What can I say? We all have our hobbies and vices. I don’t smoke, rarely drink and don’t’ get high. But I’m a sucker for some quality coffee…
These scales are of course ridiculously overpriced. Even most coffee folks will say so, but it’s not like we have many options. Smart or regular scale, there just aren’t that many out there we can use that can weigh to the tenth or hundredth of a gram which is what you need for good coffee or espresso and is also accessible. If it were up to me, I’d just buy a cheap jewelry scale for like 15 bucks off of Amazon, but alas… Thing is, I’m sure the Smart Chef scale is fast enough, but what’s laggy is the voice prompt built into the app that announces the weight as you pour. I have another kitchen scale that I prefer called the Drop Scale which I believe I’ve recommended on here before, but unfortunately that one doesn’t fit between the legs on the base of my espresso machine (10.5 CM). With that scale, you just swipe VoiceOver focus to the element that displays the weight and VO reads it in real time and is nice and responsive. No separate voice announcements included. I think I’m going to have to post this inquiry on AppleVis too and see if I have any luck there as I haven’t gotten any feedback on this or any other lists I’ve posted too. Not even Reddit… Ah well… From: [email protected] <[email protected]> On Behalf Of Sieghard Weitzel Sent: Friday, April 28, 2023 12:16 PM To: [email protected] Subject: RE: Accessibility of Acaia apps and scales Hi Cristobal, reading your email I am sure glad I don't like coffee! 🤣 From: [email protected] <mailto:[email protected]> <[email protected] <mailto:[email protected]> > On Behalf Of Cristóbal Muñoz Sent: Thursday, April 27, 2023 1:26 PM To: [email protected] <mailto:[email protected]> Subject: Accessibility of Acaia apps and scales Hello list, So I currently use the Smart Chef kitchen scale from Reflex for making coffee as well as with my espresso machine. The app’s accessible and everything, but the spoken announcement of the measurement as you pour is on the laggy side. Therefore, I’m in search of a more responsive and accessible alternative. Acaia has a series of coffee/espresso scales that are on the higher end of Smart coffee scales. The Pearl S scale <https://acaia.co/collections/coffee-scales/products/pearl-model-s?variant=43635168968932> apparently speaks the measurement and time as you pour independent of an app. If I had my choice, I’d probably opt for this one straight away. Unfortunately though, it won’t fit in between the legs of my espresso machine (Cafelat Robot). They also have two other scales. The Lunar scale <https://acaia.co/collections/coffee-scales/products/lunar_2021?variant=43059769606372> that has the same dimensions of the Smart Chef scale as well as the Pyxis scale <https://acaia.co/collections/coffee-scales/products/pyxis?variant=42060048728292> which is super tiny, but will fit. These unfortunately do not have voice prompts like the Pearl. Does anyone here use any of these scales? Are the Acaia apps at all accessible and if so, how’s the latency with speaking the liquid as you pour? Their scales have a bunch of other features like visual graphs where you can compare different espresso shot profiles, but I’m mostly interested in being able to know the pouring info as well as the timer. I currently use a separate interval timer app as well as the Smart Chef scale app to measure out my shots and pour-overs and while that workflow is accessible enough, the lagginess of the Smart Chef scale makes pulling a precise espresso shot harder. I did already reach out to Acaia with this same inquiry and this is their response: “We have previously worked with visually impaired people to develop technology to assist them with coffee brewing. This work and research led to incorporating sound and voice into the new Pearl S scale we released in November 2022. In addition to the Pearl S scale, we have made some of our supplemental applications, such as Brewmaster, compatible with native text-to-voice software on iOS and most Android mobile devices.” While this is an encouraging response, we all know “accessible” can mean different things to different people. I was hoping for some real world blind user feedback since the prices for these scales aren’t for the faint of heart. Thanks, Cristóbal -- The following information is important for all members of the V iPhone list. If you have any questions or concerns about the running of this list, or if you feel that a member's post is inappropriate, please contact the owners or moderators directly rather than posting on the list itself. Your V iPhone list moderator is Mark Taylor. Mark can be reached at: [email protected] <mailto:[email protected]> . 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