Despite the wide variety of fabrics used for our clothing, they all share the property of not being living tissues. This could be due to them never having been part of an organism, or having been removed from said organism. Another approach here entails so-called engineered living materials (ELMs), with a recent research article by [Ke Li] et al. in Science Advances providing a good example of a fungal platform for such living textiles.
Although it may seem frivolous to create something like this, the direct benefits would be to have a fabric that can self-heal and respond to its environment, including blocking UV radiation and changing its coloring through pigmentation.
The research demonstrated in this paper covers essentially a platform for creating a living textile that can be adapted to a wide variety of applications and colorizations. Of note is that the researchers have not yet tested aspects like washability, abrasion resistance, breathability and wearer comfort, so this should definitely be regarded as setting the stage for more research.
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For the basic material the fungi Cordyceps militaris was chosen, which were subsequently placed between films. To this additional microbial cultures were added, including the pigment-producing S. cerevisiae and melanized A. niger for UV blocking.
As for what it can look like with clothing, this article at De Zeen gives somewhat of an idea, as well as how the living textile is prepared.
Ransomware protection for MSPs should deliver six tested outcomes: reduce exposure, detect activity before encryption, provide 24/7 response, preserve isolated recovery points, recover cleanly and operate consistently across tenants. Backup alone is not enough, and neither is endpoint detection without a rehearsed recovery path.
The Acronis Cyberthreats Report identified 143 MSP, IT-service provider and telecom ransomware victims in 2025, with phishing accounting for 52% of initial access cases and unpatched vulnerabilities for 27%.
The checklist below turns those failure modes into controls and evidence an MSP should require before calling a service complete.
The six things your service must do and what to verify
A complete ransomware protection service connects prevention, detection, response and recovery. For each control, demand evidence from the exact tenant, workload, storage configuration and service tier being sold.
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Operational job
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Proof to require
Acronis capability mapping
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1. Reduce exposure
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Set patch SLAs by severity and prove MFA for management portals and remote access. Separate backup and security administration; test that one compromised technician account cannot change protection and delete recovery points.
Acronis Cyber Protect Cloud provides vulnerability assessment, patch management, URL filtering and role-based administration. Verify the services enabled per tenant.
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2. Detect across the attack
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Run a controlled behavioral test and confirm an actionable incident appears before widespread encryption. Check endpoint isolation and the identity, email and Microsoft 365 response actions the client requires.
Acronis Active Protection and EDR cover endpoint behavior; Acronis XDR adds endpoint, email, identity and Microsoft 365 visibility.
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3. Respond 24/7
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Confirm who monitors, investigates, contains and contacts the client after hours. Test escalation paths and document which actions require approval.
Acronis MDR provides 24/7/365 monitoring and response on top of Acronis EDR or XDR. Full remediation actions, including recovery and RMM actions, are available with the Advanced tier.
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4. Preserve recovery points
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Use access-separated, immutable and, where required, offline copies. Attempt deletion with compromised credentials; verify retention, alerts and storage-policy changes.
Acronis Cyber Protect Cloud supports immutable backup storage designed to delay deletion and help protect recovery points from accidental or malicious removal.
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5. Recover cleanly
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Select a known-good point, scan it, restore in isolation, rebuild dependencies in order and validate the application. Record the achieved recovery point objective (RPO) and recovery time objective (RTO), not just whether the backup job succeeded.
Acronis Cyber Protect Cloud can scan backups and support malware-free recovery. Acronis Disaster Recovery can coordinate failover and recovery workflows when the required services are licensed and configured.
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6. Operate across tenants
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Apply standard policies without flattening client requirements. Test role separation, cross-tenant visibility, reporting, API access and RMM/PSA handoffs while preventing cross-tenant exposure.
Acronis provides multi-tenant management, centralized reporting and RMM/PSA integrations within the Cyber Protect Cloud platform.
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Important: Immutable, offline and air-gapped describe different controls. Verify each one separately.
How EDR, XDR, MDR and immutable backup work together
EDR monitors endpoint activity and supports investigation, isolation and remediation. XDR connects endpoint signals with other attack surfaces so analysts see one incident instead of separate alerts. MDR adds people and process: a staffed service investigates and responds around the clock. Immutable backup protects recovery points from alteration or deletion; it neither detects data theft nor replaces incident response.
Use them together. In the Acronis model, EDR provides endpoint detection and response, XDR extends visibility to email, identity and Microsoft 365 applications, and Acronis MDR operates on EDR or XDR. Acronis Cyber Protect Cloud supplies the backup, management and multi-tenant operating layer. Immutability is one recovery control; it is not the same as an offline or air-gapped copy.
