Review on ☕ Brewista Smart Scale II: The Ultimate Brewing Companion for Perfect Coffee and Espresso at Home - USB Battery, 70 oz / 200 g Capacity, 6 Modes by Mack Douglas

This is a tricky review, on the one hand it has some advantages over what I used before, on the other hand it doesn't do much better to justify the $60 higher price point in my eyes. To be as honest as possible I am breaking this review down into what I like, what I don't like and what I use this scale for specifically for my needs just in case it doesn't suit mine but you might fit. . .Like: - I like that it's rechargeable. A tiny little feature that is so very handy. I don't like having batteries handy, especially the AAA batteries used by many scales I've used. It's inconvenient, I don't have anything else to use it with, so being able to charge it with a very standard micro USB cable is a great feature. But this is a very simple and standard function for good scales. I love that they are small, they easily fit anywhere in my coffee setup without the hassle of my old scale. It does everything my old scale does, but it's a lot smaller, making my setup less busy. Always good at this hobby. It goes with many good espresso drip trays, maybe not cheap espresso drip trays that barely fit in a cup, but certainly good ones. Dislikes: - He's short. As good as the form factor is, it also makes it difficult to use drip irrigation equipment, as some of them are quite large. I use Chemex daily and my scale is about as big as the scale can handle before the buttons are difficult to use. I use Chemex for 6 cups so actually it might be too small. It doesn't have that much response time. It takes a second to register changes in the measurements, and when you press the time button, the entire screen goes blank for a full second. This is strange as my other scales, which are much cheaper, had no delay between pressing the button and starting the time. Neutral: - Accuracy is okay. No exception, it measures grams to the nearest 0.1 point, but with its so-so response time it's hard to tell how accurate it is at any given point to any point. If I take something off and then put it back on it still reads the same measurement, or usually very close to it, so I have no reason to doubt its accuracy, I just don't know. It's no more accurate than my previous scale, so make of it what you will. My Usage: (You can skip this if you're not interested, it's just to point out what I'm basing my review on.) I drink coffee 99.9% of the time, so maybe my usage isn't right are these scales for? But it works well enough for that. All my equipment fits perfectly on it: French press, Chemex, mocha pot, everything I need for weighing works great on the scale. Very often, I just put the grinder on the scale and weigh the beans in the grinder rather than in a separate bowl. Scales work more than problem-free. I always use a timer of any size for the flowering phase, mostly flowering within 30 seconds, sometimes up to 45. It really depends on the freshness of the coffee, but that's why it's important to me that the timer responds without delay. I don't need the scale when watering in stages, especially to reach a specific final water weight. I also measure coffee brewing by the coffee to water ratio, usually 1:15, so I regularly use a calculator or app to figure out what my water weight should be. That's all I use. I use a scale to see the weight of the coffee, the weight of the water, and the brewing time. This is a fairly common usage. I don't currently use an espresso scale as I don't have an espresso machine good enough to make espresso the way I want it. still works), but it's over $60 more expensive than this one. I paid $20 for a scale that I can't even name that has a zero-delay timer, has about the same response time and accuracy of measurement, only is slightly larger, and runs on AAA batteries. For $89, I could just save another $10 and get a Brewista ratio scale, which is really more than I expect from a high-end scale. That's a lot of money for something that won't significantly improve your beer compared to the cheap scale. The fact that it doesn't have a built-in coffee ratio calculator, it's not very responsive, it has a timer that takes a while to even fire really makes me question the actual value of this scale outside of its form factor. If you're looking for the form factor, it's a very small size. That's all I can say about it. It's not fantastic in everything I've used it for and nothing has blown me away. It's still mostly plastic and actually doesn't look much better than my $20 scale. I also have no idea how long it will last, hopefully for a long time, especially for a price that is really necessary. If it doesn't last at least 3 years, it's not even worth a bit. I hate criticizing what I was trying to use. It took me a long time to write this juice because I was wondering if I missed something. Maybe yes, but whatever I'm missing, it doesn't make up for the difference in price.