Breville The Oracle Touch BES990BSS (Brushed Stainless Steel)

Had this coffee machine for 4 yrs, it’s so good and easy to use. Made really good coffee. But broke down 4 times. It started releasing steam and started making loud noises and water started coming out from the hot water spout instead making the coffee. First time it was covered under the warranty second and third time it cost $325 to $375 for the… Read more

repair. 4th time quoted $990 which we refused. Still we could make coffee just before it started to make the loud noice and the leak of steam, but then it stopped working all together. Replaced it with the Oracle Jet, with extended warranty from Harvey Norman, which will replace the machine within 2 years if it breaks.

Great coffee machine at the start, then........... Purchased 3.5 years ago. After first 1.5 years it had major overheating issues so reached out to support and had an expensive service. Another year later the same issue but now the actual casing is melting due to the heat and we can't use. Reached out again to Breville Support providing the… Read more

previous case numbers, photos etc. Their response was "Can you tell me what the issue is?" They obviously hadn't read the case (or previous case) notes or looked at the pics or information provided.

Customer "Support" eventually provided a 3rd party service company after requesting again (service provider different to the first time) and a $900 quote later aparantly it's my issue "your responsibility out of warranty" with no regard to fire safety or a faulty machine breaking down every year since purchase. Overheating is a common issue apparantly and Breville ignore the problem and don't stand by their product.

For a $3K machine you would expect it to last longer than 2 years and have ongoing over heating issues every year since to a point where the metal casing is melting.

Do your math before investing in Breville's expensive Coffee Machines. Their products are amazing when they work but they dont work for long and cost a fortune.

It is also dissapointing that they don't care about fire risks and customer safety.

Nails the balance of what to keep manual and what to automate to make it easy to have really delicious coffee – The semi-automatic configuration suits me perfectly. Keeps the group head from manual machines that is needed to make really delicious coffee while streamlining and automating the flow to make it really quick and easy to use. Strong duel boilers giving the power to exact full flavour from coffee while steaming milk rapidly at the same time. Show details

Perfect Machine, and Quality Coffee - even on our 4th replacement Machine from Brevilles excellent support Team – Our Review of our excellent Breville Oracle Touch coffee machine, purchased during the Melbourne lockdown in mid-2021. This machine has been an essential part of our daily routine, especially during the lockdown period and has surpassed our expectations in terms of its intuitive and user-friendly design. The quality of coffee produced by the… Read more

machine is exceptional and has even surpassed that of some baristas on their off days.

While we have had a few issues with the machine, we believe that these were due to a faulty product and circuits. After 6+ months of use, at 2-3 coffees per day, the steam wand began to turn on automatically, as did the machine's group head, and eventually stopped responding. This also caused an issue with our house's electrical system. We contacted Breville immediately, but our “Breville Oracle White Glove Agent” quickly resolved the resolution process. We had no issues once approved by Breville to return the machine to JBHIFI, who helped us obtain a new machine with the correct serial number (BES990BSS2JAN1), which worked perfectly.

We highly recommend double-checking the serial number before purchasing this machine, as there have been issues with older versions. Additionally, keeping receipts and using consultants can help resolve any problems. We recommend following YouTube videos for a helpful guide rather than relying on Breville's videos.

Update 2022-2023: However, eight months after the replacement machine 01, we had two other machines. All with similar to worse issues, Breville has never confirmed why the machines broke as they did, which included grinding on its own, Pouring hot water from the group head, etc. Breville has been amazing and always supportive of the replacements!

We are now on our 4th replacement! Overall, we are thrilled with the Oracle machine and its higher temperature for frothing, better build quality and higher heat options. We hope this review is helpful to those considering purchasing the Oracle Touch.

Excellent Coffee Machine - Review from a coffee snob and information regarding beans – For the last however many years, I have bought a coffee every single day on the way to work, and 2-3 coffees each day on the weekends (probably too much coffee!!). I recently moved to the Adelaide Hills so I no longer have the luxury of coffee shops and service stations on every corner nearby, so this prompted me to start looking at coffee… Read more

machines as the trusty pod machine doesn't cut the mustard for "real" coffee in my opinion.

