DIY Smart Coffee Machine - I need some recommendations

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1

Hey there,

I'm working on a little project and I will need some product recommendations. I'm planing to build a smart coffee machine. What I got right now is a machine with an integrated grinder. Getting it into Hubitat and my smart home itself shouldn't be all that difficult, as I'm planing to use the Shelly UNI, which is build for those kinds of applications. The tricky part, more or less, will be the features, I want to integrate, so that my lazy ■■■ has as less work as possible with this. :joy:
I want to be able to tell my Google Assistant not just that I want coffee, but also how much coffee and when, without the need to prepare the machine in any way. Achieving this, I was thinking about 3 additional parts that I require.

  1. Valve

  2. Water Sensors

  3. A bean dispenser

The first two parts to fill up the water tank, the last for coffee (duh! :stuck_out_tongue_winking_eye:). The end product should look like this:

Smarte Kaffeemaschiene DIY
Smarte Kaffeemaschiene DIY1073×601 45.9 KB

The Water sensors should be used in combination with virtual switches, shutting off the valve, when a certain water level is reached (Rule: IF Switch is on and water sensor X reports -> shut off valve).

What I need now are recommendations for these three parts. I prefer Zigbee, because I have zero Z-Wave products and in conclusion no stable Z-Wave-Mesh.

For the valve, I was thinking about this one:

According to the list of compatible devices, it should work, but I don't know, how fast and reliable it is. Has anyone any experience with this device?

For the water sensor, I have no idea, which one to choose. It should be reliable, but not that expensive, because I would need five of them.

Same problem with the bean dispenser. I was thinking about using a dumb dispenser and making it smart somehow, another problem I currently have no solution for. :sweat_smile:

Now my little think tank, let us pool our brains together. :grin:

2

No one? Anything? :slightly_smiling_face:

3

My initial thought is that this would be a good project to employ a CC2530 ThingShield-type device.

Digital output turns on/off valve.
A digital input could count pulses from a meter (cheap ones, like used on actual coffee vending machines). Alternatively, analog input reads a water level strip - not sure about what is available.

I don't know exactly what else your machine does that you hope to emulate with automation. Rather than try to squeeze off-the-shelf parts into a DIY, I would personally lean towards standard parts and DIY interface.

4

@Hatallica

I really like the idea with the water level strip, and I'm going to look into that. The CC2530 is also a nice idea, but for me personally not suitable, because I have no idea about coding. :sweat_smile:
But at least the water level strip is nice, because I could connect it to the same Shelly and use the existing driver from @tomw for the Shelly UNI to get the water level into HE. :smiley:

The only thing that I'm missing right now is an autofill of coffee beans based on the water filling level.

5

Understood. The MonaLisa board and driver in the thread below takes a lot of the hassle out of it. I hate coding (literally changed careers because you can't pay me to do it anymore).

6

This board looks really nice. I'll definitely check this one out. But what I found, what looks promising, too, is this one: