draws at a particular grind setting vs others, it only takes a few minutes, and it has next to zero cleanup and maintenance. There are times when I'd like to make a batch for others, and I think the idea of just getting a dedicated batch brewer makes more sense.
The amount of work you put into these videos really shows. So thorough.
btw, would love to see a review of the DF83V, but would even moreso love to see a comparison of the SSP MP burrs and the Lab Sweets!
I agree with this video. I've had my Aiden for almost a month and it's the best coffee I've ever had.
I'm the opposite of most users. My brews are nearly always at least 8 cups, so I have my batch brew down rather than single serve.
The app works well enough and I have my custom brew for my batch.
The only downside I've seen so far is when you take the "shower head" off to clean. I thought it was going to get dirty behind it. It doesn't, it's sealed. The "problem" is the coloured green and blue inserts can and will fall out. Don't be like me and drop the minute green single insert rubber down the garbage disposal. Yeah I got it back and won't be doing that again.
Even with the bag of Peet's Major Dickson that someone gifted us at Christmas, the taste is next level. Had a friend over that's really into brewing and he raved about the taste and simply would not believe that it was pre-ground Peets.
I had the Moccamaster for less than a week before it went back. I really didn't like it at all. Looks cool, batch brews tasted weak and bitter.
Expensive, especially for someone like me that isn't into brewing to levels where I'm grinding beans to sub--atomic accuracy using water that's a specific clarity, yes. Is the extra over the moccamaster worth it? Yes. Absolutely. Is it worth it knowing that I now have an extra 15 minutes in the morning and my coffee is ready and waiting for me. You bet.
Now this is the comprehensive review of Aiden I've been waiting for. Thank you.
I backed early, and I think Aiden is awesome.
It’s easy and intuitive to use, and my wife and I like it better for single cups than the Original XBloom.
Making profiles is easy.
I did the same tests with the thermal probe and I was so impressed with the thermal stability and how it met the desired temp.
I can say that I agree with the performance of Aiden. From 8-10 grams to full 1500ml batches are really good.
Also, dialing coarser than you think you should, because Aiden extracts high.
Thank you for this review. I pre-purchased mine at Chicago Expo, and luckily got a walk through by Nick himself. I think the coolest thing here is the ability to get roasters to design their own profile and you be able to load those into your brewer when you get their beans.
I do agree that the water before dose setting is a bit weird. I agree they should allow you to flip that when you wanted. (Especially when you are near the end of a bag of coffee).
The thing I wish there was - would be the ability to know the grind size needed for a brew. This is not so intuitive. But, to be fair, it’s an issue throughout the industry. Closet thing I’ve seen is the kruve ruler.
Anyway, I’m pretty much enjoying my Aiden. It REALLY helps on days when I don’t have the time to faff with a manual pour over. Also, I think their kettle/server is the best designed one I’ve ever seen and used with a batch brewer. The ability to switch out for your own on single serve is brilliant too!
I’ve been waiting for someone I respect to review this. It’s now happened. I was rather hoping you’d say it was awful, then I wouldn’t be tempted to buy it. That backfired. 😊
Hilarious and true!
Haha sorry about that. I really wanted to hate this product.
Hi! Aiden update!! After about 1 week & only creating a couple of my profiles, my coffee tastes simply awesome!! Maybe my pour over technique has sucked for a long time?! I have dozens of pour over devices - V60, Kalita Wave, Both Fellow Staggs, Clever Dripper, Hario Switch, etc, etc. Also both Moccamasters (the Select & Cup one). All of these are great devices & machines. I have learned many tips tricks & hacks for most of them too. But nothing has made my coffee taste this delicious as the Aiden! Really hard to believe with a drip machine but I am very happy with it. .... I want to add that your review was spot on & very very helpful. Yes as u pointed out the Aiden is not perfect. But it's still better than anything else that I have tried. Thank you so much!
