IKAWA Home

I like my machine but my biggest problem is the lack of customization. For something I paid almost $1300 you think I could make a custom roast without paying for a subscription. Simple money grab and it’s my biggest disappointment. While I’ll still use my IKAWA home roaster I recommend alternatives to others who ask me for this simple reason.

Casey721122Mon, Feb 26, 2024

United States

I had the Ikawa Home Roaster pulled up and was ready to buy it. Thankfully I decided to check the app out before making such a big purchase. There are “recipes” for Ikawa’s coffees, so you’ll be fine as long as you buy from them. But this is the world’s most expensive razor blade handle for those razor blades, and even if their coffee is fairly priced and very good, I would never buy a roaster to be locked in to one store. How easy is it to roast your own coffee? Turns out that you need to pay a monthly subscription to have access. Looking for confirmation? Go to Ikawa’s “Creating your own roast recipes using Graph Editor” blog post. Right now is it at least $34 a month for that subscription, but with all subscriptions, they can raise that price and you have no option to go elsewhere. I went digging for how people are dealing with that. Some posts were from people who had sold their machine. It was great for Ikawa, but they couldn’t replicate great results for other beans using the existing profiles. Some posts were for people who would manually stop the roast a certain period of time after the first crack, removing the benefits of automation this roaster provides. I can’t support a roaster that I don’t own the hardware and software I need to use it, so I’m really glad I didn’t make the mistake of buying this one. I wish Ikawa was more upfront about the cost and need for the subscription. I’m glad I hesitated. This roaster could have been such a cool offering.

peteer01Wed, Dec 6, 2023

United States

I bought the Ikawa Pro way back from the SCAA in Seattle 2014(?). Enjoyed using it to have more repeatable sample roasts over my 2 barrel Probat. Fast forward 9 years and I’m no longer in the coffee industry but I still love coffee. So, i ended up buying the Ikawa Home Roaster Black Friday 2022. At the time, I didn’t realize that you couldn’t tweak the roasts the way I wanted to without paying the monthly fee. That’s really the only thing stopping me from giving it 5 stars. I’m not experiencing any of the problems other reviewers have had. And, i am paying for the subscription to customize roasts. Hope this review helps

Honor DSun, Nov 12, 2023

United States

I just got my Ikawa Home roaster and scanned the code from one of the bean samples. The app connects to the roaster, but when I go to the bean that I just added to the app, I cannot send the recipe to the roaster. Pressing “send to roaster” crashes the app. The crash is infinitely repeatable. I turned the roaster on and off, I deleted and reinstalled the app, and I tried re-adding the bean to the coffee list. The app just keeps crashing when you try to send the recipe t the roaster. It fails to accomplish its essential function.

I already have a nicknameMon, May 1, 2023

United States

The $1,300 roaster has all the hardware needed to precisely adjust the time, inlet air temp, and flow for roasting coffee. However, nothing can be adjusted on the roaster. You have to use the app to make the adjustments, but the app charges a perpetual fee to provide the ajustments that are built into the $1,300 coffee roaster. So, it is not a $1,300 coffee roaster. I've used my current roaster for more than 12 years. If the fees don't increase (a big "if") then the app requires a 50% additional cost over the purchase price of the roaster simply to use the roaster's full feature set. Imagine buying a car where you had to pay a monthly fee to open the back doors! The argument that Ikawa would make is that most people use the front doors on a four door sedan the majority of the time, so they've allowed people who want to use the installed back doors on the car to pay them for the priviledge to use hardware that they already paid for. The greed here is immense.

I already have a nicknameWed, Apr 19, 2023

United States

This app Hass to be the most difficult to use, terrible interface, nothing works properly app I’ve ever used. It’s bizarre that you can charge $1300 for great device to roast coffee and spend absolutely no time effort or resources to make the app work properly. I am within the 30 day window to return the roaster and I might have to do that because I am way too frustrated to keep using this application.

Jjff11Sun, Feb 26, 2023

United States

Doesn’t work

MfaheidMon, Jan 23, 2023

United States