There's another article about Ridiculous Fishing. This product is Ridiculous Phishing for people's hard-earned money. Who needs a $200 travel mug? It better have the absolute perfect drinking experience, because that's my biggest gripe with mugs. They just don't get that part right.
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Review: Ember's Travel Mug 2 Won't Get Lost With Find My Integration
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You write very authoritatively (and literally boldly) for not actually being very correct. This isn't meant for reheating cooled coffee. It's meant for maintaining temperature. Yes, technically it is actively adding heat into the system, but it's at such a slow/gentle rate that it does not noticeably diminish the flavor. It is nothing like a burner plate on a cheap coffee machine, or the microwave. James Hoffman has an interesting and informative video on this subject, if you don't believe me.
I'm about as big a coffee snob as they come, and I daily drive an ember mug. I can say for a fact it does not wreck the flavor. In fact, because it keeps the temp in just the right range, it actually enhances the overall flavor profile over my drinking duration (usually around 15-20 minutes).
I can get behind the idea of regular ember mugs because they maintain the temperature, but travel mugs are insulated anyway so I don't see the point of this. Sure find my is nice, but it doesn't justify spending $200.
At the rate I drink coffee in the morning, my $30 Yeti more than does the job.
I think I disagree, although it depends what you think the target demographic is.
Many of us here on a technology forum, some with a penchant for gadgetry… absolutely, we should be the target demographic. Especially those of us who can afford to spend $200 on folly, if we choose.
The issue is not that Ember are failing to reach the target demographic. They’re just failing to convince us, if the comments in this thread are anything to go by.
It’s often said in real estate that a house will have a ceiling value, depending on its location. Well, it’s the same with a mug. It doesn’t matter how fantastic they make it, or how many features are crammed in… it’s still a mug. And so are the people that buy it. And I say that as an Apple customer!
The "Find My" system is awful for me. I will go travel with my airpods and get pinged every time i leave the house I am visiting cause they are left behind. Even after I click the button saying it's a trusted location. The one time I actually lost my airpods, the feature wasn't working and wouldn't update the location. They were in my car under the seat, and the app never updated to show this. It just kept tyring to connect. They need to fine tune this feature imo.
I find Find My works with AirTags much better than it does AirPods. With the latter, I get a lot of false positives (saying I left them behind when they are with me), and probably even more false negatives (not getting an alert when I should).
AirTags, on the other hand, have been pretty much flawless in my experience. So what I wonder is, do these work more like AirPods or AirTags with regard to Find My?
Another note: I left my Burnout mug behind at a business I visited, and didn't realize I left it behind until I was home. Fortunately, I called them and they held it for me, and I was able to get it back, but I would have been upset about losing a mug I paid $64 for. I'd be even more upset about losing a $200 mug. So I see why such a feature, if it's reliable, would be nice to have.
Yeah, spending $200 on a mug when the much more affordable insulated travel mugs work fine sounds absurd. I definitely came at this review from the same general point of view. I still think that I wouldn't buy this mug for myself, but I would 100% buy it for someone as a gift. It's one of those things where you can't really justify spending so much on yourself, but it makes sense for a thoughtful present.
I just attended a wedding last weekend and the gift registry had two of these on it! I'd have bought them if they weren't already purchased for the bride and groom.
It's hard for me to see how the Ember mug would be a worthwhile purchase for more than a very small number of folks with very specific use-cases.
That said, it USED to be hard for me to imagine how an expensive Oral-B electric toothbrush with iPhone app would be worthwhile - until I bought one. (It keeps me accountable, it makes me focus on brushing instead of reading my phone while I'm brushing, and my dentist noticed less tartar and plaque after I'd been using it 2 months)
So I'm inclined to not criticize a product, or the people who buy it, just because the product doesn't make sense to me. I buy a lot of stuff that other people probably think is dumb. (A Kenny G record, for example) (Kidding!!! I would never do that! 😉)
That said, it USED to be hard for me to imagine how an expensive Oral-B electric toothbrush with iPhone app would be worthwhile - until I bought one. (It keeps me accountable, it makes me focus on brushing instead of reading my phone while I'm brushing, and my dentist noticed less tartar and plaque after I'd been using it 2 months)
So I'm inclined to not criticize a product, or the people who buy it, just because the product doesn't make sense to me. I buy a lot of stuff that other people probably think is dumb. (A Kenny G record, for example) (Kidding!!! I would never do that! 😉)
What I find surprising is that there are people out there who need up to 3 hours to drink a cup of coffee. It's almost as though they don't like coffee.