Do you have any brew profiles to share? I'm still trying to get to grips with mine
@@garycomp6494 Fairly simple: I set 2 profiles, a Light Roast & a Medium Roast. I only set a bloom time (40 seconds) & brew temperature for each. As well as ratio I prefer 1:15. Nothing fancy but all much the same as I did pour over. The only other consideration is altitude - if applicable it's important. I also did not wait for Aiden to tell me how much coffee to grind. I consistently like to use 25g for my coffee. On Aiden this is usually is around 2.5 cups @ 375ml water for both roasts
Echoes all my complaints/compliments about the brewer. Great review.
It's a shame that the Aiden made for such an entertaining video, but there's no doubt that all of the suggestions would make it the undisputed gold standard for its category. Fantastic rant as always
This channel is consistently one of the best coffee channels on UA-cam - shocked it doesn't get the subscribers it deserves. Keep up the great work.
Thank you so much!
Thanks!
one more wish please: we want different colors! the green one would be super cool
thank you for the great review, it's nice that that thing can not only perfectly brew for my imaginary friends but also for me alone
This is a brilliant review - I will wait for V2 I think - for me, the UI issues and build quality need to be improved.
Great review. Of all the things listed, the one that sticks out to me as a miss is what you mentioned about flip flopping the grams of coffee and milliliters of coffee. I just want to eyeball and grind some beans and whatever my output happened to be, let the machine dictate the water needed and dispense that.
For the water vs coffee first in the UI. Yes, most non-coffee-nerds want to set water volume first. This comes from a more batch brewing mentality, not a single cup mentality. "I want 8 cups of coffee for 3 people" is the formula.
Loved the video!!
Now waiting for the xBloom Studio comparison
Yes!!! 💯🙌💯
Was about to say this! xBloom Studio comparison is a must!
This channel is so good, and it’s gonna grow fast. Well done!
Thank you for the review Raghunath! You touch on all the points that I wondered about and you don't pull any punches. I will probably pass on this version (unless I can get it discounted) but hope for an improved Aiden 2 in a year or two.
I got burned by the Kickstarter Xbloom; it looks and feels great, makes good coffee, but the UX was just hoooorrible and the machine died on me after few months, so I'm much more cautious with any type of automated coffee maker now.
"Like a F*** snapping turtle"....LOL...cracked me up!!
As others correctly pointed out, they use the circular screen likely because they are already using it elsewhere, it’s a pretty classic way of lowering R&D and manufacturing cost, secondly they likely defend it by saying it help streamline it with the form language of the other products. The knob also look very much like the one on my kettle
But I agree having that screen on the kettle was fine because, well, it’s a kettle, there not really much it needs to do.
On a machine this advanced, it is just an odd corner to cut and drastically reduce the user experience, as you really need a much larger screen and more physical control to ever want to dial in on the machine.
I’ll likely purchase it once v2 is out, as there seems to be quite the few child diseases on it as with many new consumer products, but dos seem very promising once they ironed out all the small issues and weird design choices and fixed the UI
I agree that machine definitely strike me as an app controlled machine, in that it seems a bit odd the app isn’t ready.
Great review. I think I might end up picking up one in the future after they make some of the necessary adjustments.
I like my Hiroia Hikaru, very consistent and helps me out when I can't stop what I'm doing to make family and friends a cup. They just grind, add water, filter...etc.
Great review -- I've been looking for a review that spent more time on the flavor & quality of the coffee than on the features. Thanks for this.
Like you, I cannot and will not give up my Zen experience in the morning, making coffee with my V6.
The build quality leaves a lot to desire unfortunately, but otherwise what a product. love that you are enjoying it.
If you're in the US and you want this machine, you must buy it before January when the tariffs go into place 😂 otherwise it's going to cost 60% more
Hopefully, Fellow will begin manufacturing their products in the US.
@@scottintexasAmericans don’t want manufacturing jobs at the wages they want to pay. We’re just going to pay more, grumble a little bit, then finally accept it and continue to enrich the ruling class.
