Hello, I have been struggling with my Hario scale for a while now, with my immersion/percolation combo brews. I like to steep a part of the brew weight, and pour over the remainder. The issue is Hario scale turns off automatically after not reading the change of weight for a while, and that period seems quite random. I would often come back to the brewer and the scale is off, with just the timer running, and it bothers me a little, especially when I did not nail the weight down to a gram.

Another problem i have with the scale is the capacitive buttons (or whatever they are called). If I'm prepping the brewer, and a little drop of water manages to get onto the on/off/tare button, it has a chance to turn the scale off in the middle of brewing, happened to me a few times.

I went to the cafe I've recently discovered and they have all sorts of acaia products, and I was going to honestly just buy an acaia scale, but it was a weird experience. The scale was turning on forever, with the animation running on the display for a few seconds. Then, when I was trying to launch/pause timer, or tare it, it was registering the weight of my finger every time I was touching it. I found that extremely awkward, and decided not to buy it.

Is there anything else that is great quality which is not acaia or hario scale? I saw timemore has a nice one, but I have their kettle which broke down and it's impossible to get any service for it, so I'm not gonna deal with that brand anymore.

Would appreciate scale suggestions (especially made in Taiwan/Indonesia and not China).

To be clear - Hario scale, despite bad internal design, is a tough scale. Coffee/water from inevitable spills managed to find its way into the scale three times already. There are no seals/rubber, so it's going straight for the display assembly. I have managed to disassemble and repair it twice myself, and once took it to a repairs shop because a wire got detached from repeated disassembly (they use thinnest, cheapest wires there are).

I've had my Hario scale for about 10 years and it is still going strong. I haven't had the issues you've had but I don't steep my brews like how you're describing that the scale weight function turns off. I have had a few moments when things like that happen but only a handful in the total time I've own it so I don't see it as a problem. I also have the Acaia pearl and lunar and like them both a lot. the pearl is quite large but it's not as vulnerable as the hario with water damage, you can just wash it under a tap. The lunar is great because it's so small and I like the metal body, great for espresso. With Acaia scales the whole thing from corner to corner will trigger the scale. this is because the scale sensor is mounted upside down and the whole unit sits on it so every part registers the scale. think of the Hario upside down and a plasitic box mounted over it and you have an Acaia. this is good for large things or awkwardly shaped things because you know it's all getting weighed properly but you're right that when you press a button it will also register the touch, however it should return to normal when you remove your finger. With my routine, I'm not really touching the scale during the brew so it's not an issue. I've never had it turn off on me during a brew but I can't say I've steeped a brew over it so I'm not quite sure if it would time out or not.

I bought a bunch of cheap scales a while back and handed them out as a promotion. The scales were less than $5 each and they looked near identical to this scale. I had owned one for even longer and it worked well so I bought 50 of them to pass out for the promotion. They have tactile buttons you have to click but they don't have a timer function. The didn't have a timeout feature either so it just stayed on until you turned it off. They were most likely made in China so if that's a deal-breaker then you would have to shop for something else but the point still remains that some of these cheap ones don't have a timeout on them and have tactile buttons because all of that is cheaper to produce which seems like features you would prefer over the capacitive buttons and auto turn off functions. So maybe you just want to shop for something really cheap instead of looking for more well-known or higher-priced brands. I've had no issues with any of my scales from the $5 ones to the $200 ones. They all broadly work the same so unless there is a specific reason for the Acaia I probably wouldn't get it because of the price. If that's not an issue and you just want the Acaia then go for it, they are certainly quality scales but their basic functions work the same as my cheap ones and my cheap ones are still going strong.

With the Acaia scales you can control the functions from the apps if touching the scale and seeing the change in weight bothers you. The weight of the finger doesn't affect the readings, the scale will pause or tare normally and read the weight properly after your finger is removed. I have a Kickstarter version of the Pearl and it doesn't automatically shut off which is nice because I used to have to touch my old scale periodically to prevent it from turning off during a brew. I don't use any apps with it, though.

I think I've had water affect the button on the Pearl once or twice, though.

I have an Acaia Pearl S. The smart functions and apps work surprisingly bad in my opinion. What annoys me the most is that I can't get the apps to autoconnect to the scale, so if I want to log a brew I have to go through several steps into the settings and select the scale. Every time. Then for some reason it'll often display the wrong total weight in Brewmaster (add to the actual weight displayed on the scale) and there's no way to manually correct it.

I don't really mind that the scale can fluctuate by ~0.1-0.2g when I press the buttons. At least they're responsive, and it's possible to have the timer start automatically when you start pouring so that's one less press. Hidden in the manual settings there are options to completely prevent the scale from turning off itself or the timer. Very useful with a scale that just stays on, not only for coffee. A shame that the timer stops at 9:59 though.

You can find several similarly expensive alternatives here: ...all with their own issues. I've never experienced the connection issues with my scale at least. I think if you want support, Acaia is probably the safest bet?