Keurig Trying to Control the Market through DRM
The Keurig that has been in use for about three years was finally starting to fail, it would not always brew a complete cup, or it would turn off mid-brew. And it was getting louder. Cleaning it actually made things worse. Time to get a replacement, new Keurig 2.0 was on sale at Costco.
Some coffee and tea came with the unit, and that worked as expected. But when I tried to use one of the existing Gevalia K-cups, there was a problem. The following message was displayed:
“Oops! This pack wasn’t designed for this brewer. Please try one of the hundreds of packs with the Keurig logo.”
DRM is Bad
The compatible cups have a logo on the side of the box which indicates that it’ll work with the new 2.0. Apparently there is a optical reader that sees invisible ink on the lid of the k-cup confirming that it’s an “approved” cup. So my box of Gevalia is wasted? No, it’s usable with a little effort.
First off, some lids from approved K-cups will be needed. Easy enough, all that is required is a sharp knife. Insert the very tip of the knife right next to the inside wall and follow it around slowly (in the example below, a non-approved cup is used for demonstration purposes). It’s good to have a few of these on hand…
Take one of these lids and attached it to the offending cup with a small piece of tape, making sure to center it as best as possible. Insert and brew… it works every time. And the lid can even be reused.
So, bad on Keurig for demonstrating the evil that is DRM. But in this case, at least there is a work-around.