In the wise words of my favorite fictional FBI agents, Dale Cooper, «every day, once a day, give yourself a present. Don’t plan it, don’t wait for it; just let it happen. It could be a new shirt in a men’s store, a catnap in your office chair, or two cups of good, hot, black coffee». While you may not have an office chair or buy your shirts in men’s stores, you can still treat yourself to that delicious coffee.



Read more: Best smart security camera: Top models from Ring, Arlo, and Nest

The trouble is, making a fine cup of coffee takes time, and that’s something very few of us have as much of as we’d like. Thankfully, there are coffee makers that can take some of that work off our hands. Even better, there are smart coffee makers than can almost feel like magic. If you’re ready to enjoy great coffee the smart way, then here’s our list of the best smart coffee makers you can get your hands on right now, starting with the tried and tested Miele Wi-FI coffee maker.

The best smart coffee makers: Our top picks

Miele CM6360 MilkPerfection Automatic Wifi Coffee Maker

Miele

Miele CM6360 MilkPerfection Automatic Wifi Coffee Maker

1. Best smart coffee maker overall

An incredible coffee maker with perfect smart integration

This Miele coffee maker does it all. It can make everything from an espresso to a cappuccino, all with the press of a button. Don’t like buttons? Just ask Alexa to make whatever type of coffee you want, and the Miele will whirr into action like magic.

Pros

  • Can make almost any coffee you want
  • Excellent voice assistant integration
  • Self-cleaning
Cons

  • Expensive
  • Large footprint

Some smart tech can end up being more frustrating than it is useful. My robot vacuum cleaner loves to drop its Wi-Fi connection, so that instead of using voice control I’m forced to resort to using the physical remote like it’s still 2006. Some smart tech, however, is so good that it really does feel like magic. The Miele CM6360 smart coffee maker falls firmly into that category. Unlike a lot of the options on this list that have voice control that’s mostly limited to turning the machine on and off, the Miele CM6360 lets you choose the drink you want to make with your voice. The experience of asking Alexa to make you a cappuccino, and immediately hearing the Miele whirr into action to grind your beans and froth your milk is just unbelievably satisfying.

miele CM6360 with milk container

The coffee is also excellent. Any true third-wave coffee aficionado will tell you that an automatic machine will never be able to match what you can make by dialing in the perfect grind size with your own grinder, spending sufficient time on your puck prep, and brewing with a high-end dedicated espresso machine. But the Miele manages to go from bean to cup and produces a really balanced cup. You may never get a god shot, but you’ll get very good coffee every time. Add in the ability to make everything from a flat white to a cappuccino thanks to the MilkPerfection system that automatically steams and froths your milk for you, and this could really be the only coffee machine you’ll ever need.

miele CM6360

The Miele CM6360 doesn’t come cheap, but the attention to detail is excellent. The device is constantly cleaning itself out and tells you when it’s time to empty out the neatly filled puck tray or the large drip tray. Even the smart controls are well thought out; in order to control the Miele with your voice, you have to first press the MobileStart button on the front of the machine. This ensures that you don’t absent-mindedly ask Alexa to make you a coffee without having first put a cup under the spout. You can also power the device on and off via Alexa, or through the app.

If there’s one gripe it’s that when you ask Alexa to make you a coffee, you have to say ‘Alexa, ask Miele to make an espresso’ which is more of a mouthful than you might want. However, it’s easy enough to create an Alexa routine that will run the right program for you when you say ‘Alexa, make me an espresso’ and honestly, I don’t think I could ever get bored by it.

Cafe Specialty Drip Coffee Maker

Cafe 

Café Specialty Drip Coffee Maker

2. Best smart coffee maker for pour over

Great pour over coffee from an SCA-certified coffee maker

This pour over coffee maker has the SCA seal of approval, meaning it’s been rigorously tested and found to produce great results. Great pour over coffee that you can make with your voice using Alexa or Google Assistant.