After much research and watching many videos online, all factors considered I decided to splash out and buy the Breville Oracle Touch. The full auto machines were also appealing, but there is something about a full auto machine that turns me off as you can't really tweak them, and they don't offer a rewarding coffee making experinece.

The Oracle Touch is honestly BETTER than cafe coffee for one main reason. Yes, it does make cafe quality coffee and milk/froth, but the thing that makes it better than cafe coffee is the CONSISTENCY.

I purchased my Oracle Touch at retail prices from The Good Guys (full retail, no favours and no affiliations, a genuine customer) on 14 July 2021 (today is 28 July 2021) and I can honestly say I love this machine and haven't bought a single coffee from a shop since, nor had the desire to do so. At this rate, the machine will pay for itself in about 6-8 months.

Some important things: Beans: It is best to use freshly roasted beans from a local coffee roaster - they aren't any more expensive than the ones you get a the supermarket. I tried some Starbucks beans to start with and the consistency of the coffee flow was always a little watery, so I went and bought beans from a coffee shop which had been roasted 2 days earlier and WOW!

Water: When you set it up, you have a water hardness strip test so it doesnt matter if you use tap or spring water, the machine will just let you know when it needs descaling. The water tank is large and only requires filling every 4-5 days (averaging 3 coffees a day and a couple of Chai's for my wife).

Milk: The froth is honestly out of this world. I use skim milk for my daily Skinny Cap, and Almond Milk to make Almond Chai Latte's for my wife - the thickness of the foam is just perfect - better than a cafe in fact.

Oracle v others: The thing I like about the Oracle is that it has the dual boilers. So it will brew the coffee and do the milk at the same time. I think it would be annoying having to wait.

Tamping: I would recommend buying a manual tamp - I got one at the coffee roaster for $25. Depending on the bean and how fine or coarse it is, once in a while the auto tamping will not be as firm as I would like. Plus the manual tamp makes you feel like you are doing more anyway!

Cleaning: This has really impressed me. Apart from disposing of the coffee after you have made the coffee, all you need to do is wipe the steam wand. It hasn't prompted me to do a deep clean yet. With the pod machine you always have to clean the milk container so the convenience factor here outweights the convenience factor of the pods in my opinion.

Dialing it in: If you change beans, the first coffee may come out too thick or too watery - all you do is twist the knob on the side to adjust how fine or coarse the coffee grinding is. You get the hang of this quickly and overall the coffee is excellent regardless of whether it is slightly to watery or thick.

Noise: The grinder is the noisest part. Watch some videos online to get an idea of it. It doesn't last long, and for what it is worth I make a coffee in the morning and don't wake up my 1 month old baby or 3 year old toddler or sleep deprived wife who are all a few rooms away.

Touch Screen: Responsive and fluid - not as good as the latest smart phones but almost.

Value: If I still buy a coffee during the day at work, and use this machine for my morning coffee on the way to work and weekends, and my wife uses it for Chai Latte's (powder plus using the Oracle for the milk), I have worked out I will save $29.50 M-F on coffee, $29.50 M-F on chai, and average 2 coffees and chais a day on weekends at $47.20 that is a saving of $106.20 per week (+/-) $15-20. So best case, the machine will have paid itself off in 30 weeks or 7.5 months - worst case it will have paid itself off within one year based on our relatively high use and that's not factoring in having guests over etc. either.

Anyway - overall I truly recommend this machine.

I also purchased a 5 year warranty for peace of mind as the machine was expensive, and I would hope to get at least 5 decent years out of it with regular use - hopefully much more!

I give this 5 out of 5 stars and am in no way affiliated with Breville or the place of purchase.

