It's got a decent self-cleaning cycle. Every month or two, it'll ask you to put in a cleaning tablet (about $2 for the OEM version, or there are cheaper generic ones). It goes through an internal cleanse and poops out a slop of muckety muck. I put on soft yoga music for mine, but that's optional. Ten minutes later it's ready to use again.
About half as frequently, it'll also ask you to put in a descaling tablet. Similar process.
Beyond that, day-to-day, it can make about 8 shots of espresso before the grounds hopper is full. You just dump it and rinse it in the sink (no need for a thorough wash) and it's ready to use again. Less cleanup than a regular drip coffee maker (no filters to deal with, no grind dust to rinse/brush, no glassware, nothing to dry).
It's super convenient. The main downside is really just taste. I tried to do a blind taste test with my coffee snob friend (he's the kinda guy who measures everything down to the milligram and gives his grounds acupuncture before sending them to the spa). We used the same bag of beans, same water, same cups, etc. His came out with a layer of fine oils and sparkling foam. Mine looked like someone opened a dishwasher prematurely. We couldn't even get to the taste test part because you could smell the difference with your eyes closed. And I had a clogged nose that day.
Maybe the $3k Jura is different, but my janky little unit is definitely a poor man's machine – the hand-me-down Civic of superautomatic coffee makers. I'd buy it again in a heartbeat though.
I have the Jura Giga 5 and I would say it produces coffee which is better than I can get in any chain store, and, better than the average specialty shop as well. Obviously there are some specialty shops which produce excellent coffee which is better than the Jura, but, not by a massive margin. Interesting that you find the A1 to be much poorer in quality, or my pallet just sucks. Either way I fully agree with you that having "push button, make coffee" is fantastic, I don't want to fiddle with scales and worrying about blooming my coffee grounds for 14 seconds at 92c before brewing with water at 90c. Push button. Make good coffee.
The other "maintenance" item I've noted after having this machine for >10 years is that every 5 years or so it breaks and I have to send it back to Jura.
Their warranty service is a flat-rate $500 and they either repair yours or send you a refurb unit, for something which I spent almost 5k on, I'm very happy that they seem to have the option to basically keep the Jura working forever if I want.
The Giga 5 prefers to listen to the Spotify "upbeat pop music" playlist when I run the cleaning cycle FYI.
For anyone who hasn't gotten into the coffee insanity yet, he doesn't mean his friend literally gives the coffee acupuncture... but a cork with some acupuncture needles (or a device that looks like such) is commonly (!) used to stir/even out/redistribute/break up clumps of coffee in the portafilter before tamping. And reading that I now need to go get some coffee.
The main issue that I would have, is maintenance. I would guess that it would need a fair bit of cleaning.
I just use a fairly basic Braun Melitta filter, and it does great.