Their backer list includes more than 70 gluttons for punishment who also backed the Bonaverde

I sent them a question early on requesting information on what the parts were made of and thermal stability. This is the gem I got:

"Very sorry for the late reply,

for 1)
Compare with E61,
1. We use a patented heating element installed on the brass group head to make sure the thermal stability.
2. And temperature is controlled by computer by AI(FL/GA) instead of traditional PID, this make the temperature more stable and minimum output error.
3. Short water path to prevent heat lost.

for 2)
You can use your own syrup as well

for 3) For now, we cannot answer the life span about the machine yet, but as we design for manufacture in our next stage, we will make sure it will be a long lasting one, aiming to be use for at least a few years.

thanks you very much for your support and interest!

Thanks
Benson
Founder & CEO of Arist"

Marrow wrote:And temperature is controlled by computer by AI(FL/GA) instead of traditional PID, this make the temperature more stable and minimum output error.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genetic_fuzzy_systems

Funding finished a few hours ago. Over $800,000 raised. I'm going to have to keep checking back to see what's happening now. The creator has promised a video update to all backers who will own an arist after funding has finished showing how it all works internally; I'm guessing the comments section will let everybody know if and when that has happened.

You obviously have not been following closely....there are no internals to video working. That little film will be a long time coming IMO. Great project to illustrate just how to game the KS format. Now, for that Latte Macciato !

Umm he said it would be an update for backers after funding was complete, not what we have seen so far.

On a side note I thought k s wasn't suppose to allow no working prototypes any longer due to previous issues. Has that gone away?

So I recently also saw this project on ks.
Quite an ambitious project and hard to believe they can deliver what is promised in a such a small and inexpensive package.
A lot of folks are supporting them so even if they haven't finished it yet hopefully they will at least come close.
The videos they showed in their updates are interesting but hardly convincing.
One thing that is confusing is that if you look at the first video update (a cappuccino pour) you see the milk foam and the coffee get dispensed from two different spouts (look closely and you can see the milk finish pouring and then continue to drip after the coffee pour starts).
Then, for some reason in their second video (three pours: double shot, cleaning, latte) all the dispensing comes from one spout.
You can tell that is the case because after the milk is dispensed for the latte the espresso shot pushes out a lot of milk before the coffee starts pouring and there is no dripping of milk while the coffee is dispensed as in the first video. This fits with them needing to do a cleaning after the first double shot before they can dispense milk and it fits with that cleaning pushing out a ton of coffee before the stream clears.
You would think that when major plumbing changes occur between the two videos something pretty odd is probably going on...
I wonder if anyone else noticed this?
I'm guessing it's a work in progress and not nearly as finished as they claim.
Good luck to them because espresso machines are hard.
If they go over on cost then their success at getting so many people to participate may come back to haunt them.

I threw away $5 so we can see how this mess unfolds. I think when the honeymoon is over the realisation that they have to make 2500 units of whatever it is will kick in. Sure there are $800,000 in the kitty but remember they sold those machines for $299-350.

jbr wrote:I wonder if anyone else noticed this?

Well spotted! That is funny. Yes it does look like on the 1st video there are 2 spouts for milk and coffee and the 2nd video they share the same spout.

Just my theory, wild guess, I think those videos are shots from a store-bought super-auto, like a Jura, not the prototype, and that was filmed in a way to not show the case. Maybe??