Usability

What are these machines actually like to use in day-to-day life?

The Smarter’s coffee is awful if you try to make just one cup. Really bad

If you’re hung up on the idea of operating your coffee machine from the other side of the house then, really, the Smarter is the one for you. That’s because the De’Longhi app doesn’t work 100 per cent perfectly, and the Gaggia doesn’t even have an app.

That doesn’t suddenly mean the Smarter is the best machine to use, though. Far from it.

For a start, you have to clean it out every time you make a coffee, washing the filter. The others clean themselves out, and excrete little coffee pucks that end up in an internal bin; you need only empty this every now and then.

Then there’s the coffee itself. The Smarter’s coffee is awful if you try to make only one cup. And we mean really bad. If you don’t want to make a full jug, don’t bother. To get a really good brew, you’ll want to bypass the grinder altogether, heap in your own coffee grounds and then prep a full load.

The other two machines can each make a single cup perfectly every time. Of the two, the De’Longhi gets you a thicker, darker crema. That’s the orangey foam stuff you get on a proper coffee without even adding milk. There’s not a sniff of that with the Smarter machine.

The Smarter’s internal sensors play up at times, too, meaning it’ll refuse to brew even if you’re in front of it pressing the Start button. Wireless works better than hoped, but the rest needs work. If you only have £180 to spend, there are better options out there.

If, on the other hand, you have a bigger budget, you need to decide if you want the slightly more manual approach of the Gaggia or the tech-saturated style of the De’Longhi.

If you already know your way around an espresso machine, we think you’ll love the no-fuss style of the Anima Deluxe. It involves zero mess, and little effort.

However, if you want to cater for a household of people ranging from the coffee obsessive to the person who loves flat white but has no idea what goes into one, this is where the PrimaDonna Elite really comes into its own.