I think you are missing what I am saying about the effort it requires to get a perfect shot, day in day out as its a moving target on any grinder and machine combo. You cant dial in the perfect shot today and hit it first time tomorrow, well you might but then you should buy power ball tickets immediately as its almost the same amount of luck. Any commercial setting of repute should be checking and adjusting the dial in during the day as it will need tweaking. If you aren’t tweaking every day with multiple discard shots then you aren’t getting the absolute best from your coffee, and are actually where most people are.

What I am saying is despite what a lot of people say on the internet about dialing in that perfect shot they aren’t doing it every morning at 6am when they have to leave for work in half an hour. At 6am I am quite happy with a shot somewhere between acceptable and good, which is more than enough for the effort required. When I get new beans on a lazy Sunday morning then is the time for me to be doing my dozen or so dial in shots, as that’s when I actually have the time to chase a god shot. This is about the usage profile for what I would expect the average person spending thousands on coffee gear for home use to be like.

As I mentioned before, the Decent makes a number of design choices that limits it in other areas (such as pump type) in order to gain proper temperature and pressure control rather than inferior (cheaper implementation) or much more complex (expensive implementation) temperature control in the boiler or flow control pretending to be pressure control at a cheaper price point (and yes I really want flow and pressure control). Even though the Strada has proper pressure control its actually a bit finicky in implementation compared the Decent, as the Strada has its pump cycling and odd behavior for ramps/holds. The Decent despite the interface you don’t seem to like is actually a lot easier to setup and its a lot easier to just download and go with one of the many preexisting profile. Its also far easier to debug what exactly when on with the shot with the data it gives you.

Buying what is a commercial espresso machine that is capable of doing a high volume of shots per day for years is just overkill. Its like driving round in a school bus because once every three years you need to transport 12 people at once. Or buying the biggest baddest impact wrench on the market when you just need to put in some deck bolts. There are better products suited to the home user that aren’t duty cycle first and foremost but offer more usable functionality. Its typical all gear no idea approach, spending the most must give you the best result.

I like the look of the Sanremo YOU, but fiddling with the screen and buttons on the group head for proper in depth shot customisation fills me with loathing, you need the space to get proper graphs. If I am going to use an app then I am back where I started with the Decent. I haven’t seen the Synesso ES-1 in depth yet but initially the screen looks too small for me for that distance as it looks like an old iphone size?

Regarding better shot from any machine, the machine is completely irrelevant once it can hold a stable pressure and temperature for a single shot if you are going all out for a god shot after spending ages properly dialing in using the very best grinder, burr set, water, and beans for whatever you want out of your espresso machine. Average coffee nerd doing their usual 6am shot on any high end grinder and machine will be out performed by somebody else using the same grinder, better water, beans, technique on a much cheap e61 that can do the stability I mentioned. Far too much is given to the high end machines for improving quality when they far behind grinders, which are behind beans, water, and technique for espresso quality.