Customer Reviews

NewAir AI-210SS Portable Ice Maker With High Quality Stainless Steel Finish

5 star:		(30)
4 star:		(13)
3 star:		(5)
2 star:		(4)
1 star:		(15)

 

 

Our new ice maker is doing what it advertised, making ice and lots of it. Problem is, the ice tastes like melting plastic. In spite of running the clean cycle several times (the instructions say once), cleaning the unit with baking soda, and leaving a box of baking soda in the unit over night, our ice still reeks and tastes of plastic. Thinking it might be our tap water, we ran Evian through it.

The ice still tastes like plastic.

Hopefully, this will pass over time, but buyer beware...if you want to use your ice maker immediately, think again :(. Also, the maker doesn't store ice. Not a huge problem in our case as we have an extra freezer, but just be sure you're aware of that before you hit "buy".

We just went on a 2 week RV trip with our new ice maker and this ice maker did exactly what I had hoped. We left our cooler outside the entire time, we started with one large bag of ice and were able to produce enough ice with the new ice maker so that we did not have to buy any additional ice while on our trip. We ran the ice maker 24 hours a day for almost two weeks and had no issues. Let's hope it keeps working!

If I was rating this ice machine purely on meeting advertised performance it would get a five, but I feel that I have to take one off for design. As advertised, it makes ice quickly and reliably. We use it in our bar/theater room, most generally for a few hours in the evening about three times a week.

What's not evident from any of the sales literature is that the machine works by pumping water up from a lower reservoir to the freezing tray in the top. The tray dumps the ice into a basket above the reservoir. As the cubes melt, the water drops back down into the reservoir to be reused. As you use ice, the water level in the reservoir drops. There's no cooler for the ice compartment, just the one that runs the freeze tube during an ice making cycle. If you leave the machine on all the time, it cycles every few hours as the ice cubes sitting in the basket melt down enough to trigger the low ice sensor. That means that you either leave the machine on all the time or you have to plan a party about half an hour ahead of time in order to have any ice on hand. It takes about an hour and a half of continuous running in order to fill the ice bin. The machine, while not overly loud, makes too much noise to be left on during movies. A full hopper is good for about half a dozen full size mixed drinks; each cycle is good enough for about one and a half to two drinks depending on how much ice you like. As some have noted, there's a strong plastic smell about the unit similar to how the inside of a new refrigerator smells. I was put off at first until I discovered that the ice cubes didn't have any plastic flavor to them. It stands to reason that that if you can smell the plasticizers than they are in the water as well but I couldn't detect it. No idea whether the plastic compound in question is the suspect Bisphenol A that has everyone tossing their plastic water bottles. In any case, the smell is fading over time which means that there's less of whatever it is causing the smell in the water.

What it needs, and doesn't have, is an internal clock to turn it on at a certain time every day. That way it could start making ice in the afternoon and be ready by evening. Instead it has a timer that can be set to count down a certain number of hours and minutes before it starts. That means that you have to know ahead of time if there's going to be a gathering and you have to remember to go to the machine and set it to start counting down. That's often pointless because it's already evening and you need it to start making ice right away.

An external timer's no good either. The control panel is computerized rather than hard switched so it resets to off when external power is removed.

A quirk to be aware of is that you can't put ultra pure water in the machine. It relies on a certain amount of minerals in the water to provide conductivity for the proper functioning of the water level sensor. If you put in ultra pure water in the attempt to get perfect ice that won't impart flavors to your drink, the machine will just sit there thinking it's low on water.

In short, good ice at a good price. It's just a shame that all the computing power of the front panel is wasted by not having a clock programmed in.

I purchased the NewAir AI-200SS last fall. It worked great for about 6 months at which time, it stopped making Ice. I contacted AirNWater and they gave me an RMA for it. I returned it (at my $27) and then had to pay for the replacement ($19.95). It's now 1 month that I've had the replacement and it TOO has failed to make ice. I've done everything by the book but no ice. I'm waiting on a response from AirNWater. If I have a choice, I'll just get a refund. This $209.00 Ice Maker is not into me for $265.00 and I'm not sure another $50 is worth it.

It's a shame because, when it works, it was great.

May be it was a misunderstanding on my side, but this machine is a for making ice only. If you think of it as a mini-freezer, that will make ice and will keep it that way - don't get fooled. It is a great ice-maker, but once ice was made you have to manually remove it from the container and put it to a freezer. Ice starts to melt quite quick, so make sure to transfer it to a cold place before ice cubes start sticking to each other. It is a little noisy, but this is not a major drawback of this device.

Other than that - great and fast way of making ice. If it just had an internal cooling device!

I bought this product with the hope that I would never have to buy ice again. It is better than I could have ever hoped. I no longer have to buy ice and the beauty of the product is far beyond what the manufacturer promised. It is beyond awesome. Easy to use, easy to clean and best of all my wife is happier than I have ever seen her. Thank you thank you thank you

Never worked right out of the box. On first attempt returned a "Low Water" error. The problem with that is it was full. So I went through all of the self cleaning and manual cleaning recommendations in the manual. It would run through One Cycle, make the cubes and then return the "Low Water" error. There is a return policy, however you have to pay the shipping and a re-stocking fee. Not a good business strategy making the customer pay for an inferior product. I should have know better. Made in China.

I purchased this product in September 2007. I used it on those occasions when demand for ice exceeded the capacity of my refrigerator's ice maker. The AI-210SS has, at most, 8 hours of run time on it. The unit makes one round of ice and then shuts down for "low water level" even though the reservoir is full. You have to shut the unit off, unplug it, plug it back in, and turn it on. Even then, it will tell you that the water level is low. After anywhere from 5 to 8 tries, the water pump will turn on, fill the freezing tray, make one round of cubes, and then shut down again for "low water level". No one in my area works on portable ice makers or stocks repair parts for the AI-210SS. My money would have been better spent buying a basic "second" refrigerator with built-in icemaker from Sears. I would strongly discourage anyone from purchasing this product.

We bought this ice maker because we drink a lot of iced tea and don't have a lot of room for ice storage. We first used this product to make some ice for my nephew's birthday party. There were around 20 people at the party and this machine had no problems keeping up with the demands. The next next night we had some more friends over and made a bunch of frozen drinks and once again, our little ice cube maker kept up!

It is heavier than I had thought, but not too heavy that one person can't move it around easily. It is fairly quiet considering the internal condensor.

For the money, this is the best value that I've found. We almost bought a lesser priced machine from a local retailer, but we are glad that we chose this model instead.

I purchased this particular unit because it had a bigger capacity than the other stainless steel NewAir ice maker. I also like the auto clean feature. Ice anywhere you can plug it and all you need to add is water. How great is that?