@@scottintexasthen the machine will cost 300% more since US minimum wage is significantly higher then...you know country
I couldn't agree more with this review. It's both the greatest brewer of all time and the most annoying brewer I've ever owned. Like the ode I bet a gen 2 will fix most of the quirks. The three year warranty is nice and I bet a lot of people will be making claims. Those hinges don't feel like they'll last. Comparing it to something like a moccamaster is pretty wild. Yes this has awesome tech and makes great single serve coffee, but the moccamaster is the king of reliability. I question the long-term reliability of the Aiden.
Absolutely. Which is why I ended the review asking for a Studio version. They got the brewing down they just need to improve the other stuff.
There is no fixing the cost/quality ratio. It horrible, its more plastic than 100€ brewers while being 4x the price.
Great review! I'm curious, for medium to light roast, what grind setting would you estimate on the Timemore Sculptor 78?
21:50 What is that measuringcup?
Subminimal subscale
Awesome review as always! Hot take, the Melitta style brewers are underrated! Paired with a good grinder they prouduce some amazing cups!
Great review! Thanks a lot.
Hey thanks for watching and leaving a comment. Huge fan of your content.
Amazing video and detailed analysis. I totally agree with all your points. For me I want a great cup but not with annoying UX.
Thanks for your time much appreciated.
Full disclosure; I've been awaiting the Aramse review to make up my mind on this damn thing 😁
It basically confirmed that yeah, the Aiden has very particular quirks. Buuut I'm willing to live with them in order to get as close to an hands-off manual brew as possible, while also having batch brews available for when larger company shows up uninvited (or I just need a big pot to keep me awake to enough to hit a deadline before the night is over...)
Going to hold off for as long as my grubby hands can though, because my god does the software need improvement.
Just because we can launch with very barebones and minimal software these days and update it later, doesn't mean that we should.
I don’t think you’ll regret holding off for a bit if buggy, unresponsive software bothers you.
Amazing as usual! Any plans for a side by side with the xBloom? Would be also interesting to understand your perspective on how these technical marble can withstand the pressure of time.
Trying to get our hands on a unit. xBloom refused to send us a unit without signing a contract so we declined. It isn’t available in India right now. But hopefully soon.
@@aramse thanks!!
Yeah. I’m super interested in this as well. Have used the xbloom and while it’s super awesome it has its quirks as well. I’m someone who cares mostly about cup quality so the higher price of the xbloom plus being locked into their grinder and unknown maintenance costs kind of pushes me away.
@@aramse that's a bummer considering how many coffee-youtube folks are involved with the xBloom. I was hoping they'd be open to an outside reviewer. Love your videos!
Your review is spot on. I suffer from some of the same things that you covered. I pre purchased the Aiden to get the 3 bags of coffee. My most important feature was the single pour over using the app to set up the recipe. I loved the brewed coffee using the profiles provided with each bag of coffee but setting up a new recipe using the menu and button pushing is very frustrating. Fellow, Get the app out for our use. I received my Aiden in mid September. It’s now mid November. Follow has had enough time to develop the app if they properly designed the integration with the firmware.
Apparently there’s a new update to the app coming in a few days.
Really excellent review. The UI design is crazy, and the "back" option is downright INSANE. What were they thinking??
It really isn't that bad I don't think
Haha. The focus was all on the cup. Hope they fix it.
For the price I feel like we should hold Fellow to higher standards. This is NOT good UI and as a customer you shouldn’t have to put up with it. :)
@@aramse I'm used to the xBloom which is basically all on the app so I'm actually enjoying being able to do stuff without the app lol
Best video yet, now you only need the reach ❤
If they have a circular display, then they should center the menu text so people can read what's above and below it.
Weird design
This is a phenomenal review!! Thank you!!
Finally, someone acknowledging the round screen. As a designer I agree, specifically if they put a square slap of shiny plastic in front of you. At that point just give me the round screen straight up. 😡
Excellent review as usual of course, and some interesting insights into design analysis. I saw this in Copenhagen and it looked cool, but the little circular display is in fact curious.