Acronis Cyber Protect Cloud with Acronis MDR brings prevention, detection, 24/7 response, backup and recovery into one multi-tenant platform.
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See how you can reduce operational complexity, protect recovery points and respond faster across client environments.
The recovery runbook: Cut recovery time at every handoff
Recovery time is the total of detection, triage, containment, clean-point selection, restoration and validation. An MSP reduces RTO by shortening every stage – especially the handoffs between security, backup, identity, networking and the client.
Declare the incident, assign one commander and open an out-of-band channel.
Identify affected tenants, identities, workloads and likely initial access.
Isolate compromised endpoints and block malicious sessions, tokens and remote access.
Preserve evidence before wiping systems or rotating logs away.
Close the entry point by patching, disabling access and rotating credentials.
Choose the latest recovery point that predates compromise and passes validation.
Restore identity and infrastructure dependencies before applications and user data.
Scan, test, reconnect in stages and monitor for renewed attacker activity.
Acronis backup scanning and malware-free recovery capabilities can help validate candidate recovery points, while Acronis Disaster Recovery can coordinate recovery workflows where licensed. The incident team should still confirm that the selected point predates the compromise.
Automation should remove repeatable waits, but an incident commander should approve high-impact actions such as mass isolation, credential resets and failover. A rehearsed path preserves the option to recover without paying, although no tool can guarantee recovery in every attack.
After each drill, record achieved RPO/RTO and every delay, then revise the runbook from evidence rather than estimated restore speed.
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Is immutable backup enough against double-extortion ransomware?
No. Immutable backup can preserve recoverability, but it cannot retract data that attackers already stole or remove breach-notification duties. A ransomware protection service must therefore look for exfiltration and identity abuse before encryption begins.
Correlate endpoint, identity, email, Microsoft 365, DNS, proxy and egress telemetry. During response, isolate devices, revoke sessions and tokens, rotate credentials, block attacker destinations and preserve evidence for legal and notification decisions.
Acronis EDR provides endpoint context and response, while Acronis XDR adds telemetry and response across email, identity and Microsoft 365 applications; network egress evidence may still come from firewalls, SIEM or other client controls. Test those handoffs in advance.
How to evaluate an MSP ransomware platform
Before buying or standardizing a platform, require a live demonstration of these seven items:
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Coverage for client workloads and tenant tiers.
Prevention and detection before broad encryption begins.
Named 24/7 response ownership, escalation paths and approval boundaries.
Immutable-storage mode, retention behavior and privileged-access separation.
Clean-point selection, malware scanning and isolated restoration.
Measured RPO/RTO in a dependency-ordered recovery drill.
Multi-tenant roles, reporting, audit evidence and RMM/PSA/API integrations.
An integrated option is Acronis Cyber Protect Cloud with Acronis MDR.
It brings together capabilities for the six operational jobs, subject to the selected MDR tier, licensing, deployment, storage architecture and the MSP’s incident-response responsibilities. Require a live incident-and-recovery test using the production configuration.
Frequently asked questions
What is the best ransomware protection for an MSP?
A complete ransomware protection service should demonstrate all six outcomes across the client workloads it is contracted to protect. Acronis Cyber Protect Cloud with Acronis MDR is an integrated example. The MSP should validate the production configuration and confirm whether the selected MDR tier includes the required remediation and recovery actions.
What should be included in a ransomware protection service?
Include exposure reduction, EDR or XDR detection, 24/7 response, access-separated immutable recovery points, tested clean recovery and multi-tenant operations with client evidence.
How can an MSP reduce ransomware recovery time?
Remove handoff delays. Preassign owners, map dependencies, validate clean points, automate safe steps and rehearse restores until achieved RPO/RTO matches the service commitment.
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Does immutable backup stop double-extortion ransomware?
No. It protects recovery data from change or deletion but cannot undo exfiltration. Detection, identity controls, egress visibility, containment and notification processes are still required.
Make recovery a tested service outcome
Ransomware resilience is the ability to contain attacks early, preserve a recovery path and prove critical services can return on schedule. Acronis Cyber Protect Cloud with Acronis MDR can bring detection, response, recovery and multitenant management into one MSP operating model.
The MSP should validate the selected tier, storage architecture, integrations and operational responsibilities against the six tests above.
Exeunt zVault stage right; enter FreeCORE and BSDnas
Good news if you want to keep your NAS boxes on FreeBSD – two new contenders just stepped up, with updated forks of the cancelled TrueNAS Core.
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FreeBSD has a strong reputation as a stable server OS, and integrates highly reliable ZFS filesystem right into its kernel. The snag is that Linux is rather more widespread, meaning more people know their way around a Linux box – but Linux knowledge doesn’t transfer well over to FreeBSD.
