The brief

Coffee Lab is a concept app for a smart coffee brewing companion that pairs with WiFi-enabled coffee machines. Recipes, remote start, grind and temperature tuning, and personalized brew profiles all sit inside an app that's designed to feel premium without being precious. We built the iOS and Android concept across seven weeks of internal exploration.

What we solved

Connected appliance apps tend to fall into two camps. Either they assume the user is a casual home brewer and dumb everything down, or they assume the user is a barista and bury the actual functionality behind a wall of settings. We wanted to design something that scaled gracefully from a casual user to an enthusiast without re-skinning the app.

How we got there

We designed Coffee Lab around the moment that matters most: the 90 seconds before a brew. The home screen anticipates that moment with one-tap presets for the user's favorite drinks, and surfaces deeper controls only when the user dives in. Recipe sharing is treated like a community feature without being noisy about it. The brand leans warm and editorial rather than tech-forward.

What we shipped

The Coffee Lab concept landed on a three-tab structure: brew, recipes, and machine. Brew is the home of one-tap presets. Recipes is the discovery and saving surface. Machine handles maintenance and pairing. The visual system uses warm neutrals, a single bold accent, and editorial typography that nods to specialty coffee culture without over-doing it.

What changed for the client

Coffee Lab was published as a portfolio piece and used as a reference design in conversations with prospective hardware clients. The concept sparked two paid client engagements with connected-appliance brands within six months of publication.