# GINA – Smart coffee brewer — user reviews > 24 indexed App Store user reviews of GINA by ZkotZ, rated 1.90/5 from 31 ratings. - Source: https://appshunter.io/ios/app/gina-smart-coffee-brewer/id1168342086/reviews - App overview in markdown: https://appshunter.io/ios/app/gina-smart-coffee-brewer/id1168342086.md - Rating breakdown: 5★ 2 · 4★ 2 · 3★ 4 · 2★ 5 · 1★ 18 ## Newest reviews (4 of 24) ### 2/5 — Gina awesome - the app not so much! *2021-05-12, version 1.0.70* This app reminds me of the old Soviet Lada cars - its a barely functional, smoking mess. Standard journeys in pour over and immersion work fine, but hit any pothole and you are guaranteed off the road. It’s a shame, because the Gina itself is a BMW. Quality build, and onboard electronics that are great - except that there aren’t any visible instruments of course! This means that the app is the only way to access Ginas $100 ‘Smart’ features. It’s been 3 years since launch and my BMW Gina still hasn’t had a satisfactory Lada features update. In fact, the latest app version has gone from 1.5 to 1.0.7! Get with the program Goat Story! Users are well advised to put the Gina on a separate scale until you update this app - or better still, release an open source api and let the development community create a BMW interface for you! ### 1/5 — This App does not work *2018-01-07, version 1.1* For some reason when I add coffee beans it seems to mis interpreting the weight of the beans for the weight of water. Please fix. ### 1/5 — Great hardware, terrible app *2018-01-05, version 1.1* GINA is great hardware but the app is absolutely shocking. It doesn’t feel like a native app at all. It is clunky, using non-native elements and just feels off. I know you can do better. Here are some notes (I already left these on Kickstarter but you dismissed them): 1. You do not use native iOS navigation bars which gives inconsistent behaviour. For example, tapping “Login” shifts the logo and back arrow up. there is also no animation between screens and the full screen backgrounds shift with no finesse. It gives off the impression of an unprofessional app. I have no idea why you did not use native iOS UI elements. 2. Please use a SafariViewController for signing in using Facebook. As it stands, you use a native web view which, for all we know, you are using to mine our email address and passwords. It also means we can’t use password managers or take advantage of shared login credentials. Use SafariViewController. Super easy. 3. Use of the word “eMail”. This is not 1996. It’s “Email”. 4. By default you are sharing our names and profile pictures with every single other user and there is no way to opt out of the social community. This is a huge invasion of privacy. 5. The app looks different to how it is described in the tutorial videos, to the point that the videos are completely useless. 6. Buttons give no visual feedback that they’ve been pushed. Eg: the “tar” button doesn’t animate. Super easy to do and adds a lot of polish. 7. By default you don’t enable auto login. WTF?! Why do you deliberately make it so much more inconvenient. In short: PLEASE use native, proper components and don’t give us a crappy web view based app. You can do better than this!!!! ### 2/5 — Needs some work *2017-12-31, version 1.1* So I’m going to start by saying I like my coffee strong... and when I add my coffee grounds, it won’t let me get past the first stage. It states that I’ve added to much coffee.. so I add water and then it states that I’ve added to much water. I reduced both coffee and water and still says I’ve added to much water... when adding the water it tends to add more than it’s added or sometimes less. Please fix. And another thing, I wish there could be a more detailed step by step guid on how to do things instead of just showing you a brief video. ## Most critical reviews (10 lowest-rated) ### 1/5 — The coffee brewer is great but the app is worse than useless *2020-12-28, version 1.0.70* My app loses the data from the cold drip brew halfway through the process so if I haven’t kept careful track of where I am in the brew, the brew is sabotaged. The Gina brewer itself is great but if I were buying again I’d get the non-smart version unless the app were to improve to the point of being functional for a longer brew. I have a joule sous vide and often use the joule and joule app to perform a cooking operation that takes several hours. The joule app doesn’t restart every time I navigate back to it and even if it were to do so it keeps track of what I am cooking and sends me notifications and would be able to reload all the data from the cooking action I was in the middle of. The Gina app forgets I’m in the middle of a brew and forgets all the details of that brew after ten minutes. So I could likely complete a faster brew method before the app sabotaged my brew, but the cold drip coffee brew is meant to take hours. My joule app clearly walks me through the steps I need to follow