I’ve never taken apart a Topre board, but looking at this video video, I’d say it was doable. Fiddly, maybe, but then again, so is opening up every switch on an MX board, too. Take your time, be gentle, pay close attention to what you’re doing… You’re probably going to be fine.

Before opening up or resoldering any switches, I’d short the two pins with something (tweasers or similar) to confirm or rule out the switch itself as the cause.

From the look of things, yeah, the OXO device looks similar enough to a Gabi, just a different filter type and a different (bigger) size. If there’s a disadvantage to the Gabi, it’s that: it’s rather small, so unless you’re doing single cups, you’ll have to pour in a couple of rounds, making sure your bed doesn’t dry out in the meantime, etc. It won’t be a problem if you do single cups, so I suppose that’s what it’s primarily aimed at. Oh, and the type of filters differ, of course, so if you have a strong preference there, that might dictate the dripper/drip-assist you can use.

Either way, yes, the OXO looks to be the same kind of thing, good to hear it works well, too!

Hario could be more popular because Hario, not sure though. I’ll ask said coworker if he has experience with other devices (pretty sure he dailies a V60).

As for faffery levels: yes, if that is your cup of tea (ha), that slightly changes things of course. ;)

but I don’t really see much difference from manually pooring.

Main difference is ease of use, you don’t need to use a gooseneck to circle around, another time, wait a bit, make a pentagram, invoke some eldritch coffee god, pour the rest. You just fill the top resorvoir and wait for it to drip through. Refill until you’ve hit your water volume.

Basically going the immersion route makes your water touch the coffee longer.

It’s not immersion route, afaict, not more so than a regular pour-over. Unless I’m misunderstanding you (or the processes).

It might give you a slight improvement in comfort, but at what cost.

Roughly 30-40 euros, I believe. ;)

Someone at the office brought a Gabi Dripper (or whatever the proper name is). Basically a Kalita Wave compatible filter holder, with a shower thingy on top that you just dump water into.

I love that thing. It makes it stupid simple to brew good coffee, without faffing about, and if you want to take the time or experiment, you can still take the top off and do a manual pour.

The way I see it: it’s an addition. I’ve seen posts about “does this defeat the purpose”, and I consider that silly gate keeping. The purpose is good coffee, yeah?

My takeaway wasn’t that he didn’t like it, he did. Just not worth the absurd price unless you want to literally pay for the privilege.