The Reg FOSS desk just found out about two different new dedicated NAS OS based on FreeBSD – and saliently, based on the current FreeBSD 15 codebase, which was released in December 2025, with version 15.1 arriving in June.
FreeCORE-15.0-U1 appeared on August 27th. It’s the first update for FreeCore 15.0, which appeared just a week earlier.
Some TrueNAS Core users – and this vulture is one of them – were less than delighted by the change. OpenZFS works fine on Linux, and it’s regularly updated, but it must be loaded as a module: license restrictions mean it cannot be built into the Linux kernel. Significantly, this means that the ZFS Adaptive Replacement Cache must remain separate from Linux’s Page Cache. This is not ideal if the server is memory-constrained, and this vulture’s two TrueNAS Core boxes only have 8 GB of memory each.
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A year after the end of TrueNAS Core, we reported on a new project fork called zVault, which took the existing FreeBSD 13.3-based TrueNAS code and removed any parts that belonged to iXsystems. Unfortunately, zVault didn’t get much further than that. By later in the year, users were warning on GitHub BEWARE RUNNING ZVAULT – complete with block caps – and the project maintainers have gone silent. The planned upgrades to a FreeBSD 14 base never emerged.
Now, FreeCORE has appeared, to pick up the slack. It’s already migrated the TrueNAS Core web UI and other code over to the base of FreeBSD 15, plus all the latest security fixes.
The HackerNews discussion of the new product also turned up another new alternative: BSDnas. This appeared just days before the first release of FreeCORE: the project status page is dated 19th August 2026. Its project history tells a similar story: it’s the original TrueNAS Core 13.3 code, cleaned of iXsystems dependencies and moved to the basis of FreeBSD 15. Despite the much newer codebase, the reported memory usage seems modest: it will boot in 2 GB of RAM, and function usably with 4 GB.
For contrast, the TrueNAS SCALE docs recommend at least 8 GB RAM – although they do mention “in TrueNAS 13”, which suggests the docs may be rather dated. The TrueNAS Guide website suggests 16 GB as the entry-level “floor” for the current release.
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The Register asked the FreeCORE project if it had any connection with the older zVault or contemporary BSDnas projects. The developer replied, telling us:
“I am not affilated with ZVault nor BSDnas, and not XigmaNAS either. This is an entirely independent fork.”
They told us that it’s a solo project that they have been working on since January. They had a FreeBSD 15.0 build by April, and they made around 50 test builds before the release.
For completeness, and for those who’d like a more tried-and-tested tool with more history, we would be remiss if we did not mention XigmaNAS. Previously called NAS4Free, this was forked from an older version of FreeNAS after iXsystems acquired it. Its Wikipedia page says XigmaNAS was forked from FreeNAS 8 back in 2011. The latest version on the Sourceforge download page is based on FreeBSD 14, and was last updated in October 2025.
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The original creators of FreeNAS went on to build the Debian Linux-based Open Media Vault. The latest version is 8.5.7, released just last weekend. We have an older version running on a testbed server here, and for the record, it seems quite content in just 6 GB of memory. ®
New submitter greytree shares a report from Brown University: LUX-ZEPLIN, an experiment co-led by Brown University faculty and students, observed a particle interaction that could be interpreted as a signal from WIMPs, a dark matter candidate — but researchers need more data to confirm. […] The result does not yet meet the statistical threshold required to claim a discovery, but it is the most compelling hint of dark matter reported by the experiment to date. “We’re very intrigued to see this event in the data, in the region where we expect dark matter to show up, and the competing backgrounds are very low,” said Rick Gaitskell, a professor of physics at Brown University and the spokesperson for LZ. “With only one event, we don’t want to get ahead of ourselves. We are not claiming to have seen dark matter. But we have seen something interesting that we want to share with the scientific community for their input.” […]
If the anomalous event was caused by dark matter, the WIMP that generated it would likely have a mass of at least 200 GeV/c2 (gigaelectronvolts), or more than 200 times the mass of a proton. The LZ results have not reached “5-sigma” significance, the statistical threshold in physics that an event must reach to be considered a discovery. The new analysis is 2.6 sigma, meaning there is approximately a 0.5% chance that the event could be explained by known backgrounds. With additional data, researchers can test whether the finding continues to grow in significance or fades away. LZ has already accumulated the world’s largest dark matter dataset and will continue to accrue WIMP search data at SURF, substantially improving their search statistics.
