Why would preheating any of the above linked machines be so different from the Robot, Portaspresso, Flair or Aram? In fact, owning some of these more popular machines and watching the videos of the Chinese ones, I can see how the process would be similar--pouring hot water into the machine and flushing it once or twice to build up the heat. If anything, I find the Robot to be a pain to preheat, moreso than the Aram and Portaspresso.

You've expressed that perception before but I don't really see why pouring/emptying water repeatedly is any less of a pain than sitting a cup of hot water under the piston and the portafilter on the stove. You may have a preference but neither workflow is particularly desirable.

Sticking an immersion heater inside is probably the least annoying of the bunch but it begs the question: why not just build the heater into the device itself? I love my Robot but sometimes wish for something akin to the Flair 58. I know how to preheat but instead what I usually do is gravitate toward the range of coffees that don't require preheating.

My Robot only travels 2m a day, from cupboard to counter and back. But if I wanted a truly portable machine I'd also want it to be compact, simple to use, and lightweight. Preheating routines take one in the opposite direction.

LewBK wrote:Why would preheating any of the above linked machines be so different from the Robot, Portaspresso, Flair or Aram? In fact, owning some of these more popular machines and watching the videos of the Chinese ones, I can see how the process would be similar--pouring hot water into the machine and flushing it once or twice to build up the heat.

Because pouring the water into device a few times is a pain and not very efficient, especially if thermal mass of the device is similar or higher than of the water that goes into it. On Flair, only non-painful way for me is steam preheat on the vessel containing the same water that will be then used for brewing the coffee, so that amount of extra effort is relatively low ...

I've had no issues pouring water from a kettle into an Aram or a Portaspresso while I don't like balancing pieces of my Robot on my kettle, and I feel they don't heat properly even when I've tried. I like my electric kettle quite a lot--a compact all-steel Chantal with no toxic plastic inside it--but its design is not suited for heating parts of the Robot. Pouring hot water into the Aram and Portaspresso couldn't be easier by comparison. To each his own.