Glad that it does so well with single brewing. Have you by chance ever tried the Cup One by Technivorm? It doesn't have any parameters, so it can't really compare to this, but I wonder what your take on it would be. Cheers!
Thanks Tom. I have the one cup and it’s decent but the extractions are lower and the presentation in the cup just not as sweet and evenly extracted for what I remember. Would be fun to try a side by side but I don’t have one with me right now.
@ Thanks for your answer! I know it’s old tech, but I like Technivorm. Comparing the extraction rate would be indeed interesting. Cheers!
Hey, there are two more brewers that are very similar and focus on single serve coffees, temperature and flow control: Hiroia Hikaru and Hiroia Samantha. I have the Hiroia Hikaru and think it’s a really good, well designed piece of art. Would be curious, what you think of it, also how it compares to the fellow Aiden. What I like is that you can basically but any carafe and any dripper below the shower head. You can also see the brewing, which was one of your main critique points for the Aiden. Maybe that is motivation for you!
as a new owner of a xBloom i love how different but yet similar the two machines are.
Great video, as always! I really appreciate your designer's eye on these products.
Nick seems like a very nice guy, and everyone in the industry seems to complement his abilities, but every Fellow product seems like this one. Technically capable, and I want to love it, but it's just kind of shitty build quality. Every fellow product I own (2 carter move mugs and an Ode 2) is a constant hope that it doesn't crap out, it feels like driving an old car that might break down at any time. My Ode makes amazing coffee, but it makes some really odd noises and rattles a lot, plus it's a pain to clean without scratching it or damaging the screws to do the recommended deep cleaning. It's already broken once and was covered by warranty, but I'm sure they wont cover it again.
I really love every fellow product I own (Carter Move, Ode 2, Stagg EKG) but especially for the Ode I feel like I'd rather have paid 10-20% more with a commensurate increase in build quality.
Yeah the dreaded rattle in the ode is very worrying sometimes. I mentioned it in our review.
@@aramse Honestly the rattle doesn’t scare me any more - I just wish burr alignment were easier!
I'd love to hear your full list of auto brew recommendations. I just returned a Moccamaster as the brew time is simply to fast for batches of around 600ml. It's a beautiful, well-built machine but the actual coffee it makes does not compare to a pourover.
This is the one of the best reviews I've ever seen for any product. No wasted words, clean and easy to understand, good pace (a bit fast), thorough, some light humour without being silly. Fantastic video.
Thank you!
Great and thorough review as always! Keep up the good work.
I have noticed my Aiden also trends towards over-extraction/astringency. I think the issue is two-fold:
1. Most of us brewing manually are obviously not pouring into a contained unit, we're pouring into an open air brewer. A lot of thermal energy is being lost to the ambient air.
2. Aiden's temperatures are what they say they are. When heating water in a gooseneck kettle, we're getting a temperature reading from the water at the bottom of the kettle. The water in the spout will be cooler by the time it's actually poured. This is to say that we need to recalibrate our thinking with Aiden. We might set a kettle to 93C, but we aren't aware that by the time we pour even moving quickly the spout temperature of the water is maybe only 89-90C.
Great review as always!
Why would a cooler temperature over extract?
@@KrishnenduKeshe’s saying you’re brewing colder on a kettle than you think you are. If you then set the Aiden to the temperature you aim for on your kettle, you’ll brew hotter than you normally do.
@@justapourguy Now I get it. Thanks.
@@KrishnenduKes you have it backwards. Aiden brews hotter by virtue of being a closed system and it's precise water temperature. From the point where Aiden heats the water to where it pours it a much smaller distance than a gooseneck kettle. You lose a lot more than you think in terms of temp pouring from a kettle than you think you do.
@@6tuf85dyfu I get it.
What filter papers were you using for testing? I had Abacas ready for the arrival of my machine and they flow insanely fast and the coffee is quite oily. I tried to fellow papers after and they drain way slower and a cleaner cup. I still prefer the abacas though.
Here in India you only get the Kalita NK102 filter. I did try my favourite filters, the really fast Cafec T90 folded but I preferred cups with slower paper on the Aiden.
