The Hands Down Best Single-Serve Coffee Maker, Per Consumer Reports

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Pop in a pod, press a button, and you have hot coffee. When you're still partially asleep and uncaffeinated, the simpler the coffee maker, the better. The market is full of these single-serve coffee makers from brands like Nespresso, Cuisinart, and Keurig. Each company offers multiple models tuned to your personal preferences. With all these options, it's helpful that the nonprofit consumer advocacy group Consumer Reports rated and reviewed 35 models to find the best one: Keurig's K-Cafe Smart.

The experts' lab tests were overall positive, with perfect marks for speed in making the first cup, consistency in the amount of coffee after each brew, the different ways you can make your coffee, and convenience. The machine also fared well with wait time between cups and how consistent the temperature was. 

The Smart version of the K-Cafe includes WiFi connectivity, allowing you to schedule a brew and customize and save your brew settings via an app. That's right — you can wake up to a fresh mug of pumpkin spice coffee using one of our top-ranked pods. This feature also lets your machine recognize your pods and can earn you free coffee with every cup you brew (like a punch card at a coffee shop). You can buy the Keurig K-Cafe Smart on Amazon for around $200.

If you're looking for an automated single-serve coffee maker, this may be your best bet. However, single-serve coffee makers in general have many issues, and Keurig's K-Cafe Smart isn't exempt. In Consumer Reports' owner surveys, the machine scored poorly in predicted brand reliability and only average in owner satisfaction. Keurig as a company doesn't have the best image for reliability, and its coffee makers are among the most returned items at Costco.

We advised skipping the K-Cafe Barista Bar, a related version, in our rundown of Costco coffee products. There are small differences besides WiFi capability between the different K-Cafes; the Smart version allows you to adjust your drink's strength, and it has more needles wetting the grounds and extracting the coffee from the K-Cup. A user on Reddit asked how much of a difference this makes, and responses were mixed. Some said the coffee tasted the same; others said if you buy stronger K-Cups you will notice the difference.

The reaction on Amazon, however, is largely positive, with 4.5 stars and almost 25,000 reviews. Most reviewers enjoy the coffee the machine makes, and the convenience it brings. The most common complaint was reliability, with machines breaking down in two to five years. Still, even those who complained about the machine's fragility liked how easy it was to make coffee. "I realize that it's not for someone who likes the primo upscale experience of drinking a[n] old-school latte. But that's never been me anyway. So this thing is perfection," wrote one reviewer. If this sounds like you, the Keurig K-Cafe Smart is the way to go.