I bought one of these to free up some counter-space, combining our Mr. Coffee and Keurig, but I am not thrilled with it.
First thing was when I pulled it our of the packaging; the bag with the pot in it slipped out and fell to the floor and shattered; this is poor packaging. I immediately ordered a replacement from Amazon and got it the next day.
The full pot side works very well. It is easy to use, disposal is a cinch and it makes good coffee. I found it takes about 15 minutes to brew a full pot, which, to me, is totally acceptable.
However, the K-Cup side has some issues.
- You cannot brew on this side while the other is working. They use the same reservoir. So I had to adjust by making my single cup, then setting up the full pot side. I can work with this, but I do not like it.
- There is a 14 oz limit for the water, so forget filling up one of those big travel mugs from this side. If you exceed this, you’ll see an error on the readout and will need to drain it through the full pot side. You can override this by pushing down on on the water sensor (I’ve read some comments about using a bamboo skewer to hold it down), but I’m not sure this is wise.
- It beeps when your cup is done, except that it is not; coffee will still dribble out for 3-4 minutes. If you remove it when you hear that signal, you’ll end up with a mess. Just keep an eye on it.
- This is the bad part: The water comes though the top puncturer and this gets easily clogged up. In fact, I have to clean it after every use or I get a cup of hot water and a wasted pod. I have been using a wooden toothpick, which works fine. The instructions and some folks say to use a paperclip (which I don’t have) and I am leery of jamming a bit of metal up into an electrical appliance. I want to point out that I had my Keurig for 3 1/2 years and never had to unclog it. This is an engineering issue and Hamilton Beach needs to solve it.
All in all, usable and does solve the counter-space issue, but not an ideal solution. The issues with the single serve/K-Cup side need to be addressed in their next upgrade to the product: It needs its own reservoir and to not clog up. The single serve side also takes too long, with the extra dribble time.
I cannot really recommend this, but if you still want one, be aware of the issue and workarounds.
Flytrap rating 4/10
Update 05/03/2018: I have had it with the K-Cup part of this and am lowering my rating. Took me over thirty minutes to get my cup o’ coffee this morning and I still had to strain grounds out of it. Very poorly designed.
This is what it does every time now:
Worthless.