[drrotmos]

Oh, don't get me started on what the problem is :D

* Espresso machine electronics are very proprietary. There's basically one manufacturer, no published schematics and very closed firmwares.

* That one manufacturer's hardware occasionally breaks and needs replacement, and they charge up the wazoo for it.

* Firmware updates is not a thing. Buying a new controller with the new firmware is your only option.

* Espresso machine electronics hardware is pretty firmly stuck in the past. If you're lucky you have a 128x64 px OLED, but more likely you have LED indicators, 7 segment displays, or graphical LCDs.

There are absolutely exceptions to this, but for 95% of the espresso machines out there, you're definitely not getting the full potential of the hardware.

[hiatus]

> * Espresso machine electronics hardware is pretty firmly stuck in the past. If you're lucky you have a 128x64 px OLED, but more likely you have LED indicators, 7 segment displays, or graphical LCDs.

I don't know if I'd consider adding a screen to an espresso machine to be an improvement. What would it be useful for?

[dgacmu]

I have a no-display machine and I wish it had a few things that a screen would facilitate:

(1) Automatic shot timer.

(2) Shot volume display (my machine is a volumetric one, but I have to measure the weight of the output to calculate what volume it dispensed)

(3) Ability to configure other parameters, such as pre-infusion time, where I'm guessing the manufacturer just left this out because it would complicate an already kind of painful button + LED UI.

I also wish it had a group head temperature sensor, but that would add more hardware to the machine than just the screen.

[secabeen]

All this exists from Decent Espresso, but they are the 1% of the market that is the exception.

[mathgeek]

I think we’re coming full circle back to identifying what this company is trying to solve for.

[dfxm12]

I don't think any of these issues are solved by selling you a pile of parts and having you build the machine yourself. An open/more flexible PID is a great idea, but that's just one piece of this product & could be built into an already assembled machine. There are some machines (Decent, Sam Remo You) that give you a lot more control, but even this level of control probably goes unused by a lot of its users if the h-b forums are to be believed.

More control than that, or a totally open PID, might be a hard sell for safety reasons. That alone is a nonstarter, but even as you approach that level of openness, it would be pretty hard to support and really isn't needed if you just want a good shot of espresso and aren't taking an niche academic approach to an already niche process. This is why you likely won't see it in more commercial machines.

[dgacmu]

Which one manufacturer do you have in mind?

Perhaps you're thinking of the commercial market and I'm thinking of consumer, but there's been a lot of really interesting developments in the last few years at the intersection of affordable and high quality output -- I own a plus Bambino plus now, for example, which is simply a delightful machine, though I too wish I could modify the firmware.

[drrotmos]

Gicar. If you're looking at home machines from manufacturers that also do commercial (e.g. Profitec, ECM, Lelit, Rancilio, La Marzocco etc), they almost exclusively use Gicar electronics.