Argos Update: June 24, 2026
Hello everyone,
We've got some steam valve and drip tray updates to share, a quality issue we caught before it reached production, a great visit from our investor, a pricing change, an updated lead time, and a solid batch of software improvements from William. Let's get into it.
A Quick Note on Replacement Parts and Shipping
Before getting into the updates below, we wanted to address something directly. The replacement parts we cover in this post, and in past updates, are always offered to affected customers free of charge. That's not changing. What we do need to ask for help with is shipping.
As a small, still-growing business, we want to be able to stand behind every machine we've shipped and keep improving them with backwards compatibility, rather than leaving earlier customers behind as the design evolves. That commitment means a lot to us, but it also comes with a real cost, and shipping parts out to everyone who needs them adds up quickly on our end. So we do ask customers to help cover shipping on these replacement parts going forward.
This is also part of why our pricing has increased over time. Early customers got in at a lower price, but they were also buying a newer product that hadn't been refined to the level the current machine has. We think that tradeoff was fair then, and we think continuing to support those earlier machines now, even at a shipping cost to customers, is the right way to keep that trust intact.
We appreciate your understanding here, and as always, we'll keep being upfront with you about why these decisions are made. You’ll still be able to combine multiple parts into one order to save on shipping costs.
Steam Valve: Updated Needle Now Available
The updated needle and seal design we mentioned testing last month is finished, validated, and now in stock.
Anyone with serial 1342 or higher can order the new needle to swap into their existing valve body. No need to replace the whole valve assembly, just the needle itself. To be clear, this is only something you'd need if you're actually experiencing o-ring tearing or premature wear. If your valve is sealing fine, there's no reason to swap it out as everything else is the exact same.
Click the link below and you can add it to your cart and once in your cart there will be an automatic 100% discount applied.
https://www.odysseyespresso.com/products/steam-valve-v3-needle-warranty-replacement
Anyone with serial 1341 and lower has the previous design with finer threads which sometimes requires more turns to get the steam flowing. If you’re interested in getting the latest valve and seal design, the entire valve assembly will need to be purchased which will require a bit more of an involved replacement process to swap steam wand items to the new valve as well as swapping the valve body on the machine. This item may be purchased from the following link.
https://www.odysseyespresso.com/products/steam-valve
New Design Sample with larger o-ring (image above)
Old Design: O-ring contacts inner corner New Design: Seals in middle of tapered cut
Drip Tray Corner Seals: Shipping Now
The revised drip tray corner seals we showed samples of last month have arrived and we're started adding them to current builds as of Tuesday, June 23. We're prepping these parts for shipping to everyone with a V2 style drip tray. This part helps hold the cover in place during normal use.
Click the link below and you can add the drip tray corner seal to your cart and once in your cart there will be an automatic 100% discount applied.
https://www.odysseyespresso.com/products/drip-tray-corner-seal-warranty-replacement
Pre-Shower Screen: Pausing Production, Pivoting to a Silicone Slit Valve
We started implementing the new pre-shower screens into production builds, but during quality control testing we ran into inconsistencies with the air bleed that caused variation in our temperature data. This is one of those issues that doesn't always show up until a part is running through actual mass production rather than a small test batch.
Given that, we've decided not to move forward with this pre-shower screen design for production. Instead, we're continuing development on a silicone slit valve design, which has already been tested on similar machines with the goal of achieving perfectly even extraction. We'd rather take the extra time and get this right than ship something that fixes one issue but creates another.
If you are still interested in testing this screen out while we continue to develop a more production worthy design, you may get this part at the link below.
https://www.odysseyespresso.com/products/pre-shower-screen-warranty-replacement
A Great Visit from our Investor
Our investor made the trip down from Canada this month, and it was great to finally meet in person and get them familiar with the shop. While they were in town, we also had the chance to check out the US Barista Championship at Huckleberry Roasters here locally, which was a fun way to spend an afternoon together.
Pricing Update: Batch 4 Machines
With the rising cost of doing business and making necessary product improvements, we unfortunately need to raise our pricing. These units will be what we consider Batch 4 machines and will be priced at $1,899.
Batch 4 will include all of the latest components covered in these last few updates, along with a newly updated piston assembly design built for a noticeably easier swapping experience.
If you've been considering an order, current pricing is available through this Friday, June 26 at 11:59pm EST, after which the new price takes effect.
Lead Time Update: Now at 5 Months
Our current lead time for new orders is now 5 months. You can see the full breakdown by order number in the chart below. It’s very important to remember that not every order is a machine. People place separate orders for parts which increments the order number.
You'll notice that the next 5 weeks are all lumped into one section. That's because we're still receiving several shipments of parts that were ordered right after our investment closed, and we don't yet know exactly when each shipment will arrive and clear QC. We’re still building and shipping but may experience short delays here and there. We expect to have everything in hand by mid-July which should provide more consistency in production starting in August.
The schedule is based on a general assumption of 75 machines per month. These are still estimates and unfortunately delays do cause a ripple effect so if your order is further in the queue there is more uncertainty until we have all parts in hand and verified.
Software Updates
William has made some major improvements on the software side this month.
Diagnostics Page
We now have a diagnostic page that plots all of your PID data during warm up. That data can be exported, and we've built an internal tool that lets us play it back and analyze it line by line. We've already used this to track down and diagnose issues such as SSR failure that would have been much harder to spot otherwise.
App Login
App login is now available. This means all of your brews are saved to your account rather than stored locally on your phone, so if you ever get a new phone or need to reinstall the app, your brew history comes right along with you.
Appearance Customization
A common feature request has been Argos color and wood settings to match the machine in the app. New machines will ship out pre-configured and any current machines can be updated by the user under the Manage Argos tab.
Sleep Mode & Wake From App
The metrics screen now shows a sleeping banner when your machine is in sleep mode. You can tap to wake your Argos remotely from the app over Bluetooth. Metrics dim while the machine is sleeping
Boiler Descale Reminder
If our low fluid level sensor detects a certain amount of resistance then we can determine that there is scale build up on the sensor and likely in the boiler / heating element and prompt a banner in the app to remind you to descale.
Coming Soon: Opt-In Data Sharing
We'll soon be rolling out the option to opt into data sharing. The app would automatically send in machine heating and target temperature data from machines that choose to participate, which helps us continue improving firmware and stability in future updates.
Thanks as always for being part of this with us. We'll keep you posted as more of these pieces land.
Sincerely,
Ross & William