Yay or Nay? Keurig K-Supreme Plus SMART Review

The Keurig K-Supreme Plus SMART is Keurig’s first smart coffee maker. It builds on the already successful K-Supreme Plus, offering even more control over your coffee while incorporating smart features such as BrewID technology to automatically detect your K-Cup and optimize the machine’s brew settings for that personal perfect cup of joe.

So is this new Keurig coffee maker a yay or nay?

Find out by reading our Keurig K-Supreme Plus SMART Review!

Specifications

• Model: Keurig K-Supreme Plus SMART
  
  
• Type: Single Serve K-Cup
  
  
• Display: Yes - Monochrome
  
  
• Colors: Black Stainless
  
  
• Dimensions: 12.35" H x 8.30” W x 13.35” D
  
  
• Weight: 7.65 lb
  
  
• Cord Length: 36”
  
  
• Power Rating: 1,500 watts
  
  
• Warranty: 1 year

Key Features

• Single Serve Cup Sizes: 5 sizes (4, 6, 8, 10, and 12 oz)
  
  
• Lattes & Cappuccinos: No
  
  
• Drip Coffee Sizes: No
  
  
• Temperature Control: Yes - 6 temperature settings
  
  
• Strength Control: Yes - 5 strength settings
  
  
• Iced Setting: Yes
  
  
• Fits Travel Mug: Yes, max height of 7"
  
  
• Milk Frothing: No
  
  
• Carafe Type & Heating Plate: No
  
  
• Water Tank Capacity: Removable 78 oz water tank
  
  
• Multi-Position Water Tank: No
  
  
• Auto On: Yes via app
  
  
• Energy Saving Auto Off: Yes
  
  
• Programmable: Yes - 10 favorites
  
  
• Pause & Pour: No
  
  
• High Altitude Setting: Yes
  
  
• MultiStream Technology: Yes
  
  
• BrewID Technology: Yes
  
  
• Wireless Connectivity: Yes
  
  
• Automatic Ejection of used Pods: No

Keurig K-Supreme Plus SMART Review

Design and Build Quality

The Keurig K-Supreme Plus SMART is a good-looking Keurig coffee maker, with its rounded and compact design. At just 8.3 inches in width. You should not have issues trying to fit this smart coffee maker on your kitchen counters (or work desk to make your co-workers jealous).

It comes in black stainless steel, enhancing its looks and durability. The water reservoir comes with a handle and is quite large, with a capacity of 78 oz. It sits sturdily on its base - an improvement from the K-Supreme’s water tank that wobbles a bit. However, the water tank is static - it can only be placed on the left side of the coffee maker.

The user interface looks great with a set of buttons to control the temperature and brew strength settings, as well as buttons for each of the five cup sizes (4, 6, 8, 10, and 12 oz). On top of the buttons, there is a monochrome screen that shows the currently selected settings and issues any alerts (such as connectivity issues).

The UI is intuitive besides looking great. Without reading the K-Supreme Plus SMART manual you can figure out what most buttons do, except perhaps for the heart icon (used to save your favorite brew settings) and the mug-with-a-star icon (the recommended brew button based on capsule recognition).

You can also control this coffee machine using your smartphone. For example, there are sliders to control the coffee size, intensity, and temperature. We like the app’s visual and intuitive slide bars.

Although Keurig states this machine is compatible with travel mugs, the coffee spout vertical clearance is about 6.25 inches. So not all (many?) travel mugs will not fit.

However, you can remove the drip tray to gain additional height up to 7 inches, which is good to know, but is a bit inconvenient if you’re one to prepare coffee for that drive to work.

Overall, the K-Supreme Plus SMART is an attractive coffee machine that uses premium materials and has an intuitive user interface with a monochrome screen and buttons. It is compact, yet comes with a large removable 78-oz water reservoir.

Features and Ease of Use

The K-Supreme Plus SMART is one of the most advanced Keurig machines. It has plenty of settings to customize your brew, in addition to its smart coffee maker features.

One of the best features this smart brewer has to offer is its 10 favorites. By pressing the heart icon you can save up to 10 custom brews and in the Keurig app you can even rename them.

This is quite handy if you live in a large household with many preferences, or if you like to try different types of K-cups but don’t want to bother remembering the brew settings you like.

Talking about brew settings, this baby has:

• 5 Brew sizes including 4, 6, 8, 10, and 12 oz cups.
  
  
• 5 strength and 6 temperature levels you can choose from to customize your coffee the way you want it.
  
  
• BrewID: Using a QR code, the K-Supreme Plus SMART recognizes the K-Cup coffee pod you inserted and optimizes the brew settings for a perfectly customized cup. It’s like having your own personal coffee roasting expert.
  
  
• Iced Settings, which brews a stronger coffee to account for dilution due to ice melt.
  
  
• A high altitude setting, to account for the change in the water’s boiling point with higher altitudes.
  
  
• A hot water dispenser - simply press the K button without inserting a K-Cup, then choose the cup size and press K again.
  
  
• Back-to-back brewing, meaning, if you need to prepare multiple cups of coffee you don’t have to wait for reheating.

As you can see, there are plenty of features to customize your coffee.

But there is more, this is a smart coffee maker after all!