Pros

  • SCA certified
  • Stylish design
  • Alexa and Google Assistant control
Cons

  • Not the cheapest
  • App isn’t specific to coffee machines

If drip coffee is more your thing, then you might want to take a look at the Café Specialty Drip Coffee Maker. This is an SCA-certified automatic drip coffee maker that showers water over a bed of ground coffee sitting inside a filter and allows the water to drip through into the carafe below. It creates a different cup to an Americano which is just an espresso with some hot water added and is one of the best ways to enjoy the full flavours of your beans, especially for lighter roasts. SCA certification is something of a big deal; it means that the Specialty Coffee Association have deemed that the device meets its strict standards for areas such as brew temperature and uniformity of extraction.

The Café Specialty Drip Coffee Maker has a 10-cup thermal carafe that will keep your brewed coffee warm so that you can make several cups at once. You can choose from four options for the brew strength: Gold, Light, Medium, and Bold, and there’s an auto brew feature that can have your coffee ready for you when you wake up in the morning. The Café Specialty Drip Coffee Maker is Wi-Fi enabled, allowing you to control it using the SmartHQ app. You can also link to both Google Assistant and Alexa, which allows you start the device with commands such as ‘Alexa, start coffee brewing’. There’s no HomeKit compatibility, however, so you can’t use Siri.

Hamilton Beach Works with Alexa Smart Coffee Maker

Hamilton Beach

Hamilton Beach Works with Alexa Smart Coffee Maker

3. Best smart coffee maker for Alexa

A low-cost filter coffee maker that works perfectly with Alexa

This filter coffee maker makes a great cup of good, hot, black coffee, but also has some built-in smarts. Using Alexa you can start your coffee brewing with just your voice, and even select the brew strength. With Alexa routines, you can set a schedule, too.

Pros

  • Great Alexa integration
  • Choice of brew strengths
  • Good value
Cons

  • No Google Assistant or Siri support
  • Carafe can be fiddly

If pour over coffee isn’t your thing, and you just want a slug of good old drip brew coffee, then the Hamilton Beach Smart Coffee Maker may be just what you need. It doesn’t have any frills like a built-in grinder or smart display. Instead, it does two things really well. The first, and obviously most important, is making great coffee. There’s a front-fill reservoir for your water, and a built-in brew basket. Pour in your ground coffee and turn on, and your delicious coffee will start to brew, dripping through into the carafe beneath.

The second thing that the Hamilton Beach Smart Coffee Maker does is integrate with Alexa. Pair the coffee maker with your Alexa app, and you can immediately start using voice commands such as ‘Alexa, turn on my coffee maker’ or ‘Alexa, set the brew strength to regular’. Since the Alexa controls will work wherever you are, you can even start the coffee maker remotely when you leave work, so that the coffee is already brewed by the time you get home. What’s even better, however, is that you can create routines with Alexa so that your Hamilton Beach Smart Coffee Maker starts brewing at a set time each morning without you needing to do a thing. You can even get your coffee maker to start brewing automatically when you get home from work without needing to remember to start it up. The Hamilton Beach Smart Coffee Maker only works with Alexa; it’s not compatible with Siri or Google Assistant.

Gevi 4-in-1 Smart Pour Over Coffee Machine

Gevi

Gevi 4-in-1 Smart Pour Over Coffee Machine

4. Best smart coffee machine for control

A bean-to-cup pour over coffee maker with customizable brewing

This bean-to-cup pour over coffee maker may not have Wi-Fi capabilities, but it still packs in a lot of smarts. You have incredible control over everything including the grind size, brew ratio, bloom time, and dose, to help create the perfect pour over.

Pros

  • Great flat burr grinder with 51 settings
  • Incredible level of control over the brew
  • Touchscreen controls
Cons

  • Expensive
  • Steep learning curve

One of the keys to getting great tasting coffee is to grind your beans just before you brew. Pre-ground coffee is ok to a point, but ground coffee will begin to oxidize and go stale from almost the minute it’s ground, so grinding just before you brew is vital if you want to get the full flavor from your beans. Grinding beans in a machine or a manual grinder means one more step (and one more device) that’s coming between you and your delicious coffee. The Gevi 4-in-1 Smart Pour-over Coffee Machine fixes that by having a built-in grinder. Coffee aficionados will tell you that you really want the best grinder you can afford up to a point, but thankfully the Gevi 4-in-1 Smart Pour-over Coffee Machine has a pretty decent grinder on board. It uses 60mm stainless steel flat burrs which are vertically mounted for very little retention, and it has 51 adjustment settings, allowing you to dial in your grind for the optimum results.

