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Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #7267 in Kitchen & Housewares
• Color: Stainless
• Brand: Hamilton Beach
• Model: 40996
• Dimensions: 9.00" h x 9.25" w x 7.13" l, 2.86 pounds

Features

• 5 pre-set temperatures for a variety of teas, coffee, or cocoa
• Programmable clock for wake-up ready hot water
• Smart programming keeps water hot for one hour
• Boils water faster than a microwave, safer than a stovetop kettle
• Simple +/- buttons adjust temperature

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Customer Reviews

Most helpful customer reviews

27 of 27 people found the following review helpful.
Temperatures in 5degF increments, "keep warm" for an hour, programmable, and cheap! I've been looking.
By ydant
I've been looking for a programmable kettle that didn't cost an absurd amount, and I think I've finally found it. This replaces my old on/off boil kettle also made by Hamilton Beach - the fact that kettle lasted for 5+ years (and was relatively cheap when I bought it) was a strong factor in my decision to buy another Hamilton Beach.

Pros (some of these comparing to some other kettles I've tried):

1) Nice brushed stainless exterior.
2) Push button handle to open the lid - a nice change from the detached lid my previous kettle had.
3) Pour can be controlled fairly well for pour-over coffee.
4) Temperature adjustment in 5 degree increments. That means I can set this to 195F and get exactly the results I want. Others I've tried only had a few settings.
5) Fairly accurate thermostat. I've tested this with my old standby the probe thermometer (which I've used to make coffee for years as well), and this kettle is always within a degree o f my other thermometer. Both might be horribly inaccurate, but at least they are consistently inaccurate together.
6) Live thermostat reading on the display. This tells you exactly how hot the kettle is while it's heating up. That's handy for timing things.
7) 1 hour "keep warm" setting which periodically re-heats the water. Either this works really well, or the carafe holds the heat in better, but I'm experiencing no heat loss during the time it takes to make coffee. My old kettle would lose 10 degF in the time the pot took to brew. Either way, I'm loving this kettle.
8) Solid feeling. It's not super heavy, but it doesn't feel cheap.

Cons:

1) Hard to read LED display - this thing's a pain under our under counter lighting in the kitchen. It's *good enough*, but crap. An LCD display would have been a *lot* better.
2) Really unresponsive and hard to use UI. There's a few buttons to press to change target temperature and if you get it wrong, you'll set a start timer instead. The display flashes between two pieces of info a lot of the time, so it can be annoying to wait for the info you want.

All in all, given it's "only" $50, I'd say this kettle is a great deal.

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful.
Great Kettle
By Matthew S. Benefiel
Ever since seeing a programmable kettle in a store I've wanted one. I make anything from Cold Brew coffee (212 F or boiling), French Press coffee (best at 180 F), Black Tea (Boiling again), to green tea (175 F to 180 F). The cost was always a factor though since I already owned a cheap GE kettle that has lasted five years and still going. I saw this on sale and decided it was time. It works really well. You just put the kettle on, click the program button till you find the temperature you want, then click on/off button. It boils a little slower than my GE, but it gets to the programmed temperature and then holds that temp for an hour, which can be nice. You can program it to turn on in the morning, which seems a little more complicated with only four buttons, but I haven't had the need so I haven't used it. The temperature has been right on, you can't go wrong with this. The inside is all metal, so no plastic taste in the water.

11 of 13 people found the following review helpful.
Meh, just meh.
By frostyrides
This is one of very few programmable tea kettles that are out there. While there are hundreds of electric kettles out there to choose from, so few offer the ability to set variable water temperatures, which becomes extremely convenient when you start getting into different types of tea and french press coffee. This particular one by Hamilton Beach would be among the cheapest of them that I've found.

Unfortunately for me, mine died and would no longer heat water after having it for just three weeks. I might have just received a dud, it happens. Regardless, this kettle is still very meh.

As for materials used, per HB consumer affairs, "The metal is stainless steel and the plastic is polypropylene. All of the material that comes into contact with anything you would ingest is BPA free." Still don't like the idea of plastic touching near boiling water, but that's not always avoidable.

On to reviewing this thing:
The fact that it displays t he current water temperature and accurately is a nice feature, however it is ridiculously hard to read under any type of light unless you are looking directly down at it. What I really disliked about it was the confusing controls, this weird press and hold button combo thing they got going on here is ridiculous. Make it simple. Aesthetically, it's OK looking, the stainless steel kettle isn't bad, while the base is rather cheap looking. I also would have preferred if the the water meter also displayed cups instead of just liters.

After having a mediocre experience with a few other Hamilton Beach products and after returning this dud, I ended up spending a little extra for the Cuisinart PerfecTemp instead. Bottom line, if you want to save money, get the Hamilton Beach here; if you don't mind spending a little more, look elsewhere. There are better options.