Second Machine and Faulty AGAIN – When this machine works without faults its a great machine that makes the perfect hot coffee! It froths milk well and you can adjust your grind etc to get a coffee to your liking.....BUT......... Purchased original machine and it was sent off twice for repairs. The second time it didn't come back as the courier dropped it and we had to wait… Read more

months for the Store and the Courier to arrange a replacement for us under their insurance. Breville confused the situation and got my machine confused with another customer and were adamant they were sending me back a $400 machine. Thanks to the staff at Harvey Norman they corrected this confusion with Breville. Finally, we got a replacement machine and now at 12 months it is going back in for repairs. These are great coffee machines when they work, but as soon as they hit the 12 month mark they start presenting with faults (steaming won't turn off, starts automatically, touch screen doesn't respond, loud clunking noises when pressure is building etc). Breville have refused to replace it and so we are on the repair round-about-again and will most likely be waiting another couple of months for the fault to be addressed! Oh, and Brevilles Door-to-Door courier service is rubbish! The couriers forget to book the collection and don't turn up, then it gets returned to the post office anyway and I have to drive 20km to collect it. Whats the point? This time I am taking the machine direct to the Store and they can return it! Ridiculous! I feel Ive spent more time without this machine than I have with it! **Attached photos are of the machine with all parts and accessories removed as it is being sent off for repairs today AGAIN!

Such a disappointment – Such a disappointment and ultimate waste of money. There is something very defective taking place on the inside of this machine. A steam leak saw it in for repairs after less than 12 months, took more than a month to get it back, and then a further steam leak saw it returned for repair again right at the 5 year mark. However, the steam leak had… Read more

corroded the machine from the inside and it was not repairable. $3,500 for 5 years and repaired twice doesn't seem like a fair deal. Breville didn't offer any options other than disposing of the machine for us. Now I know why the steamed milk never seemed to have those micro bubbles the way I thought it would. It was bubbling the chassis instead. Going with a different fully automated machine from now on and for a third of the price.

Disappointing for the price – Purchased my machine in 2019 at the beginning of Covid. It has always had issues with inconsistent pour volumes. Sometimes the pour would be great, other times very watery. Recently my machine started tripping out my circuit breakers, so I’ve taken to an authorised Breville repair agent, after some discussion he tells me how these machines… Read more

regularly get internal water leaks, and short out the electrics. After asking the repair agent to replace evehe could possibly imagine, so I can get another 3-4 years semi reliable service from this machine, here we are 6 weeks later with the same problem. I need several cups of coffee every day, and to be without my machine again is not an option. And Breville, you will not be in the running for a replacement machine.

Descale issues – We read reviews before purchasing this machine. First time for descale and it wouldn’t reheat. After a farce, managed to get a replacement. Had the replacement 6 months and followed instructions to descale to the letter and helloooooo we won’t reheat again. Clearly this is a big issue for many and nothing that’s on the net works to fix it so… Read more

don’t waste your time trawling to find a solution. If you have one of these machines, don’t descale it, and if you thought about buying one, I wouldn’t recommend it. The reason for the 2 star rating is because it works fantastically before you descale it, and a machine you can’t maintain is pointless. We paid over $4,000 for this machine a year ago. Now the battle will commence with Breville.

Beware - dangerous! Steam wand spurts steam out randomly & machine short circuits house – Consumer beware - dangerous! Steam wand spews steam out at random times and machine short circuits house power! Third time I have had the same issue with this machine. It works for a few months until then makes a very loud mechanical type noise and then steam starts spewing out at random times. On a couple of occasions this has been right near my… Read more

daughter’s face. So given that it is burning hot steam I hate to think. If you read the reviews this is a very common problem. People have had a machine fixed multiple times or like me had multiple machines with the same issue. Will have now had the machine fixed 3 times which takes weeks sometimes months because the repair shops are so overrun with faulty Breville machines it take weeks before they can even look it as and then weeks for it to be fixed. Last time after multiple calls to Breville and having to really push them they replaced it and the same issue yes again. Customer service is difficult as it’s a different person each time. There is no supervisor or anyone else they will let you to speak to escalate issues so there is no recourse . This is an accident waiting to happen. Last week it short circuited all the power in my house. I feel so stressed and upset as we spent so much money on this and I l now I just want a refund after 2 years of danger, time spent trying to resolve and anxiety over Brevilles service.