JiJi Fan, an associate professor of physics at Brown not involved in the LZ experimental research but whose theoretical work is cited in the new LZ paper, said the new findings were “very intriguing.” While the event recorded by LZ could not have been the simplest type of WIMP interaction, there are other types of possible interactions that could explain it, she said. Had a WIMP interacted in the simplest way at the high energy associated with this recent event, the detector would have recorded many recoil events at lower energies following the initial event. LZ recorded a single event, however, which requires an expanded theoretical explanation. “There are well-motivated theoretical extensions, including inelastic scattering and momentum-dependent elastic scattering, that could potentially account for this single event,” Fan said. “This also sets up a target for on-going dark matter hunting, not only at direct detection experiments such as LZ but also at other complementary experimental frontiers.”
The results were presented in a scientific talk at the 2026 TeV Particle Astrophysics conference in Japan on Tuesday, Sept. 1. A paper detailing the finding can be found here (PDF).
If you’re on the fence about Star Wars Zero Company, you should know what you might be getting into. The game currently has an aggregate critic score of 85 on Metacritic, making it one of the best reviewed Star Wars games in recent memory. When it comes to story and gameplay, it’s a masterfully executed tactics game in the style of X-COM with memorable characters. What none of the reviews I read or watched mentioned is that Zero Company is also something of a technical mess.
On PC, the game has all the trademarks of a janky Unreal Engine 5 release. I’m running a system with a Ryzen 7 5800X3D, RTX 5060 Ti and 16GB of RAM, and I’m getting constant traversal stutter and input lag when I try to play the game with a mouse and keyboard. I’ve also encountered a bug that forced me to restart the same mission twice. Yes, you might say I’m running the game on a glorified RTX 3070, but even those with more powerful GPUs like the RTX 5090 are complaining of poor performance. On Steam, the game has a “mostly positive” rating across nearly 9,000 reviews, and yet almost every one of those reviews mentions stuttering, game-breaking bugs and crashes.
“Started off having a great time,” one negative review starts. “Then came the crashes. Crashed almost every hour, so needed to save every few minutes. On the times I forgot to save, I had to replay the entire section again. Of course it only ever crashed as I was about to complete a mission.” Over on Reddit, console players are complaining of their own set of issues. YouTuber Daniel Owen has also made a video about the game’s PC issues. While I haven’t played the Xbox Series or PlayStation 5 ports, there are similar reports of crashes and stutters floating around the internet for each.
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The experience of playing Zero Company is frustratingly similar to that of another recent UE5 Star Wars game, Jedi: Survivor. As I wrote about in 2023, that game was broken on release. It suffered from constant traversal and shader compilation stutter on PC, meaning the game would constantly hitch even on high-end systems. For NVIDIA users, the game also shipped without DLSS support. Even after nearly a dozen major patches, Jedi: Survivorstill stutters on PC. At this point, I’ve given up hope that the game will ever play smoothly; Respawn Entertainment, Jedi: Survivor‘s developer, hasn’t released a new patch in nearly two years.
Unfortunately, I can’t confidently say Zero Company will receive even a fraction of the post-release support that Jedi: Survivor got from Respawn. That’s because while Electronic Arts published both games, the new one was made by an independent studio named Bit Reactor, not a direct subsidiary, and its future depends on whether Zero Company sells enough copies.
On Monday, Game File’s Stephen Totilo reported that Bit Reactor had furloughed the majority of its staff just weeks before Zero Company’s release on August 27. One source told Totilo that as much as 80 percent of the studio’s employees aren’t being paid right now. Another source told him that only a skeleton crew remains, “ready to address any of Zero Company’s post-launch bugs.” A spokesperson for Bit Reactor told Totilo that the studio hopes to bring the furloughed workers back with restored pay, a promise the employees he spoke to said they weren’t confident it would be able to deliver on, even if the game is a commercial success. The studio is also embroiled in a legal dispute between its co-founders that won’t go to trial until early 2027.
If what remains of Bit Reactor is working to address Zero Company’s many bugs and performance issues, the one public statement the studio has made on the subject isn’t reassuring. On the day of the game’s release, it simply said on Steam’s Community forums it was aware of “emerging issues (crashes and CPU threading),” and that it was working on implementing fixes. “We’ll let you know when we’re able to provide an update,” it added.
On the face of it, that’s a fine enough statement, but it was issued before the news about its staffing levels came out, and it hasn’t said anything since. EA and Bit Reactor did not immediately respond to Engadget’s comment request, asking what, if any, post-release support the game will receive.
