I'm sorry you had such a bad experience with an expensive coffee mug. I can understand those frustrations if you are really looking to utilize the BT functionality. I had issues with it early on, but once you send your desired temp to the mug (131F for me!) it retains that regardless of any connectivity. I decided early on this was just a really nice mug (with no plastic on it) for keeping my coffee at an ideal temp for prolonged periods of time. Almost a decade out the battery life isn't that bad at all for doing what I want it to do and it does alert me with a red light when the battery is low. After about 6 years or so I had my charger pins go bad but bought a $6 replacement kit on ebay and repaired it. I've had plenty of paint-chipping issues with it, but micron scale over time - no paint chips floating in my coffee or anything like that. I've heard the ember 2 does a little bit better with BT connections, but I can't even remember the last time I bothered to connect via the app anyway. The look and the larger size of the Nuwave are personally turn-offs for me.

Pokémon would probably be more apropos than Napoleon Dynamite you're right!

By taste on the Mino for this particular bean. Optimized setting for each. Pretty similar median particle size by visualsation (probably around 750range) but fines production is fairly fixed within the pour over range. See https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/jfpe.70129For an interesting analysis of this.