Great coffee, when it works – Bought in 2020, after about 6-9 months, it started making a weird sound and Breville had me send the unit in for service. They returned it but it started tripping the power. They then sent a refurbished replacement in 2021 and gave a 6 month warranty on the replacement unit. Now, January 2023, the machine is making a horrible noise. Turning the… Read more

machine off doesn’t work, unplugging it is the only way to stop the noise and prevent the machine from heating. Keep in mind, I am a very light user: 1 cup a day, regular maintenance as prompted, and a whole house water softening system. Now, Breville wants me to send the machine in for repair at a cost of $555 (USD).

Tripping GFCI outlet – I purchased this unit last June roughly. It was functioning okay for almost one year, but somehow it's started tripping GFCI outlet and making weird sounds (similar to https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DRjvjq5u41s) since last week. Considering the price we pay for this expensive unit, its durability certainly doesn't meet our expectations... Show details

Great for 3 years now starting to have issues – UPDATE: the machine spent Christmas and New Year in the repair centre. It was returned last week and seems to be working as expected. Second new steam wand has been installed along with replacement shower screen and outer. I’m hoping it won’t need a fourth visit for repairs and we’re now back to being able to use it every morning for our kick… Read more

starter for the day.

———— Bought this after a previous more manual euro machine had worn out. It’s been great for 3 years and it’s been making good coffee for family and friends. We’ve enjoyed the internal grinder and automation of the milk and coffee dispenser as well as the auto on timer and the various programs available …. but …… now the steam wand has starting giving issues it’s been back to breville service ( and we’re thankful, on the extended warranty we purchased) twice in a few months. Firstly for steam issues and corrosion on the body, then back for more steam issues. Today , just before Christmas- on a Saturday - it’s mucked up again with firstly an ER16 error while steaming milk and now an er15 error on startup . So back to repairs again !! We can’t even run it for coffees only. We sub in a Little Kogan $89 machine and our mini grinder while the big Breville is in hospital. Honestly, this does a really good job despite being a cheap plastic machine and a little slower to get things done. Super annoyed this expensive machine has started showing issues, we’ve had a Saeco and a Diadema previously so not new to coffee machines and how they work.

All up the Oracle is a great gadgety machine with cool automatic functionality but long term it doesn’t seem to cope. 2 -4 coffees a day with auto start up scheduled for all days of the week and a couple of personalised programs for soy and almond milks has been nice to have but now we’re second guessing the whole purchase.

Great coffee but flawed build and terrible warranty policy for a premium coffee machine – I've now had this unit for 4 years and have updated my review. I initially gave this review 2 stars. But I've now updated it to 4 stars. The good: Its primary function, to make good coffee at convenience is still far better than most other machines I have used in the past. It takes a little tinkering around to get the perfect grind and duration… Read more ·  1

points with the specific beans you are using, but once you get it, its committed to the units memory so it will make the same coffee over and over without needing to calibrate anything. Finally, all of this can be saved in profiles to suit each persons liking. Its very convenient!

The Bad: Milk frothing, though not bad, is not perfect but will do the job.

I've had overall 3 breakdowns with this unit over the past 4 years. Totalling of about $1200 in repairs. So the total cost of the unit over 4 years has been $3200 (unit) + $1200 (repairs) + $660 (in filters and cleaning maintenance) = $5060. Which is more than what we were expecting but it has still paid for itself with the amount of coffee we normally purchase outside.

The breakdowns consisted of boiler cracking and electronics being damaged due to the steam it generates. On the 3rd repair, the repairer came up with a solution and added ECU silicon to cover all the electric boards from the steam and since then we have had no issues.

Conclusion: Function: 9/10 Design: 8/10 Build Quality: 2/10 Value for money: 6.5/10

Will I buy Breville again? For the features, yes, but only if they have fixed the issues. It needs to be defect free for at least 3 to 5 years.... its not German engineering, its aussie laid back engineering. I hope they have fixed it.