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If you’re thinking about buying Zero Company, just know that it might not get to a better state than it is right now. You might think I’m being overly pessimistic, but I’ll point out it took Respawn, a studio with the full financial backing of EA, a year-and-a-half to get Jedi: Survivor to its current state. Another comparison here is just as illustrative. Cold Symmetry, the indie studio behind Mortal Shell II this past Saturday announced a hefty “Week One” update for its new game, which it released just seven days before Zero Company. Those two comparisons give a sense of the potential difficult road ahead for Bit Reactor, but also what an indie studio can do when it’s fully staffed. Right now, Zero Company doesn’t that have going for it.
Remember the DJ Jazzy Jeff and Fresh Prince track Boom, Shake the Room? Sony clearly hasn’t forgotten and it’s bringing the bass to wherever you are with its latest ULT party speakers.
The latest models consist of the ULT Tower Max, ULT Tower 7 and ULT Tower, sporting a new aesthetic, redesigned drivers and some tuning assistance from Hip Hop sound creators.
The biggest of the new batch of ULT speakers is the ULT Tower Max, which replaces the ULT Tower 10 in the line-up, with designs on delivering the most powerful bass in the series so far. The ULT Tower 7 is smaller, a little less big on the bass, and the ULT Tower 5 is, unsurprisingly, the smallest of the trio, bringing the bass in a portable form for “smaller gatherings”.
To bring even more bass to the series, Sony’s engineers have replaced the X-Balanced speakers that were present before and built newly developed large circular woofers. The ULT Tower Max features three of these, two front-facing and one rear-facing, and believe us when we tell you, even at half volume it’s got bass power to shake a large room.
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With those woofers supported by a high-powered amplifier, the ULT Tower Max has a whopping output of 2150 watts. The ULT Tower 7’s output falls precipitously to 420 watts (which should indicate just how much power the Max is repping); while the ULT Tower unleashes 300 watts of output.
Sound can be adjusted via the ULT button on the front of the speaker, with ULT1 delivering deep bass (“that makes your heart tremble”), ULT2 goes for even more body-shaking power, while Flat aims to reproduce music as the creator intended (though we were told there’s still a slight ‘bump’ in the pitch of the sound), while Live recreates the “spacious feel of a live performance” while maintaining vocal clarity.
Sony has sought out industry credibility with the tuning of the speakers’ performance, sounding out the likes of DJ Dready (formerly of the So Solid Crew), Grammy-nominated producer Dot Da Genius, award-winning drummer Daru Jones and audio engineer/produce Dennis “ROC.am” Jones, with the intent of delivering deeper lows and clearer vocals.
All three party speakers are available now, though we currently only have Euro pricing at the moment. The ULT Tower Max is a SRP of €1500, the ULT Tower 7 is €600 and the ULT Tower 5 is €400.
The concept behind the project is simple enough—grab the digital signals which feed the MC6847 IC responsible generates the analog video output, and use them to create an all-digital video output over HDMI. [Scott] achieved this by using a Tang Nano board, which hosts a Gowin GW1N-1 FPGA. It’s able to snoop the signals heading to the MC6847 and, with some supporting components and level shifters, it can spit out video befitting modern screens. To make the system nicely complete, an analog-to-digital converter is also included to pick up the analog sound output from the TRS-80 and spit it out down the same HDMI cable. Such convenience!
There’s something strangely anachronistic about grabbing a TRS-80 off the shelf and hooking it up to a flatscreen with a single HDMI cable. Regardless, it’s a pretty great way to play with your old machine without having to futz with heavy old CRTs. We’ve featured plenty of similar projects before, too.
NASA has awarded Blue Origin a contract worth up to $700 million to build and operate a dedicated Mars telecommunications network for current and future missions to the Red Planet. Blue Origin is expected to deliver the spacecraft by the end of 2028, with the network targeted to become operational by 2030. From a press release: Blue Origin will design, develop, integrate, launch, and operate the network as a part of the agency’s broader space communications and navigation infrastructure. The architecture will consist of a high-performance telecommunications spacecraft orbiting Mars, transmitting science data, imagery, navigation information, and critical mission communications for spacecraft operating on and around the planet.
The award marks a milestone in NASA’s strategy to expand communications and navigation services beyond Earth and the Moon, establishing the foundation for sustained exploration of Mars in the coming decades.
This week, two stories look at what happens when rules written far from a classroom land on a teacher’s desk. One guest found guidance that barely mentions the youngest students. The other found a law that took away the exact tool his students needed most. Both raise a question that will sound familiar to any educator: When the rules do not fit, who is responsible for making them work?
Where the Screen Time Guidance Runs Out
A longtime education and technology journalist went looking for what happens once new federal guidance meets an actual pre-K classroom. He found teachers working from advice written for teenagers, not four-year-olds, and building their own approach out of whatever was on hand. Adam Stone talks about what he heard from the people closest to the problem.
