We offer free software for your espresso machine. It turns ordinary portafilter machines into sophisticated shot brewers with precise control over temperature, pressure and dispensed weight.

• caffè! supports analog and digital, factory-calibrated TSic precision temperature sensors. Accuracy exceeds Pt100 Class B.
• caffè! offers significantly more measurement resolution and accuracy than most other PID controllers by utilizing 24bit ADC circuits¹ and calibrated digital sensors
• Multiple sensors may be connected simultaneously, for example a boiler sensor, a cup sensor, a PCB sensor and a reference sensor
• caffè! supports pressure sensors and flow meters to measure and control pressure, volume and flow rate

Ultimate temperature control (PID)

• Dual channel PID function for up to two heating elements (two boilers or one boiler plus one electronically heated brew group)
• PID parametrization: Different PID configurations can be used during different states of the machine (warming up, idle phase, shots, steam)
• "Ramp & Soak" feature for programmed heating, independent of measurements, to manually optimize the brew temperature during espresso shots
• Feed-forward control based on flow meter measurements
• Triple setpoints for normal control, steam and eco mode
• Setpoints can be changed in steps of 0.1°C. The internal resolution is 0.0625°C
• Automatic determination of PID configuration by auto tuning program
• Advanced PID configuration options such as digital filtering and integral wind-up limiting
• A dedicated steam sensor can be installed to improve steam control
• Configurable Standby feature and ECO mode to conserve energy

Electronic pump power control

• Electronic pump power control for vibration pumps with feedback from a pressure sensor, with nearly stepless power control. This feature gives you high-quality pressure profiling, for example gradually falling brew pressure (= lever-style pressure profile).´
• Paddle support: Use an electronic lever to control brew pressure manually, on the fly, at any moment in the shot
• Real preinfusion: Variable, programmable preinfusion with desired pressure curve
• Flow rate control at the beginning of shots (before pressurization)

Pressure sensor

Useful programs

• Doser feature for dispensing programmed amounts of water to group or wand with desired flow rate
• Warm-up program can drastically reduce warm-up time by flushing hot water through the machine
• Descaling program
• Calibration program for analog sensors

Dual-boiler support

• Support for steam boiler on/off switch
• Support for auto-fill pump and external auto-fill controller (caffè! monitors the signal of the auto-fill controller)

Grinder control

• Grind timer: caffè! can run a grinder for a programmed time for single or double shots

Clock and timer

• Clock and weekday timers to turn the machine on and off automatically
• Alarm clock function

Information at your fingertips

• Three lines of output on a LCD display convey status information: temperatures, setpoints, heat output, pressure (in bar), shot volume (in ml) etc.
• Comfortable text menus instead of cryptic numbers. Most PID controllers only have 7-segment numerical displays.
• Backlight brightness and contrast are controlled by the firmware¹
• caffè! continuously transmits measurements to a PC connected by USB or Bluetooth where they can be viewed on a Virtual LCD or as real-time plots. Visual and numeric presentation of live PID data permits unprecedented insight into PID configuration
• All shot data is automatically recorded on dataflash memory for later inspection
• PID controllers switch power rapidly but with caffè!, this will not cause a randomly flickering boiler lamp because caffè! controls the lights independently to convey useful state information
• Adjustable brightness of PID lamp (LED) and lamps in switches (LEDs) ¹

Real-time plots on PC

Monitoring and safety features

• Monitoring of water filter's age and liter throughput
• Water hardness calculator and scale buildup monitoring
• Backflushing reminder
• Safety functions monitor the on-times of heating elements, pump and valve and turn off the machine if operator error is detected.

Invisible

• Support for internal installation without LCD display (remote configuration by computer via Virtual LCD program)
• Instead of an obtrusive display, a discreet toggle switch can be installed as temperature selector.

Training functions

• Shot timer to make by-the-rules espresso with perfect 25s timing
• Ready-beep signals when the machine is thoroughly heated up
• Automatic dimmable grouphead illumination

1: If supported by the hardware. Some features depend on the microcontroller module and are not available on all supported platforms. For example, faustino modules do not support adjustable display brightness and not all modules have a 24bit ADC.