No Regrets – Purchased this machine in April 2021 in the hope that we could make some decent coffee during Victoria's extended period of lock downs. Before we opened the box we watched some videos produced by Breville on You Tube that explained the unboxing/ setup and making several different brews and a hot chocolate. At first it was a little daunting but… Read more

after a week or so the process became second nature. We also took advantage of one Breville's consultants to visit us and demonstrate the finer points on brewing a perfect coffee. We both like our coffee hot and to achieve this we preheat our double walled glass mugs with hot water from the tap. This works fine for us. We have tried beans from different retailers and have found ours at the supermarket which goes to prove you don't have to spend a fortune on beans to get a good brew. Once we have adjusted the machine to our liking the coffee is consistent. You also need to factor the cost of water filter replacements and other consumables. We would recommend this product but we feel it will be expensive to repair if it breaks down out of warranty.

Terrible machine matched by terrible service – I purchased this machine not long after it came out in 2018. My wife and I had a smaller machine from Saeco and wanted to step up to a better quality of coffee. We chose the Oracle Touch because of the automated functions while still retaining the traditional style group head /portafilter design. So far the machine has been repaired twice and is… Read more

now in for it's third repair. Once the steam wand failed and created an error, the second time the steam wand had an issue but without the error. Now it leaks water all over our kitchen counter and can only prepare 1 coffee at a time (most likely due to the leakage of water and steam). I called Breville for the first and second issue but haven't even called them for the latest issue because their outsourced contact centre is just terrible. When I called for the second issue I got asked have I changed the seals and steam wand parts? I enquired how I would know this as it's not in the manual or ever mentioned by anyone I have spoken to in Breville (the machine was 2-3 yrs old at this time). I raised a complaint following this conversation and the same person I spoke too replied to my email without sending through to Breville for review. My advice is go with a different product. The $$$'s you pay for this machine could get a great fully manual machine from a better supplier. UPDATE : The third repair cost over $500 and the machine is, for now, back in working order. After being contacted prior to posting this review I have now wasted another 5 days going back and forward with Breville with no outcome. I was offered some coffee or cleaning products as compensation but I politely declined. My advice above remains the same, go with a fully manual machine and better supplier.

Loved it until it's death and having to deal with Breville for repair – Look while it worked, I loved it! Made great coffee and easy to use. Was using it daily, saving me $20 on my coffee purchases. However come 6 months in and the thermostat in the milk wand died, that's OK for a $3300 machine with dedicated support line, it'll be fixed in no time! WRONG! Now over a month without the machine, no replacment offered… Read more

while being repaired, no costs covered, sent several emails to Breville and repair centre and no one replies to resolve. Based on Brevilles support for an expensive machine I would not recommend it on that basis only. When I has a Delonghi they sent a loan machine while mine got repaired as standard service. Breville needs to learn from them.

Now in process of logging tribunal claim :-( such a sad state of affairs for something I thought was so simple.

Expensive but worth it? – I got this with a lot of Qantas points. I would probably not buy it with cash I would go cheaper. Saying that it is brilliant. Almost idiot proof... Makes great coffee but the beans need to be matched with the grind setting. I never did the free lesson, didn't feel the need to but should have got it for the wife looking back. Had it for 2 years now and still as good as the day I got it. Used every day. Show details

Love it !!! Glad I spent the money – Love this machine. Glad I spent the money. Good it’s got a dual boiler so u can do milk and extract the coffee at the same time ! The price tag scared me away at first. Even better you get a white glove service in Australia which means a breville rep comes to your house to show u how to use it correctly  Show details

Easy Barista Quality Coffee – The first time I heard the term “pull a shot” was after I had already bought this machine and was reading up on how to use it. There are plenty of reviews out there from people who already know a lot about coffee and have strong opinions as to how it should be. I’m not so much one of those. Prior to buying this machine I have had a Nespresso… Read more

Latissima which we got rid of because we didn’t want to use pods anymore (environmental reasons and cost were the big drivers). Next we got a Jura C9 Super Automatic used off gumtree which was good for a while but ultimately poured small, weak coffees every time (to be fair, it was getting pretty old).