One Law, One Classroom, One Missing Tool
A Missouri civics teacher ran a yearlong civic engagement program with his students, right as a new state law changed what they were allowed to carry into class. Dan Clark explains what his students lost access to, and why he thinks the fix lawmakers chose missed the point entirely.
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Wired: Sonos has a new app. Stop me if you’ve heard this one before. The smart speaker company, long a darling of the audio industry, undid much of the goodwill it earned with its multiroom speakers through a bevy of software updates that broke its app in 2024. Almost all app users hated it, citing the loss of features like volume control and accessibility tools meant to help blind people use the wireless speaker system. Sonos eventually owned up to the mistake, considered bringing back the old app again, then booted its CEO and marched its new leaders out to apologize profusely to win back the company’s furious customers.
Now, Sonos says it has a brand-new app update, infused with lots of generative AI features. The company also announced a new soundbar and its second pair of over-the-ear headphones. Sonos representatives say it doesn’t want to be seen as a speaker company anymore, but as something bigger and more holistic. “For years people have been seeing us as a speaker company,” says Brandon Holley, the interim hardware lead at Sonos. “What we actually are is an audio operating system.” The company is calling that operating system Sonos 27, and it manifests in a few ways.
[…] This is a lot of change for Sonos, something the company hasn’t always handled gracefully. Sonos’ home systems already aren’t the easiest to set up, sometimes requiring separate apps for older products. The company may be rejiggering itself as an “audio operating system,” but its software has long been the source of its troubles with getting its products to work right. Will AI smarts fix that? Maybe for its newer devices. But anyone with an existing system may still struggle. The AI features on products and in the Sonos 27 app will be opt-in, meaning you can avoid them entirely. “That really is our new approach to our app release,” Patel says. “We’re going to bring our customers along. We’re going to listen more.” That would be a good plan. Sounds like Sonos’ speakers will be listening more, too. Sonos is emphasizing a more “customer-centric feedback listening approach” after the backlash to its previous redesign. Improvements include easier tab navigation, better room sorting, revamped volume controls, and new system-health tools for diagnosing connection problems.
The centerpiece is Sonos 27voice, a generative AI voice assistant that can handle conversational music requests, connect with services like ChatGPT through Model Context Protocol, and power customizable “Sonos Custom Agents” for tasks such as automatically activating certain speakers. “Obviously AI is something that’s very hot these days,” Sonos software VP Sid Patel said. “So we have integrated various pieces of AI into our system.” However, the features will only work with the newer S2 app, and Sonos cautions that “not every product will support every new feature,” with detailed compatibility information coming later.
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Sonos is also branding its multiroom networking technology Sonos Fabric, which what Patel calls “the magic that has existed for what Sonos was built on.” New Fabric features include portable surround, which lets users temporarily move speakers between rooms and have them automatically configure themselves for surround sound, and Headphone Linking, which lets users seamlessly switch audio between Sonos speakers and headphones.
A coffee maker with a grinder? Yes, please! And as its name implies, the Breville Grind Control Coffee Maker has a built-in burr grinder that’s adjustable to produce finer or coarser grinds as desired. And if you don’t feel like grinding coffee beans – no problem, the machine also accepts pre-ground coffee. In addition to brewing a carafe of up to 12 cups of coffee, there’s also a single-serve mode for brewing right into a coffee cup or travel mug. Brew strengths are also adjustable. However, be prepared to do a little maintenance to keep this coffee maker in tip-top shape.
Integrated grinder
Thermal carafe
Brew into carafe, cup, or travel mug
Key Features
Introduction
The Breville Grind Control has earned a place as one of my favorite coffee makers. I will always use fresh coffee beans, if given a choice. However, not many coffee makers offer that option. While combination coffee maker/espresso machines, like the Terra Kaffe TK-02, and the Ninja Luxe Café Pro Series have integrated grinders, it’s still rarer in drip coffee makers.
Admittedly, the Aarke Coffee System has a stand-alone grinder, but the Breville Grind Control is one of the few drip coffee makers with a built-in grinder. And that’s just one of the features that make it stand out. Keep reading to discover the other functions that set the Breville Grind Control apart from other drip coffee makers.
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Design and features
Premium build
LCD Display
User-friendly
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The Breville Grind Control Coffee Maker arrived in a brown cardboard box, and inside of that, a branded box. It was well-packaged to prevent damage during the shipping process.
Image Credit (Trusted Reviews)
The contents include the coffee maker’s body and thermal carafe, user manual, quick start guide.
Image Credit (Trusted Reviews)
The 0.5-pound bean hopper is on the top back of the coffee maker. It has a locking system that seals the base, making it easy to remove. The bean hopper also has a lid to keep the coffee beans fresh.
