Bean On Bar
September
Coming from Beanconqueror
Beanconqueror exports your beans and brews as JSON. Bean On Bar reads that file directly. Your history arrives on your shelf, unconfirmed, for you to check — and nothing already on it is touched.
01 — The import
Export the JSON from Beanconqueror, open Settings → Data in Bean On Bar, and pick the file. It adds to your shelf rather than replacing it, so you can run both apps for a fortnight and decide at your own pace.
02 — The honest part
It is a good piece of software, maintained in the open for years, and for a lot of people it is the right answer. If any of the following matters more to you than what is below it, stay where you are — you will be happier.
Beanconqueror is licensed GPL-3.0. The source is public, the data format is inspectable, and no one can take it away from you or start charging for it. Bean On Bar is closed source and Pro costs $29.99. That is a real difference and no amount of writing changes it.
Beanconqueror runs on Android and iOS. Bean On Bar is iPhone and Apple Watch only, and there is no Android version planned. If you or the people you brew with are on Android, this is the end of the conversation.
Decent, Acaia, Felicita, Hiroia Jimmy, Eureka Precisa, Skale2 and more, built up over years of community requests. If you own something unusual, check that it is supported before you move.
Graphed pressure and flow for espresso, which Bean On Bar does not do. Bean On Bar’s measurement is filter-shaped: dose, water, and the gap between what you meant to pour and what you poured.
Years of releases, an active repository, and a community that has already found the bugs. Bean On Bar has not shipped yet.
03 — The other side
Both apps keep a meticulous record. The difference is where the record starts and where the guidance goes.
Point the camera at a label and thirty lines come off it on the device — roaster, origin, variety, process, roast date, notes — each field marked so you can see it was read rather than typed. That is the step neither of us used to have, and it is where the bean stops being a name you typed in.
An automated read of how much a listing actually discloses, with the algorithm version printed beside it. Not a rating of the coffee, and never a rating dressed up as one.
Bloom, pours, drawdown — timed and haptic on Apple Watch, while both hands are wet. Following a brew started on the phone is free; starting one from the watch itself is part of Pro.
A recipe range of 650–800 µm arrives as 6.2–7.8 on the grinder you own, with the app stating plainly that the mapping is community-derived rather than a manufacturer figure.
A Kaffelogic .klog comes in; a green-adapted .kpro goes back out, shifted by density, moisture and screen size. What the cupping table said becomes the next roast’s edit.
Listings crawled from roasters’ and cafés’ own pages, reviewed before publication, always linked back, in whichever country you are standing in.
04 — Before you move
Stated here rather than discovered later. If any of it matters, keep the Beanconqueror export — it is a file, it does not expire, and you can go back.
The import can only read what Beanconqueror wrote into the file. If a field is not in the JSON, it is not in the import.
Imported values arrive unconfirmed by design. A large history takes a while to review, and the app will not pretend it has verified what it merely copied.
Importing takes a copy. It does not delete, migrate or alter the app you exported from. Run both for a month if you want to.
Found something that should transfer and does not? Write to [email protected] and it becomes a bug rather than a limitation.
You do not have to decide today, and you do not have to decide once. The export is a file you already own, this app adds rather than replaces, and everything you put in comes back out as JSON whenever you ask.
On the App Store in September.
iPhone and Apple Watch. Free to start · $29.99 once for Pro.
Bean On Bar