I had bought this smart brewer because i wanted something that would have my coffee ready in the morning as i wake up. Turns out the only way to have it "self-brew" is to activate it from your phone. So the only thing really "smart" about it is that instead of walking up to it to start the brew, i can also start the brew from my phone (of course, granted i had put in the new pod and had my mug ready from the night before). It has some other cool features like being able to set the strength and cup size etc from your phone - but i was really expecting at least an option to have it auto-brew at a certain time...