Re the 25% off, BB withdrew the offer when they applied their £50 discount - but didn’t tell anyone. I messaged them about it last week when I was considering the Sandbox. After a bit of discussion, they told me they would make an exception and honour the discount but I’m still not sure that the Sandbox is for me so I walked away.
Sandbox Smart R1 - what does VIP cost?
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Gagaryn I have to say, I’m not surprised. The double-discount thing did suprise me. However, if they’re going to withdraw it inside the dates they specified, it’d be nice if they removed the page it was on …. which they may have now done. I haven’t looked.
What would annoy me rather, though, is when they stipulate the end date then don’t honour if. If (which I didn’t in the end) I had ordered, and if they then withdrew the discount, as a matter of principle, I’d withdraw the offer to buy. About which, of course, they probably wouldn’t much care, but I would. Having decided not to order, though, or at least, not right now, it’s academic anyway.
It is not the kind of thing that fills me with much enthusiasm for a retailer.
Yes, that’s pretty much what happened, albeit when I told them that I had decided not to buy without the 25% discount they did then relent and offer me that deal again. By then though I had thought better of it - I’m trying to run before I can walk - roasting will come later, I have plenty new toys to master first.
I have to say though, the Vesuvius is very forgiving, I get consistently good shots even with my random grind settings, random pressure profiles and sloppy puck prep. Beginners luck maybe.
I had thought that only the 25% would apply so I was quite surprised at checkout that both that and the £50 were deducted. It was too good a price to pass up. I’m happy enough with the app control thing in theory. We’ll see in the next week what the practice is like.
My concern over the app thing is a kind of personal pet peeve. I think I mentioned the Adobe thing earlier on, and another example would be Steam (computing gaming platform for anyone not into that), though there are many other examples of companies making an offering of some sort, then changing the goalposts when it gets popular. I could go on and on about it …. and probably would, given half a chance. But I’ll spare everyone the rant.
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CoffeePhilE I must admit that I would prefer to see the app either open sourced, or the company stating that the open source for the app will be released if they ever cease trading. The whole VIP thing was in beta when I reviewed it…and there was not a lot of information. I personally think the app could have been fully functional in all respects apart from using their central server for sharing and using shared stuff…but still allow you to e-mail profiles to your friends and import their profiles from an e-mail.
Culturally in Taiwan, they are possibly not so worried about apps and things…?
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It’s clear from the Sandbox perspective the app is a significant part of the product. If it wasn’t, they could have easily made the roaster so it could speak “artisan” rather than their own proprietary app. A very simple thing to do, and, in my opinion, would eliminate that risk all together. I would then buy one without hesitation, as, in my opinion, the little roaster is ace.
Ps: the Sandbox is made in Taiwan. The Gene Cafe is made in South Korea.
MediumRoastSteam Ps: the Sandbox is made in Taiwan. The Gene Cafe is made in South Korea.
I know I’m getting old, although I do see a lot of similarities between the two countries and the items (plus quality) they make.
I entirely agree that they could have made it open source, or so that it could (even optionally) use Artisan. I am forced to conclude that not doing so wasn’t accidental, which is partly what makes me nervous about the whi=ole app thing. It means that in buying in, I set myself up as a hostage to fortune if, either by design or through no ill intent, the company goes or stops supporting it.
I don’t know that I’d trust any assurance that it will be made open source if the compoany ever ceses trading, because I suspect if it were my company and it ceased trading, that would be about the millionth thing on my mind as a priority by that point.
I also agree that with an ‘out’, either in an app sufficiently fully functional to allow the roaster to remain fully functional if the company goes down, I almost certainly would have bought too, while that discount was apparently still on. But as things stand, it’s something of a £700 gamble.
I also agree with a comment made earlier, and I too would feel a bit like i was running before I can walk. Under normal circumstances, I wouldn’t have entertained even thinking about getting into roasting any time remotely soon. It’s just my circumstances that nhad me thinking about it, largely because of that discount. It’s a lot extra to pay, had I decided to wait a couple of weeks and buy after Christmas, so I was rather in an “either right now, or not for quite a while, if at all” mindset.
My stance, now that that deal has either gone, or I know might not have been there had I tried to use it, is it has probably done me a favour because, really, it is just far too soon. I ought to at least get the training wheels off before I start training for the Coffee Olympics. Roaster = on back burner. For now.
3D printer, on the other hand …. :)
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CoffeePhilE - good stuff! Whatever you do, please, don’t try to 3D print coffee! Let alone a coffee roaster! 🤣😉👍
On the serious point, I think that, if you ask (or you can do that yourself) the app file for Android can be manually downloaded and kept, in case things go wrong. But… it’s not the source code, so, in the event of things going bad, at best you can have the binaries of the app and you can load that yourself into an android phone. I’m with a Apple so not great for me. Regardless, as you say, they could even optionally made the firmware talk to Artisan. It’s not hard. In fact, it’s so simple it’s not funny. Even if I had to pay extra, I would have chosen that route. The other option could be a manual control panel, wired to the roaster through an USB interface. In this board, it could have some basics like start/stop, temperature, fan speed, drum speed. If things go bad, you could at least control the roaster manually. At the moment, the roaster remembers the last loaded profile, and you can press the button on the roaster to go through the usual sequence: pre-heat, load, first crack, second crack, drop, cool down.
17 days later
Btw… anyone seen the Sandbox Smart v2?
https://www.sandboxsmart.com/產品介紹-r2-en/?lang=en
A lot of the usability issues I flagged to BB seems to have been addressed, such as loading the beens from a hatch, and dumping the beans afterwards! No more heat resistant gloves! 😍 or handling of hot drums! It’s also a 500g roaster.
If the price is reasonable I’m even happy to overlook the app driven experience. A lot of boxes ticked! Well done Sandbox!
MediumRoastSteam If the price is reasonable I’m even happy to overlook the app driven experience. A lot of boxes ticked! Well done Sandbox!
I think it looks superb…nice capacity and if it’s anything like the 1, then it’s going to roast well.
MediumRoastSteam 500g is interesting. Do we know what the cost is in the UK please ?
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I have no idea. I’ll fire an email to Bella Barista to see if they have any insights. I’ll keep you posted.
After using Google translate on that page, it seems it has exceeded funding and will be shipping before the Chinese New Year (1st of Feb).
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MediumRoastSteam If the price is reasonable I’m even happy to overlook the app driven experience.
LMSC MediumRoastSteam 500g is interesting. Do we know what the cost is in the UK please ?
It looks great, but maybe the price will cool the excitement a little: It’s on offer for backing now (read: pre order at a reduced price) for 57,000 Taiwanese dollars (£1,520), and they say the future list price will be 68,000 (That’s over £1,800. That might be before UK taxes and BB’s cut…) .I think one should be lucky to get it in the UK for much less than £2,000): https://www.zeczec.com/projects/r2roaster?r=1361c77795
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Personally, I think the v2 looks good but, unless the app lock-in issue is resolved, it’s a no-go from me. The more I’ve thought about it, the more I don’t like it, to the point that I’m just not willing to do it, regardess of the hardware feature set, or how good it is.
Also, if that suggested price is anything close, that ends my interest even if there is an acceptable way round the app issue.
All told, I don’t see machine being relevant to me unless something changes drastically on those two issues, and I’m not holding my breathon either.
CoffeePhilE if that suggested price is anything close, that ends my interest even if there is an acceptable way round the app issue.
Ditto.