Your innovation can make this travel mug look very reasonable. It is time for the creatives of the world to design and manufacture an ever-increasing number of advanced products. Think of the possibilities for a $200:
- dental floss holder
- can opener
- hand sanitizer
- cotton swab
- toilet paper holder
OK I accept your testimony that the Ember TM2 adds heat at such a slow/gentle rate that it does not noticeably diminish the flavor. Why this would be different than a microwave adding similar quantity of heat I do not necessarily accept, but perhaps folks using microwaves add excess heat because they can.
The phase change material in the Burnout (I just ordered one) seems like a far better approach to me, even if it did not cost less than half as much. Being a coffee person and engineer, both approaches (phase change and electrical) are ideas I thought of and sketched out 15 years ago. The phase change approach taken by Burnout IMO makes far more sense because it is passive and simply keeps the original heat provided by the fresh coffee - while lowering the initial temp. My contigo mug insulates so well that immediately brewed coffee is impossible to drink except by pouring into another cup.
I look forward to trying it, despite the fact that reviews clearly suggest that the Burnout folks have trouble with their lids. The have a new improved version that apparently is still lame. Too bad, the lid on my contigo mug is many years old now and still leakproof (probably patented). I figure I will just tolerate the leaky Burnout lid by keeping it vertical.
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Somehow grandparents don't strike me as the target audience for a $200 mug...
I usually drink the first cup fairly quickly but may easily nurse a second cup for 4 hours.
Those of us who are prima donnas about our fresh ground & brewed coffee find the "And then get more!" part of the equation to be the challenge. Fresh ground/brewed coffee holds its flavor just fine in an airtight container, so it is not necessary to be constantly freshly grinding/brewing.
However fresh ground & brewed coffee starts out too hot to drink and then loses heat to where the temp soon becomes less than ideal. Hence all the effort around finding ways to maintain temperature of the fresh ground & brewed coffee while still keeping it airtight and not adding heat.
This is my daily coffee schedule:
Get up. Boil kettle. Pour into vacuum insulated cafetière. Wait a few minutes. Pour into mug. Drink.
If something does interrupt and it gets left longer in the cafetière, it makes little real difference for quite a while. Temperature is fine for ages but flavour does deteriorate a little.
Next coffee, use machine for double espresso. Drink almost immediately.
I can see that a Burnout could have a role. But the Ember would be hard to fit into my usual days.
Get up. Boil kettle. Pour into vacuum insulated cafetière. Wait a few minutes. Pour into mug. Drink.
If something does interrupt and it gets left longer in the cafetière, it makes little real difference for quite a while. Temperature is fine for ages but flavour does deteriorate a little.
Next coffee, use machine for double espresso. Drink almost immediately.
I can see that a Burnout could have a role. But the Ember would be hard to fit into my usual days.
Sounds like we just need to find a good way to affix an AirTag to a mug.
Well, for one thing, you wouldn’t normally microwave coffee that is already at the correct temperature, so the reheat concept is entirely different than maintaining heat.
This simply maintains a constant temperature, much like the Burnout. The process may be more complicated, but the concept isn’t.
UK folks with a good memory - wasn’t it some fancy mug like this, maybe the predecessor Ember 1, that got a bit of media attention and backlash against Rishi Sunak - the chancellor of the exchequer at the time (now prime minister) - when some PR photo showed one on his desk? Apparently it was a gift from his wife but there was some sniping about the cost and how spending so much on an item like that made him look so out of touch with most people’s circumstances.