I kinda wish this had a built in grinder somehow. It somewhat defeats the purpose of automatically brewing coffee if it's old grounds in the pot. It's certainly an amazing piece of tech, but if I have to manually grind each batch fresh I might as well pour it too and save myself $300
I'm enjoying my Aiden. A larger rectangular screen would be nice.
People designing this kind of machine need to take into account the ritual aspect of what makes manual brewing a great experience.
For example: just having a window glass allowing you to watch the water hitting the coffee and the brew happening would make it 100 times better.
Build quality doesn't bother me so much but there is soooo much plastic in contact with hot water here, I'm not really comfortable drinking coffee that certainly has a lot of microplastics in it every day. I would buy a more expensive machine (even double the current price) with the same technical abilities if there was no plastic in contact with hot water.
Hey, how many Comandante c40 clicks for 1 cup and for batch brew
Question for you: how different is the experience between using a coffee specific profile vs using the built in presets? As a lay person who wouldn’t know how to adjust the temperature and pulse time parameters, would they be entirely reliant on the coffee producer providing an Aiden profile? The sales pitch of importing profiles is appealing, but it feels unlikely that companies unaffiliated with Fellow are going to go out of their way to create product-specific profiles. Unless there is a user repository of shareable profiles (akin to EQ settings for headphones), it feels like a regular user would still need to manually dial in their brew.
The lag could probably be improved(maybe not much without a lot of development work), and the skipped steps if they did the hardware right can be easily fixed with a FW update.
I've done several interfaces with similar encoder knobs and you should always give priority to the user interaction in your code, you should never miss a user input.
Did you compare different filters. Maybe Cafec 102 vs. Melitta #2? Any thoughts on brewing dynamics with different type of filter paper? And of course great video!!!
for people who have had this for a while now: how long can the carafe keep a pot hot? I’ve seem a lot of criticism that the coffee (full batch) only stays hot for about 20min.
The criticisms are accurate if you’re brewing lower volumes. Anything over 600ml manages to stay hot for 2-4 hours. Again, the more you fill the carafe the more stable the temp.
Do you have an xBloom machine as well? Can you please do a comparison video?
They asked us to sign a contract so we declined. We need to find a way to get the xBloom here along with a bunch of pods to test.
I've been doing my dark roasts pretty coarse and using the dark guided brew profile. I ground size 7 on my Ode gen 1 and it was sweet and balanced on onyx's Eclipse and Monarch
Is there any machine for making chai?
I love your videos. So much funn and great dad jokes ❤
Great review!! Can u please answer 1 question: Does Aiden coffee taste significantly better than a Moccamaster? MM is great but usually tastes like a good drip coffee - good but hardly great (no matter what I attempt to tweak with the variables mostly grind size). It seems Aiden tastes more like pour over - is this true? taste is my deciding factor with Aiden. Thank u & keep up the excellent work(and entertaining) videos!
The Aiden tastes like a proper pour over brewed by someone who knows what they’re doing. The MM is a classic and a workhorse but in the cup the Aiden wins.
thank you. ordered from Benki today 🙏
I adore my Aiden, have used it everyday since I got it a couple months ago. But damn do I feel like a beta tester using it. I have already sent 3 bug reports so far (issues that are being or have now been fixed) and wouldn’t be surprised about sending more in the near future. But I feel exactly the same as you about the brewer and am already hoping for a Studio Edition too 😅
You mentioned it brews well even 10g doses, what settings do you use for that?
Dude you are both hilarious and super insightful. Your humor feels very Californian - did you spend time here?
Wonderful review guys! Did nick mention when the app will be available?
We have a big update coming in just days now. Hang tight!
Nope. Didn’t get a specific answer
@ ok. Thanks for the reply.
Is the milk frothy?
05:28 Nice painting over the boom arm in the top left :)
Haha damn. Hoping no one would catch that. Editing error. :)
Great video, fun an informative as usual! I will get one whenever my Sage Precision Brewer gives up on me… the thing is it is a tank, not sure if this will ever happen haha BTW, what paper filters are you using for de mellita style? Thanks!
