This coffee delivery service gives you a smart scale so you never run out of beans. The coffee was good, but I still ran out of beans.

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• Bottomless Coffee is a usage-based subscription service that uses a scale to track how much coffee you have. 
• The service is easy to sign up for and the scale is simple to set up and use.
• Although the scale tracked my coffee accurately, there were still multiple day gaps where I had no coffee.

If you're anything like me, running out of coffee is a disaster. But coffee should be brewed at its freshest, and stockpiling can lead to beans getting stale and losing their flavor.

That's where coffee subscription services come in. Most of these services send you coffee at a set interval, like once a week. Bottomless Coffee is different in that it uses a smart scale to weigh your coffee and automatically place an order when you start to run low. Of course, I had to give their service a try. There were a few hiccups, but the service worked almost as advertised.

How Bottomless Coffee subscription works

Signing up for the service is similar to other coffee subscriptions like Trade or Mistobox. Bottomless takes you through a short questionnaire to determine your taste and needs: the level of roast, whether you want it whole bean or ground, which pricing tier (basic about $16.75 per bag, standard $19.50, or premium $23), and how much you need. The pricing tier correlates to the available coffees, with more specialty roasts included in higher tiers. 

Once your account is created and payment completed, your Bottomless scale and the first bag will be shipped. Bottomless Coffee uses a smart scale to intermittently weigh your coffee. When your coffee hits a certain threshold, the WiFi-connected scale triggers an order through the website based on your preferences and automatically ships it to you. 

The actual weight threshold for the auto ordering is unclear; the ordering frequencies are "As Fresh as Possible," which gives you the most time between orders, the standard option, "Just Right," and "Never Run Out," which is the shortest interval between orders.

The Bottomless Coffee scale

Setting up the scale is fairly simple. It needs to be charged using a USB cable and then connected to the internet. Once it's connected, you'll be prompted to visit a page where you can link your scale to your account, set the zero level, and connect it to your home WiFi network.

After that, all you have to do is leave your coffee (in the bag or your own container) on the scale. The scale is compact, taking up minimal countertop or shelf space. The whole point of using this particular service is to make sure you never run out of coffee and aren't stuck to a weekly or biweekly delivery. The brand does note that it can take a few orders to learn your coffee-drinking rhythms. 

Unfortunately, that didn't work out smoothly for me. Four days passed between when my first bag ran out and my second bag arrived. To speed up the process, I adjusted my settings from the standard "Just Right" setting to "Never Run Out." Even then, I still went two days without coffee before my third bag showed up. Maybe my partner and I drink coffee at a faster rate than average, but the gap is worth noting if you're a heavy coffee drinker.

Cost compared with other coffee subscriptions

The cost per bag of coffee is comparable to other services that offer single-origin beans, and like most coffee subscriptions, Bottomless charges per bag. However, Bottomless also charges a monthly fee of $7.99, which is likely because of the smart scale and automatic ordering. Most of the other popular coffee services don't have monthly fees, or WiFi enabled scales, but ultimately this makes Bottomless pricier. 

The bottom line

Although the idea behind Bottomless is novel and has the potential to be a useful tool for busy coffee drinkers, the service has a few kinks to work out. Maybe I drink more coffee than most, but when using the auto-trigger option, I went days without coffee on both settings. For busy people who drink coffee at a slower pace, Bottomless may be worthwhile, but a timed subscription service that delivers on a set schedule is simply more reliable.