Jura ENA8 Is Not the Smartest Smart Coffee Maker
When you think of high-end coffee machines, Jura is a stalwart brand. I’ve seen their machines at friends’ houses, co-working spaces, and high-end cookware stores over the years, and what I remember about them is their ease of use and consistently exceptional coffee. I specifically tested the Jura ENA8 because it’s the cheapest smart connectivity model they offer, and mostly I was surprised at how different it was from other machines from the brand. While it was an attractive machine and certainly better priced than other options I tried (currently $1,569.95), I was ultimately disappointed by the interface UX, drink temperature, lack of some obvious drink options, and lack of usefulness in smart application. While I don’t want this to be the impression given to the entire brand, I wasn’t a fan of the ENA8 we were lent to the new Metropolitan Black model specifically for testing.
Design Jura ENA8
High-end coffee machines tend to have a high-end look , with metallic and clean lines. The ENA8 had some of these signature details in the dispensing head, but instead had rounded corners in a nice matte black color. While I liked the black color, I was less keen on the chunky unit given the small size of the water tank. The tank holds only thirty-seven ounces and I often had to refill the tank daily. While your drink will likely require no more than ten ounces, routine machine cleaning will require much more. This also means that you will have to empty the drip tray at least once a day. The drip tray does slide out easily, and the machine asked to be emptied early enough that I wasn’t constantly spilling it while walking back and forth to the sink.
The ENA8 comes with a durable glass milk container and several options for connecting tubes between the cup siphon and the dispensing head. Although there was a silky metal snake option that certainly looked more expensive, it didn’t seem to work well so I just used the silicone tube that is also included in the kit. (By the way, it’s easier to make sure the tube is clean when it’s clear.) You’re also provided with cleaning supplies and an extra plastic container with a siphon for the cleaning solution. The machine came out of the box almost ready to go; The only part that required installation was the Wi-Fi module, which I will describe in more detail below.
Using the ENA8 touch screen
It’s worth noting that I specifically requested ENA8. I was hoping to find a great coffee maker at a lower price than the Miele we reviewed last month, which made amazing drinks but was quite confusing and difficult to use. I expected fewer problems with the ENA8 since it had a touch screen. The screen itself was already quite small, but the bigger problem was that you moved from screen to screen by touching three tiny dots in the bottom right panel rather than, say, swiping. It was often imperfect. ENA8 offers ten drinks, which is a more abbreviated menu than many machines, so you could only switch between them on three screens, but it was often annoyingly painful and made you feel like a bum.
The only other utility the screen offers is a milk purification function, which should be turned on after each use. This was also a bit annoying as it required several steps to get “OK” in the interface. I usually immediately ask the machine to clean the dairy equipment after my drink, say “OK” to the first step and walk away. When I walked by an hour or two later, the car was still waiting for me to “OK” take the next step.
Size and temperature of drinks
The truth is that I’m hardly a coffee fan; I’m just here for the caffeine. I enjoy a strong black coffee or latte at a café most days, with the occasional cortado in the afternoon. However, cafe latte is not one of the drinks that the ENA8 offers – the machine can prepare ristretto, espresso, espresso doppio, coffee, macchiato, latte macchiato, cappuccino, flat white, milk foam and hot water. Over the course of several weeks, I experimented with different variations such as macchiato and doppio to see if I could make something similar to a latte. My two gripes with the machine are: first, the drinks were generally not very hot. The milk foam was always just tepid, which meant drinks like macchiatos were unpleasant. The machine often dispensed milk first and then coffee, and I assumed this was to allow the temperature of the coffee to compensate for the cold milk, but this rarely happened. Secondly, the drinks were often watery, which I think is a result of how you adjust the size. Once you select your drink, you hear the machine grind the coffee and you have a few seconds to choose how dark you want the drink and then, as it brews, how much of the drink you want in seconds dispensed (imperfect). science versus, say, ounces). For example, if you chose a larger size coffee, no matter how dark I said I wanted it, it would end up watery because the size is not affected by the grind of the coffee. I haven’t found a way to influence the temperature of the drinks in the machine. Some drinks, such as the ristretto, were pleasant – rich, with a light foam – but you’re unlikely to ask for more ristretto; you would just do the second one.
The only thing I liked was that unlike Miele where it was very difficult to adjust the size of drinks, the ENA8 allowed you to do this while drinking and it was easy to cancel drinks using the obvious cancel button. on the interface.
JO app
Some newer or more expensive Jura machines come with built-in Wi-Fi connectivity, but Wi-Fi can be added to other machines, like the ENA8, via a Wi-Fi module that you purchase separately. Although in the end you just remove the Jura badge on the back of the machine to connect the bolt-on module, it took me watching a few videos to figure it out as the instructions were unclear. Once installed, the machine quickly connected to the company’s JOE app and can do so via Bluetooth and Wi-Fi. However, in many weeks of use, I never used the app. I tried it, of course, but it’s not particularly intuitive. You can’t turn the machine on and off using the app, and the app often found itself disconnected even though the Bluetooth and Wi-Fi connections were glowing green to indicate connection. Even when connected, it only offered updated information about the machine’s utilities and the ability to order spare parts. After consulting with support, they conveyed that drinks can be “ordered” from the home panel. Although I could see the drinks, every time I tried to use the app I would get some kind of error message, and since it had no additional features and I still had to be at the machine to turn it on, I gave up. For me, the purpose of the app is to be able to remotely turn on the machine and have it prepare a drink from another room so that it is waiting for me when I approach the machine.
Other Jura machines
My friend still uses the 16 year old Jura and in all the years I’ve visited it remains a great machine that I look forward to using every morning; so, generally speaking, they have value. Jura has seven models above the ENA8, and they all hope to make significant strides in the areas mentioned above, especially screen interface UX, water capacity, drink selection and, based on reviews, drink temperature. In fact, the Jura E6 costs just $1,699 and seems to solve many of these problems. I’ll hold my opinion on how well JOE performs in these applications until I’ve tested higher-end models, but for coffee, Jura is still a solid brand. But as smart coffee makers go, the ENA8 was neither that smart nor a particularly amazing coffee maker.