whether I am doing my own settings or following a recipe through the app. The Gina app doesn’t provide clear instructions and instead funnels you to videos with irritating elevator music in lieu of written directions. Thus if you want to double check one point in the brewing process it is hard to get that info off the app without having to rewatch the whole video. ### 1/5 — Pretty much unusable. *2020-12-14, version 1.0.70* Great concept but unfortunately the app crashes every single time whilst in the middle of using it. This app needs a lot of work. ### 1/5 — Bootleg, awful UX *2020-10-17, version 1.0.70* What kind of Bluetooth device doesn’t have a button on it for pairing? Goat-story completely fails to mention anything about how to get your Gina prepared to connect via Bluetooth, they just assume it’ll happen out of thin air. Literally tried all of their bogus suggestions as to why it might have trouble pairing, which included powering off/on my phone, and deleting/reinstalling the app. Shocker: neither one made a difference because the Gina still wasn’t signaling to connect to Bluetooth. ### 1/5 — Pretty bad *2020-05-11, version 1.5* Everything about this app feels like I’m waiting for an old Windows 2000 computer to boot up. From app startup, to log-in time, to synchronizing with the Gina unit, it’s a wait-fest. The UI is also unpolished and a few buttons don’t respond on the first 1 to 10 taps. Get it together, Goat Story... ### 1/5 — Useless *2020-04-26, version 1.5* Absolutely garbage app. After restarting phone, reinstalling app, plugging in Gina to different outlets, etc, still unable to connect to Gina. Continue to get a “connection timed out” error. Absolutely disgusted with this product and company. ### 1/5 — App Needs Work *2020-04-09, version 1.5* I really love the Gina but unfortunately the app needs some serious work. Does not feel polished, updated and not on the level of the amazing coffee machine. ### 1/5 — App is terrible *2019-12-29, version 1.4* The dripper is esthetic and works wonderfully. The app is a complete disaster, it will give you false reading and won’t give you the accurate number at the end. I think they don’t care about customers. Terrible... ### 1/5 — Updated for iOS 13 but still not optimized for iPhone X *2019-10-05, version 1.4* App doesn’t take into account the notch or home indicator. Facebook login doesn’t function as Facebook states it’s not implemented correctly. When it does “work” the UI and UX is pretty confusing. Shame as the hardware itself is quite nice. ### 1/5 — Gina is neat, App is terrible *2018-07-03, version 1.2* Gina is neat, app is terrible The Gina Brewer is unique in that it make a cold drip brew, which none of my other home setups can do, so that’s been fun to try. Also its flexibility to do immersion and pour over is great, though I prefer a different pour over brewer. The cold drip module also doesn’t quite seat itself in the pitcher evenly. It’s got a silicone gasket but it only makes the drip module drop in crooked more often than not, and you really have to work with it to make it flush with the level of the pitcher rim. Without the gasket, it’s clinky glass on glass. Minor detail but would be good if they corrected that. Maybe with a flat wider gasket instead of the rounded hairband-like one they use now The app however is garbage. I wouldn’t pay more for this feature had I known it would be such terrible UX. It’s not intuitive at all. There’s plenty of opportunity to make the app a much better guide for each brew, with the flexibility to go back and forth between steps and not lose your scale measurements. Every time I move to the next step, if I back up, I lose all the original measurements. What’s the point of that? And it should keep the tare that I set, from the weight of the cold drip module, pitcher and the funnel without the coffee. Instead if I back up, it resets the tare to include the coffee I put in. The only way to return to the original tare settings is to pour out the coffee, tare, and pour it back in. What a pain. Also, since the funnel can’t hold the full amount of water/ice needed for a single brew all at once–you have come back to add more when some of it has flowed through–the app should keep in its memory the last weight in water/ice, so I can add to it when it’s time, rather than having to do the math, manually write it down, or remember the rest of the weight in ice/water I have to add. Again, this should’ve been addressed in a tech product like this. Because I haven’t been able to get past the first step, I haven’t been able to access the timer aspect of the next. Useless and frustrating. There should also be a way to access a more manual option where I should be able to plug in numbers rather than readings from the scale, adjust ratios there, so I can do it without that annoying thing that keeps popping up that there’s too much weight on the scale. All in all, it’s obvious that they put most of the thought