The water tank is also on the top, near the front, which makes it convenient to pour water into the machine. On some coffee makers, the water tank is in the back, and if that part of the coffee maker is under my countertop, I have to pull the machine out or turn it sideways to fill with water. So, I appreciated not having to do that. The Breville Grind Control’s water tank holds 60 ounces of water (which makes 12 cups of coffee).
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There’s a steam vent on the rear of the coffee maker. Steam comes out when grinding coffee beans and brewing coffee.
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The coffee basket is on the front side, under the control panel. There’s a swing-out door that opens when the Open button is depressed. Behind it is the coffee basket, which is removable. Breville includes a gold tone filter, but you can also use flat bottom paper filters (for 8-12 cup coffee makers) instead.
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The 12-cup double-walled stainless-steel carafe eliminates the need for a hot plate and it keeps coffee hot for hours (when you keep the lid on it), while being cool to the touch. However, for several minutes after the brew cycle has ended, the bottom is still hot, and I had to remember to put it on a silicone trivet mat so it wouldn’t ruin my countertops.
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The controls are on the top front of the coffee maker. The top row includes the Open button, which releases the swing-out door to access the coffee basket.
The LCD display shows how much water is in the tank, as well as the selected number of cups, brew strength, and time. Next to the display panel is the Start/Cancel button.
The lower level of the control panel includes the Menu/Exit button, Cup/Carafe selection, Strength selection, and Auto Start. The coffee maker is programmable, so if you fill it with water and coffee beans/grounds, you can schedule it to start brewing at a specific time. The Menu/Exit button is where the clock is set, alert volumes are adjusted, the machine is reset, and more.
The display panel also provides alerts, such as reminders to empty the coffee filter.
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The coffee maker only has six grind settings, which honestly, is not a problem for me. However, some coffee makers provide over a dozen (or dozens) of settings, and if you prefer a more precise grind, it’s definitely something to consider.
Breville provides a cleaning brush to help clean the burrs and the coffee grinds chute.
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Performance
Adjustable burr grind provides control
Customizable brew strength
Thermal carafe keep coffee hot
The Breville Grind Control performed marvelously. Coffee is much more flavorful and aromatic when it hasn’t been ground in advance, so I appreciate the ability to grind the beans immediately before brewing. The stainless-steel burrs allow the integrated grinder to work quickly and provide a consistent grind, whether it’s coarse, fine, or somewhere in-between.
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There are 6 grind settings, and I usually set the grinder on 3 or 4. For some people that may not be enough options. For example, the stand-alone grinder in the Aarke Coffee System has 60 (no, that’s not a typo) grind settings – which is 54 more settings than you’ll get with the Breville Grind Control. However, keep in mind that the Aarke Coffee System is also $800 – and the coffee grinder, when purchased separately, is $400. But again, I found Breville’s 6 grind settings to be more than sufficient for my needs.
For my first test, I made a carafe of coffee. After filling the hopper with coffee beans, I pressed the Open button to open the filter basket’s swing out door, and then inserted the gold filter basket.
Then, I poured water into the water tank. Unlike almost every other coffee maker I’ve ever tested, the water in the tank is not visible – but that’s not a problem, since the display reveals how much water is in the tank at any given time (for example, there’s a 4 next to the water tank to indicate there’s enough water for four cups).
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After pressing the Cup/Carafe button, the control panel displays a carafe symbol and the number of cups selected. I can rotate the dial to change the number of cups (anywhere from 2 cups to 12 cups). If I happen to select a quantity that’s less than the amount of water in the tank, the screen will display Fill Tank, and the water tank icon will also flash.
After pressing the Start/Cancel button, the grinder starts.
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The Brevile Ground Control has eight strength settings: one is the weakest strength and eight is the strongest strength. I found that three or four is the sweet spot for a medium strength, and it worked perfectly. However, during the testing process, I also tried other settings just to gauge their effectiveness and determine if they really produced a stronger or weaker brew. The settings are indeed accurate.
After grinding, the countdown timer starts, and Pre-Heating displays on the LCD screen. Breville notes that this is only an estimate, and the brew size and brew strength selections will determine the actual time.
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After the pre-heating cycle finished, Brewing displayed on the screen. There’s a Brew Pause feature that will stop the coffee from coming out when the carafe is removed. This is for people who like to pour a cup of coffee before the cycle is over. I never do that, since that particular cup tends to be stronger, and the rest of the coffee is weaker. However, for purposes of the test, I did stop it one time – just to ensure that the coffee flow does indeed stop. However, this feature should not be used for more than 20 seconds at a time. With some coffee makers, if you remove the carafe for longer than recommended, the brewer will shut off. However, with the Breville Grind Control, the water is being held in the brew basket, and after 20 seconds, the water may start spilling out of the basket and onto the countertop.