With that limited background and a solid pallet for International Roast established by working in Hospitals for 10 years I decided on the Breville Oracle Touch for the following reasons: - It looks nice - Can automatically turn on in the mornings, so ready when I get up and turns off an hour later - I didn’t mind the idea of having to interact with it a little - Great features - Easy clean up and maintenance

I read a lot of reviews before I bought this machine because I really try to buy the best thing that I can the first time. This tends to mean that I spend a lot on individual items and keep them for a long time and for that reason I have pretty high expectations of them.

We have now had the Oracle Touch for 4 months and I am still very happy with it. The coffee is easily as good as the ones I occasionally buy at the coffee shop and I do not put any effort into making them. I love that the machine is on first thing in the morning when I wake up and equally, my partner likes to start the day with a cup of tea so she is able to use the Hot Water function without having to boil the kettle etc...

Purchasing Experience: I bought the machine at Harvey Norman and they were very helpful there with one of these set up in the store to try a coffee on which was good. The machine had clearly been used quite a bit and the sales agent said that everyone essentially makes a coffee with it when they get to work each day. I liked hearing that because it means that it can take a fair bit of use and they still felt it was working well enough to use as a sales tool.

Packaging/Environmental: The unit comes well packaged but unfortunately in a lot of styrofoam and plastic wrapping. It’s quite heavy so I’m not sure that there are any other really effective and safe options that they could have used, but I still hate seeing things packaged in plastic like this these days.

Setup: Breville does a really nice job with their manuals and instructions for first time use. The manuals are brief and intuitive and designed to get you making a coffee quickly. The machine is pretty much ready to go out of the box and just needs the after filter put in, and a few simple to follow onscreen instructions. In addition to the manuals, Breville was offering a “white glove” service where a Barista comes to your house to show you how to use the machine. Unfortunately this needed to be done by ZOOM due to COVID this year but it was actually great and Ryan from Breville was awesome.

The Oracle touch can be programmed to control your type of coffee using grind setting (which stays consistent across all of the different coffees since that’s changes with the bean, not the style of coffee), Duration of pour, water temp, milk temp and froth level. You can then program custom coffees outside the standard presets if you would like.

The grind setting is easy to adjust with the knob on the left hand side and there is the potential to further adjust the grind by adjusting the Burr itself but that’s not generally necessary. While the amount of coffee that is ground is essentially pre-set by the machine, it CAN be adjusted by removing the tamping wheel and adjusting a setting. It’s not the easiest thing to do and you’d have to be pretty keen to get into it, but equally you don’t need to void the warranty to do it and if that’s your thing then it can be done.

Quality: The machine is mostly metal, heavy set and seems well built. Four months on I haven’t experienced any quality concerns. I did take out the extra warranty from Harvey Norman but this was largely because they offered to give it to me for very cheap and on a $3000 machine I thought that it was worth having.

Compared with a Super Automatic or pod machine, this has way fewer moving parts and machinery, it’s simplicity means that it’s less likely to break on you (even with the touch screen).

Things I wish I’d known: There isn’t much to tell, it’s NOT a super automatic coffee machine, it’s a Semi-automatic coffee machine. Super Automatics are only really one button push if someone else has already gotten he milk out for you and plans to clean it up for you. For me to make a coffee that is on par with something I would get from my local barista takes me 1-2min and zero brain power.

One pro tip I can share which was causing some trouble with inconsistent shots is that the portafilter MUST be dry before you put it into the auto grinder. If it is damp the coffee get stuck and the portafilter doesn’t get filled properly and you will get a bad shot poured (it has over flowed a coffee mug on me before in 30s). I had a brief period of thinking the machine was broken or faulty until I figured that out and it’s definitely not clearly stated anywhere.

Bottom Line: I really like the machine, it does exactly what I wanted it to do and I would happily say that it is as convenient as any Super Automatic if you weigh them up equally for maintenance and cleaning.

The quality of coffee I’m able to make without any special skills, history of working in a cafe or particular interest in coffee snobbery is great.

I’m happy with my purchase and would recommend it to friends if they were looking at buying a super automatic or something like this.