into the contraption itself, which looks great apart from that minor fitting issue, but they had low priority for user experience. Even their instruction manual could’ve been much more thorough, but it kind of just leaves you to go to the app, which is, as iterated here, a fail. The plus side is that they have plenty of opportunity to vastly improve on the app after the fact, and I hope they will. Soon! In the meantime, I’m only using the app to get the ratios and have been measuring my coffee and water/ice for the most part on a separate scale which makes the high-tech model of Gina a moot point. Please spend more time and resources on improving the app experience, and you’d have a pretty solid product. ### 1/5 — App is a hot mess *2018-01-13, version 1.1* -Won’t save your login, so you see login screen each time on open. Annoying. - Tutorial UI is confusing. You have to X out of a pop up to continue the tutorial instead of a swipe or “next”, which isn’t in line with Apple design guidelines. - App won’t save state on suspend, which means the scale resets if you send a text/call or literally anything else during brew. So you’ll lose track of water:bean ratio... therefore if you’ve happened to add water already you’re totally boned. 0 chance of recovery. - Main brew screen has confusing UI as well. Why is the anvil icon non-tappable and what is it there for? Why does pressing continue give no feedback? Seriously just lay out what I need to set in-app and give prompts on the phone screen for what needs to happen with the GINA. I’ve brewed three times and screwed up the app workflow each time. I’m beginning to think the app workflow, with its idiosyncrasies and 0 visual cues, is poor. Honestly just make it open source so I can fix it. ## Most praised reviews (10 highest-rated) ### 5/5 — Love it *2018-05-12, version 1.1* It works when I use it and I love that it saves all my data of the coffees I made ### 4/5 — Want new updates *2020-10-24, version 1.0.70* I think there is a small problem with the app in iOS 14 I hope we getting new updates soon ### 4/5 — Apple Watch app please *2020-05-09, version 1.5* Guys, PLEASE, make an app for Apple Watch! That will be so convenient. And is it possible to fix the issue, when the music stop playing when GINA is working? 😄 ### 4/5 — Awesome stuff! *2019-11-15, version 1.4* I love it, my coffee maker still makes a most excellent cup of coffee just like day one but can you please move the submit button on the ratings page to the top? After we finish brewing seems like a bunch of unnecessary scrolling. Keep up the great work! ### 3/5 — Need more function *2020-08-05, version 1.0.70* - Need pour over select method brew - don't like bettery indicator - need background running ### 3/5 — Extremely unstable application *2020-07-28, version 1.0.70* I love my Gina coffee machine. Best thing ever. Although the app has interesting features, it’s really unstable. Crashes all the time. Loses your data while brewing or after a brew. Maybe it’s my old phone (iPhone 6)? I don’t know. But it’s annoying sometimes. ### 3/5 — Still a few glitches but getting better. *2018-06-09, version 1.2* + I like the battery meter - Water temp still set in C despite having F in preferences - Grind is not being stored - A scale glitch took my water from 10 oz to 2 while I was pouring, it never recovered - Doesn’t appear to be away to see more than two lines of comments after storing? I might be missing something... I’ll keep the review up to date as I find things. ### 3/5 — Not ready *2017-12-27, version 1.1* This was a gift, and this product has the promise to be very cool. But it’s not intuitive, not clear, and the app disappears. In the middle of a brew. All the careful, precise weighing (which was hard to understand and get right) is lost, and as far as the app is concerned you’re not brewing. I’m probably going to not use the app if it doesn’t get better. Just make coffee. ### 2/5 — App unfortunately doesn’t reflect the coffee machine’s quality *2024-10-08, version 1.0.70* I’ve been loving my Gina coffee machine since more than 8 years now, but this app is obnoxious at best. Seems like they haven’t put as much love in their digital product as they did with the physical one. App is unstable, it’s a lottery win if you’re able to login at start (app network connectivity), the interface doesn’t match with more recent phone sizes, buttons are often hard to hit, especially the back button in the top left, sometimes doesn’t save your brewprints (app network connectivity again). Please take some time and resources to fix this. There are still people using your products… ### 2/5 — Pls update your app! *2021-08-23, version 1.0.70* Last update was 1 year ago! Really?! --- *Data collected daily from the US App Store and indexed by [AppsHunter](https://appshunter.io/). User reviews are verbatim App Store reviews. Ratings, prices and chart positions refresh continuously; this snapshot is from 2026-06-11.*