[Kolumkilli] loves his Keurig coffee maker, as it makes him an excellent cup of coffee, but he doesn’t like waiting for it to brew. So he set out to make it wirelessly controlled via his computer… with the press of a button, he can have his coffee ready and waiting for him when he gets up.
After carefully dismantling his Keurig, he set to locating the main buttons on the PCB, and proceeded to wire in relays in parallel to the ones he wanted to control. Throw in a Moteino and add the notification LEDs as inputs as well and now he can control and monitor almost all the coffee maker’s functions via a web browser at his desk. Now if only he could remember to put a new coffee cup in…
There’s a great writeup on the forum post, so if you want to see a more detailed build log, check it out! And if you’re looking to add even more functionality to your Keurig, why not run a waterline to it?
[Thanks Felix!]
Somebody should tell him it only takes about 10 seconds to “brew”.
I take it you don’t have a Keurig. Even the expensive models have to heat the water, which can take from one to three minutes depending on the model. Not saying it’s worth all of this trouble, but it looks like a fun project if hacking fancy coffee makers is your thing.
Still, there must be some something else that can be done in those two minutes.
(Nobody tell this guy how long toasters take to toast toast…)
>> Still, there must be some something else that can be done in those two minutes.
I agree, I have the lowliest of Keurigs, the B130, which takes three whole minutes to brew a cup. I start it, then fire up my RSS reader and by the time I’ve decided which stories to read it’s finished brewing. I would never think of trying to automate it just to supposedly save time; it simply wouldn’t be worth the effort (i.e. a “bad hack”).
There are sub-one-minute coffee brewers out there, but they are morbidly expensive and pretty much automated as-is. Take the Keurig B300SE, not only does it brew nearly instantly via a permanent water line, it will also dispose of the empty K-cup for you when you go to load another one. It would also dispose of nearly two weeks’ pay if I were to buy one. No thanks.
What could possibly go wrong, Does he also have a wireless cup placer and wireless K cup dispenser for it as well?
I agree, this hack is not practical. Unless he placed the kcup and cup in the night before and program the machine to dispense in the morning but that tech was in coffee makers since the dawn of time.
My hack to get freshly brewed coffee in the morning without having to wait: get up, turn on coffee maker, do something else for a minute (e.g. go to bathroom), grab coffee.
I agree, it’s not what one would consider practical as the Keurig set-up would require loads more automation to fully solve the “waiting” issue, but honestly that’s not what these hacks are about. It’s about having an idea, thinking what would it take to make it work and doing it. Bravo on that my friend as this is an impressive concept test and great execution! Plus I got to see what’s under the hood of these machines and now see why they are $100 to $150 a pop!
This is the right way to do it
http://youtu.be/70TnyXfTHP8
Shutup and take my money. Hahaha. That’s great. Now the geek group needs to do that with Jeff.
Oh my…
Haha…alright. $150 for the brewer, .50cents for the K-Kup and $150,000 for the automated/personalized brewing robot mechanism. $150,150.50 dollar cup of coffee. And the sad part…it almost seems worth it!
Forgive my ignorance if there’s an obvious reason, but why wouldn’t you just keep it at your desk? Then you don’t have to get up at all.
I never turn my Keurig off so it never needs to “warm up”- I set a cup under, push start, and by the time I’ve gotten the cream out of the fridge it’s done brewing. I like the IDEA of waking up to the smell of fresh coffee, but you can always just buy a coffeemaker with a programmable brew time if that’s crucial to you…
You can always ‘buy’ stuff, and not make it, for sure. You can buy your coffee, your lunch, your dinner, your date & even sex :) But sometimes it’s just a little more fun to ‘do it’ instead of buying ;)