In terms of connectivity settings, you can use the Keurig app to order Google or Alexa to make you a coffee (be nice to them). Obviously, you will need Google Home or Alexa installed in your home.

An interesting smart feature is the My Brew Style, which tracks your coffee-making habits and based on that provides recommendations on brews you may like.

Using the Keurig app you can even schedule a brew which is great to enhance your morning ritual. Your coffee will be ready at the time of your choice upon waking up! Just make sure you insert a pod the night before, check the water level, and place a mug on the drip tray (or else you set yourself for a rude awakening!). The app will remind you to do so just in case.

Other smart settings include smart auto-delivery (keeps track of how much coffee you are using and automatically orders more K-Cups when you’re running low), remote ON/OFF, and the ability to brew remotely.

In terms of cons, this coffee maker cannot make milky coffee drinks. You’ll have to purchase a separate frother. You could look into the Keurig K-Café if milk is essential for your coffee.

Another con is that drip coffee is not an option - for that, you’ll have to check the Keurig K-Duo models.

Keurig still needs to come up with a coffee maker that covers all the bases - a highly customizable K-Cup machine with drip and milk coffee settings!

As you can see, the K-Supreme Plus SMART has plenty of settings that rival more advanced (and expensive) pod coffee makers Nespresso machines, or even some automatic espresso machines. It places an emphasis on smart wireless features; however, these are optional and if you do not wish to connect your Keurig to your home’s Wi-Fi you will still have a highly customizable K-Cup machine.

Coffee Drink Quality

The K-Supreme Plus SMART makes pretty good coffee for a Keurig coffee maker.

Yes, it will not be as good as other types of coffee makers, such as whole bean pour-over coffee or portafilter espresso coffee. Nothing beats freshly ground coffee.

But the intent is to have a good cup of coffee as easily and quickly as possible.

The K-Supreme Plus SMART does come with many customizable brew settings (which we covered above) to make a great cup of coffee. So, this coffee machine can make coffee for virtually all preferences.

In addition, this Keurig coffee maker comes with Keurig’s MultiStream Technology which works by evenly saturating the coffee grounds inside every K-Cup. This results in a more even extraction of flavor and aroma for a full-flavored coffee.

In addition, the BrewID Technology recognizes most K-Cups (those with a QR code) and optimizes the brew settings for that specific K-Cup. This saves a lot of trial and error, which is sometimes needed to reach the full flavor potential of a K-Cup.

Thanks to its numerous brew customization and smart features such as BrewID, the K-Supreme Plus SMART makes some of the best coffee drinks within all Keurig machines. However, given this is a pod coffee machine, don’t expect something out of a coffee shop.

Cleaning & Maintenance

Keurig coffee makers have become famous because of their simplicity to use and clean. Very little work is required from you to keep this machine running in top shape.

The K-Supreme Plus SMART is no exception.

Regular cleaning includes cleaning your machine’s outer areas with a soft towel, emptying and rinsing the 8-oz removable drip tray, and emptying, rinsing and refilling the water tank.

On a weekly basis, you should remove the K-Cup holder and the funnel within it, and thoroughly rinse them with water. Be careful of the needles on top though! Cleaning blood off the inners of your machine complicates things!

You should also clean the exit needle and entrance needles regularly. This can be done by inserting a paper clip inside the needles.

This Keurig smart coffee maker is compatible with water filters, and you can set up a reminder so that you don’t forget to change the water filter. This is important as an old filter can actually decrease the water quality.

Like most coffee machines, there is a descaling function. You will need the Keurig Descaling Solution but there are other ways to descale your Keurig as well. Descaling should be done every three months or whenever the descale notification turns on.

In short, the Keurig K-Supreme Plus SMART is very easy to clean and maintain, and it helps you keep it in top shape by reminding you when to change the water filter or when it’s time to descale it.

Value for Money

At the time of writing, this is one of the most expensive Keurig coffee makers at around $220 if you buy it stand-alone. If you get the starter kit, it only costs $100 with a 16-box commitment (about $320 worth of K-Cups).

However, compared to other pod machines like Nespresso, the K-Supreme offers very good value for money. The coffee maker itself is much cheaper than many Nespresso machines, and so are the K-Cups when compared to Nespresso VertuoLine pods.

The K-Supreme Plus SMART is an especially good value coffee maker if you purchase coffee from coffee shops every day. These days, a coffee costs at least $3 (plus time and gas spent driving to the coffee shop). This translates to almost $1,100 of coffee per year, enough to buy almost 5 of these coffee makers!

There is a cost associated with using K-Cup; they cost about $0.80 per unit. If you use a pod per day, the total cost is about $304 per year.

So if you buy the more expensive stand-alone version of the K-Supreme Plus SMART, and have one cup of coffee every day, the total Year 1 cost will be around $525.

That is close to $600 in savings if you purchase coffee from coffee shops!

Compared to the K-Supreme Plus, you are paying just $20 more for many SMART features and more temperature and strength settings. So it’s definitely worth getting the SMART version over the Plus.

Obviously, you could save even more if you get a 4-cup coffee maker and grind your own coffee beans. But you are paying extra for the convenience of K-Cups!

In short, the Keurig K-Supreme offers excellent value and can save you a lot of money if you’re one to buy coffee from coffee shops every day.

Our Verdict

Frequently Asked Questions