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In five or six minutes, the brew cycle was over, indicated by a beep, and I removed the thermal carafe to pour the coffee into my mug. I’ve always been a thermal carafe fan. Given a choice between glass and stainless steel, I’ll always choose the latter. However, this carafe is particularly impressive. The lid doesn’t need to be adjusted before pouring, since it automatically opens when pouring, and then automatically closes to keep the coffee hot.
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One day, about 45 minutes after I’d made a pot of coffee, I removed the carafe’s lid and could still feel the heat coming from the inside of the carafe. That’s an excellent level of heat retention. However, keep in mind that although the carafe is generally cool to the touch, the bottom may be hot to the touch for several minutes after brewing, so don’t sit the carafe on your countertop – or other surface – until it’s sufficiently cool at the bottom.
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The first carafe of coffee was excellent. The coffee was full-bodied, and since it was freshly ground, the flavors jumped out. At the time, I was using Keats & Co Calypso coffee beans, a light roast with baked apple and brown sugar flavors, along with notes of sweet berries.
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When testing how the Breville Grind Control handled smaller amounts of coffee, I followed the same steps to fill the water tank; however, I selected the Single Cup mode and then either two cups, three cups, or four cups – depending on which test I was conducting.
The single cup mode coffee was also delicious and I was able to taste the citrusy flavor profile, which balanced just the right amount of acidity for a brew that was sweet, yet slightly bitter. I appreciate that it did not compromise the coffee’s quality.
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Photo single mode brew
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When using larger mugs in single cup mode, I needed to remove the drip tray so there would be enough room for it to fit. All of my travel mugs were actually too big to fit – even when removing the drip tray – and that’s why I don’t have photos of them. The maximum cup/mug height is 7.5 inches.
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I also tested the ability to make pre-ground coffee. By rotating the Strength dial to the Pre-ground setting, the grinder was disabled, and I was able to open the brew filter basket and add coffee grounds. The coffee was delicious; however, as expected, it was not quite as fresh and flavorful as the coffee that’s brewed immediately from freshly-ground coffee beans.
The Breville Grind Control does an excellent job of adjusting the strength to ensure that both small and large quantities of coffee are equally as robust and flavorful.
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Online, I read a few reviews that mentioned that maintenance for the Breville Grind Control is quite tedious. Admittedly, I needed to remove the coffee filter basket and clean it. However, when not testing, I tend to use paper filters most of the time to avoid having to clean the gold tone filter. I also rinsed the chute area of the basket, and also rinsed the carafe and lid after each use – but I would do that anyway. At least once a week, I also washed the carafe and lid in soapy water.
Occasionally, I would remove the bean hopper and lid and wash them in soapy water as well.
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Monthly, I would clean the grinding burrs and coffee grinds chute using the included cleaning brush. The Breville Grind Control does require more maintenance than a coffee maker without an integrated grinder; however, regarding maintenance with a grinder, these steps are pretty typical, regardless of the brand.
Should you buy it?
You want an integrated burr grinder to make fresh coffee
The taste of freshly-ground coffee is incomparable. The Breville Ground Control has a 0.5-pound bean capacity and the burr grinder has 6 settings for fine or coarsely ground coffee – or something in-between.
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You don’t like maintenance
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Like all integrated grinders, you need to keep the bean hopper, grinding burrs, and coffee grinds chute clean, so the Breville Grind Control will require more maintenance than a machine that does not have a grinder.
Final Thoughts
The Breville Grind Control Coffee Maker has so many features that justify it being more expensive than the average coffee maker. The bean hopper and integrated burr grinder allow you to make freshly ground coffee every day – but pre-ground coffee can also be used.
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Whether brewing into the 12-cup stainless steel carafe, a coffee cup, or a travel mug, the appliance is versatile enough to accommodate various quantities while consistently producing a flavorful brew. The 8 brew strengths allow further customization, and the programmable feature lets you schedule when to brew coffee. However, keep in mind that failing to properly maintain the coffee maker – especially the grinder – can negatively affect brew quality over time.
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How We Test
We test every coffee machine we review thoroughly over an extended period of time. We use industry-standard tests to compare features properly. We’ll always tell you what we find. We never, ever, accept money to review a product.
Find out more about how we test in our ethics policy.
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Used as our main coffee machine for the review period
Used as our main coffee machine for the review period
We roast our own beans for regular coffee machines, so we can fairly compare each machine; pod machines are tested with a variety of compatible capsules
Depending on capabilities, we test each machine’s ability to make espresso and cappuccino
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