Using the Kalita N102 filters
this review is a technical masterpiece
Hahah thanks so much man! Also thanks for the sick footage of the Moccamaster.
If its like the ode the real product will come out a bit later with everything better
It looks like a Borg cube: "We are the Aidens resistance is futile..." Me: "Ha! Mr Data, hand me the Switch"... thx for the review!
Unreal they're still having switch issues. I have a gen 1 stagg EKG and its temp dial doesn't register every click as a degree and it is very frustrating. It's my second base as well because the switch went bad on the first.
So torn between this and the xbloom studio
If you make single cup take xbloom and you dont have tools
Love your videos❤
Do they plan on making a version where liquid, especially hot liquid, isn't in contact with plastic?
Doubt there are any such plan at the moment. Like I mentioned in the video changing the materials in the brew path would have a huge negative impact on the thermal performance so it would take a lot of rethinking and reengineering to make this brewer perform at the same level with other materials.
Hmm, seems great but I think I’ll just wait if there’s a V2 in the future
Aiden Version 2 will likely have or allow:
#1 Tetsu 4:6 or Hoffman brews.
#2 Pour ml's beyond Bloom can vary in water amounts. Like 70ml for one pour, 30 ml for another pour when doing multiple pours.
#3 Version 2 allows Flow Control Options. Flow rates. Etc
#4 Usable Ratio's below 1:14 that can be recommended and taste wonderful.
#5 Rectangular Screen Display
#6 App Functions completed
@aramse I have the same grinder and burrs, do you mind sharing what grind setting you're using for this demo?
I have my zero calibrated to burr lock and I’m usually grinding between 55 and 60. Little coarser even if it’s a very processed coffee that more soluble.
@ awesome, I’m between 53-60 too so I can stop sweating. Hahaha. Thank you for your insightful review. Definitely was the reason I purchased.
Is the basket also made out of plastic?
Yup
Mine is a prototype without wifi, but I think the interface is great. Scrolling speed feels responsive, etc. I did grew up programming sounds in rack effects units so my bar is not at the highest point I guess. 🙃
An app with an ability to edit your profiles and share them with a community cloud share system would be kind of ace. People could give recipes a thumbs up or down and the top rated ones could be sorted... So if you buy a bag of coffee from a place you can check if there are recipes and pick a good one to start with.
That’s actually the idea with the app but it’s not here yet so we’ll just have to wait and see. :)
Where did you get that cool dosing cup?
Subminimal subscale
I was today years old before knowing there are coffee brewing recipes.
How do I brew 500mL coffee in the single batch basket?
Keep the shower head on single and ignore that and the basket warning. You should be able to choose skip or something similar.
@@aramseit won’t let me bypass the warnings. Maybe it’s a US thing. I don’t want to go to the batch brew based on your review of it, but I always drink 500mL
Is there any place to buy your brewer in Bangalore? Or coffee recommendations for Bangalore? Only here for 2 days
Hey yes Benki cafe stocks our brewer. It’s also a really nice cafe so 2 birds with one stone.
@aramse amazing!! Thank you so much!
great review! Would you sare your thoughts about Comandante grind settings that would be a good start point for such a small 260ml brew?
20-30 clicks depending on the kind of coffee you drink and how you like your coffee extract it.
@@aramse cool, thx:)
Great review!
Not for me at this point, but it's an interesting brewer.
"What brand is the scale cup used at 21:50?"
Subminimal subscale
MSRP here is 415€, for that price I expect it to be made out of stainless steel with zero plastic parts. Sage Precision Brewer is 199€ and its almost all metal, this being doble the price there should be exotic materials like titanium. I bought Melitta Epour for 119€, just get that.
Can it brew dark roast? because their grinder doesn’t like it.
I cover this in the review :)
@ haha ohh 😯! Thanks! Honestly i stopped when you mentioned it felt kind of cheap near the lid but I will now watch the full review. Appreciate the response!
Loving your content