The ground coffee falls into the carafe below, or rather into the filter in the top of the carafe. There’s a stainless steel mesh filter included, but for the best results, you should use paper filters. Water is then dripped over the grounds to produce a delicious pour over coffee. The built-in display can walk you through the brew process, but if you’re already a pour over fan, you can control the grind size, brew ratio, dose, bloom time, and more, and save your recipes when you find the perfect combination. In Barista mode, you can even control the brew process in real-time, following the progress via graphs on the display. There’s no Wi-Fi control, however; all the smarts are built into the Gevi 4-in-1 Smart Pour-over Coffee Machine itself.

Cafe Affetto Automatic Espresso Machine + Milk Frother

Cafe

Cafe Affetto Automatic Espresso Machine + Milk Frother

5. Best smart coffee maker for milk frothing

A smart espresso maker with a built-in milk frothing wand

If you love milk-based coffee drinks, then this could be the coffee make for you. It not only makes great espresso drinks from bean to cup, but also has a built-in frothing wand to create drinks such as cappuccinos. Smart controls let you customize grind time and water temperature.

Pros

  • Bean-to-cup
  • Built-in milk frothing wand
  • Customisable water temperature
Cons

  • Grinder only has five adjustment settings
  • Expensive

Milk-based coffee drinks are hugely popular, with drinks such as a latte or a cappuccino being many people’s go-to caffeine hit. In Italy, milk drinks are seen as a breakfast thing only; no self-respecting Italian would be seen drinking a cappuccino after 11am, but for the rest of us, all bets are off. If a cappuccino or a flat white is your drink of choice, then you might be interested in the Café Affetto Automatic Espresso Machine. Not only does this machine brew great espresso, but it also has a built-in milk frother than you can use to whip up all that delicious foam. It’s also another great bean-to-cup option, thanks to the built-in grinder.

Read more: Best budget Alexa gadget: Smart home on a shoestring

Add your beans and select from the choice of espresso-based drinks such as espresso, lungo, ristretto, or americano. The conical burr grinder (with five adjustment settings) will whirr into action, grind your beans, and within 90 seconds, your drink of choice will be pouring into your cup. Grab your milk pitcher and use the steam wand to froth up your milk, pour it on top of your espresso, and you’ve got yourself a delicious cappuccino or macchiato. The device is also Wi-Fi enabled, so you can use the SmartHQ app to customize your drink preferences such as grind time and water temperature.

Atomi Smart WiFi Coffee Maker

Atomi

Atomi Smart WiFi Coffee Maker

6. Best smart coffee maker for Google Assistant

A drip coffee maker that’s compatible with Alexa and Google Assistant

Drip coffee that you can make with your voice? Yes please. With support for both Alexa and Google Assistant, you can start your brew with just a few words. A carafe sensor ensures you’re not dripping coffee straight over your counter.

Pros

  • Great value
  • Supports Alexa and Google Assistant
  • Phone alerts when your coffee is ready
Cons

  • No HomeKit or Siri support
  • Carafe sensor can be problematic

The Atomi Smart Wi-Fi Coffee Maker is another simple but effective drip coffee maker with some additional Wi-Fi smarts added to the mix. Open the lid, and you can pour your ground coffee into the reusable filter basket. Fill up the water reservoir, turn the Atomi Smart Wi-Fi Coffee Maker on, and select from a choice of regular or strong coffee. Your coffee will start to brew, dripping through into the carafe beneath. If you need to pour a slug of coffee whilst the coffee is still brewing, there’s even a pause function that will stop the coffee dripping out while you fill up your cup.

