Ember Temperature Control Smart Mug 2
For drinks that never get cold
$110 $150 Save $40
The second-generation Ember Mug can keep your coffee or tea at its perfect temperature for 80 minutes on full charge, or forever if you have it sat on its charging coaster. Perfect for winter months.
By the time the winter months come around – and the cold temperature seeps into my bones and nights get earlier – there’s only one gadget I use more than my Kindle Paperwhite (because, of course, I’m cozying up under a blanket and devouring ‘The Hunger Games’ for the umpteenth time). That product isn’t a phone, tablet, my smartwatch, headphones or anything else mainstream: it’s a mug.
“Cam, a mug isn’t a gadget, you fool,” I imagine is your reply to that. My response: this isn’t just an ordinary mug. This is the largest second-generation Ember Mug, and it keeps my coffee (or tea) at a constant temperature for a long time, so that I’m not forced to drink cold coffee or down my coffee so fast that I consume far too much of it in too short a space of time.
For Black Friday and Cyber Monday weekend – while the event is still running – this model has dropped to just $110, saving you $40 on the full price, and it’s available in a couple of different colors at Best Buy at this price, and in the plain white variant at Amazon.
Why the Ember Temperature Control Smart Mug 2 is a good investment ahead of the holidays
If you drink a lot of hot drinks – whether that’s tea, coffee, cocoa or any other form of drink that requires heat – you’ll undoubtedly have experienced forgetting about that drink and going back to it only to find that it’s cold, or worse, lukewarm.
For me personally, it’s usually my first coffee in the morning when I sit down to work. I’ll switch my computer on, get sucked into making my to-do list for the day and start working on an article, only to return to my coffee thirty minutes later, and – in a regular mug – that’ll mean it’s cooled considerably. In winter, that’s really not ideal and makes it about as unpleasant to drink as it can be, and microwaving it just makes it worse somehow.
With the second-generation Ember Temperature Control Smart Mug, that’s never an issue. I have the charging coaster (which ships with the mug) on my desk, with the Ember mug constantly docked, and it keeps my coffee at a hot temperature for as long as there’s coffee in there.
That’s what makes it smart. It uses an internal battery and heater to keep the coffee at a temperature that I have set as my ideal temperature. Away from the charging coaster, that battery can keep it hot for up to 80 minutes. Once it’s empty, the sensors at the bottom of the mug can tell there’s nothing left, and stop heating.
To set this temperature, you connect the mug to your phone (via Bluetooth) and use the Ember control app to set your preferred temperature, anything between 120°F and 145°F. As soon as the mug detects any liquid inside, it’ll keep measuring the temperature and – once it drops below that figure – start heating it up, keeping it constant for as long as it needs to. You can even set presets for different types of drink, so you could have different temperatures for tea, coffee or hot cocoa. You can also use the app to set tea-steeping timers and change the LED color on the base of the mug.
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The mug is IPX7 waterproof so you can handwash it and rinse it easily, but you can’t stick it in the dishwasher. That’s a big ‘no no.’ The only downside, if you drink hot drinks with milk in them, is if you leave it sitting too long without stirring, the hot drink will develop something of a fine skin on the surface, so maybe don’t try leaving your milky lattes in there for two hours at a time, or just keep a teaspoon nearby to stir every so often and you’re good.
Calling it a lifesaver would be an exaggeration, but it’s genuinely brilliant, and I don’t think I could live without it – at least not once we get to the end of November on the north coast of Wales. It isn’t the cheapest mug in the world, but it’s cheaper than usual this weekend, and that $40 discount is certainly not to be sniffed at.
