Not a chance. Even the most simplistic cocktail flavor is dozens of flavor molecules. A tolerable one would be hundreds.

There no way to pack it up in a single cartridge. Unless they're planning to be like printer companies: "Out of 3-methyl-1-butanol; please replace entire cartridge".

What's wrong with replacing the cartridge? That's covered in the article; it's pay per drink (approximately the same price as buying the drink at retail).

It's not replicating any drink. It's mixing "natural & artificial flavors", the stuff used to make packaged foods like Coca-Cola taste like it does, consistently, not real beverages like a natural juice.

Anyone else see flags? Would be cool if it does work but a per drink model in your house just sounds so dystopian. Can it operate without an internet connection - from all I could read, the answer seems like a hard no.

This seems even worse than always connected to the internet, it's built specifically to track your habits. Still, if this is somewhat successful it's likely someone eventually makes one with a less ridiculous price scheme like charging for the ingredients.

Hopefully that would include an offline feature, but given how consumer electronics work these days I'm not super optimistic.

The Scam Test

[X] Too good to be true

[X] Give us money today and we will send you a hamburger next Tuesday*

* https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=I%27ll%20gla...

They had me up to the pay-per-drink pricing :/ cheapest option mentioned is already more expensive than a sodastream habit

I wonder what generic drink molecules taste like?

I'll just have water, thanks.

IMO, this will either be vaporware or a glorified soda stream.

Probably a soda-stream or Keurig clone with different 'cartridges'