The built-in Wi-Fi means that you can start the Atomi Smart Wi-Fi Coffee Maker brewing from your phone, even if you’re not at home. You can see in the app if the carafe is in place, so you don’t start dripping coffee all over your counter. When the coffee is ready, you’ll get a notification on your phone too, so you don’t forget to drink it. Trust me, I’ve been there many times. With the app, you can also create schedules for when you want the coffee maker to turn on, so that you wake up to smell of delicious coffee. The Atomi Smart Wi-Fi Coffee Maker is also compatible with both Alexa and Google Assistant, so you can start your coffee maker brewing just by using your voice.

Bonus: Home-made HomeKit coffee maker

If you’re an Apple user, you may have spotted that there are no HomeKit-compatible coffee makers on this list. That’s because coffee makers that work with HomeKit are few and far between. If you’re deep in the HomeKit ecosystem, however, all is not lost. You can create your own HomeKit coffee maker with just two things: a HomeKit-compatible smart plug, and a coffee maker with a physical switch.

Plug the coffee maker into the smart plug, with the power switch set to the ON position. You can now use the smart plug to turn the coffee maker on and off at will. Fill up the coffee maker with water and coffee, and plug it in to your smart plug, with the smart plug powered off. Then simply ask Siri to turn on your smart plug and hey presto, you have a HomeKit controlled coffee maker. Even better, give your smart plug a name such as ‘coffee maker’ and you can ask Siri to ‘turn on the coffee maker’ and your coffee machine will get to work.

The bottom line: What is the best smart coffee maker?

If you’re looking for a coffee machine that can make almost any drink you could ever want, and has voice controls that feel like magic, then the Miele CM6360 MilkPerfection Automatic Wi-Fi Coffee Maker is your dream come true. It makes great coffee, can knock up milk drinks without you lifting a finger, and when you ask Alexa to make you cappuccino, it will whirr into action before Alexa has even had change to respond. There’s no denying that it’s a steep price, but if you have the money, and you love your coffee, then this machine will give you years of satisfaction. On other hand, if you just want to be able to ask Alexa to make you a slug of hot joe when you wake up, then the Hamilton Beach Works with Alexa Smart Coffee Maker is a great choice that you can get your hands on for less than the price of a month’s worth of Starbucks.

Miele CM6360 MilkPerfection Automatic Wifi Coffee Maker

Miele

Miele CM6360 MilkPerfection Automatic Wifi Coffee Maker

Editor’s Choice

How I chose the best smart coffee makers

When choosing the best smart coffee makers, I wanted to ensure that there were options for people who wanted to create great pour over coffee, as well as those who prefer a nice slug of drip coffee. I also wanted to include coffee makers that can do everything from bean-to-cup as well as those that just do the basics. I tried to ensure a range of price points from the affordable to the luxury purchase, and I also hoped to include smart coffee makers that work with all the major voice assistants. In the end, however, there just weren’t many good options that offered HomeKit support.

How to choose the best smart coffee maker

There are some key questions you need to ask when choosing a smart coffee maker. Your answers to these questions will help you narrow down your choice.

What type of coffee do I want to drink?

Do you prefer a strong, thick cup of drip coffee to get you going in the morning? Is a pour over made with freshly-ground beans more your bag? Or do you like to drink lattes all day long, regardless of what the Italians may think? You’ll need to choose a coffee machine that fits with your preferences or opt for one that can make a wide variety of drink styles.

What smart home ecosystems does the coffee maker support?

If you’re all in on Alexa, then there are plenty of choices out there that offer Alexa support. Google Assistant is also widely supported, although some coffee makers may only support one or the other. Siri, however, gets very little support, as there just aren’t that many smart coffee makers compatible with HomeKit. Make sure that the coffee maker you buy supports your voice assistant of choice if you want to be able to experience the magic of brewing a coffee just by speaking.

How much should I spend on a coffee maker?

This really comes down to personal preference. You may find that a low-cost drip coffee maker is all that you need, in which case you don’t need to spend a huge amount. You may decide that you want a full bean-to-cup machine that can make milk drinks too, in which case you’re going to need to spend a lot more. The good news is that there are usually options to suit most budgets, although you may have to compromise on certain features.

Por TERABITE