Customer Reviews

SodaStream Pure Starter Kit, Black/Silver

5 star:		(31)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(7)

 

 

This is a good product sold by a company that has sleazy business practices. Their practices should be known before committing to buy anything from them, because you are locked into dealing with them (and only them) forever.

The company is misrepresenting the exchange situation in an almost criminal manner. They told me that if I bought 2 spare bottles for 100 dollars, I would have free shipping for life as long as I ordered two exchange bottles at a time.

Not too long after, they reneged on that, and started charging me for shipping.

In addition, their site says, "Exchange locally to avoid shipping charges". That is not possible in 99% of the US. Only the smaller 60 liter bottle is available in my state, as well as several neighboring states. I suspect this is a scheme to force me to convert to the smaller bottle, which will increase my costs and their profits considerably.

To add insult to injury, their site trumpets "Now available at thousands of retail locations." A quick check reveals that there are a couple hundred retail locations that will sell you the equipment, but far fewer who will exchange your small bottles, and about three nationwide that will exchange the large 130 liter bottle.

It would seem that they are far, far more interested in sales than service. This is particularly onerous, since their product requires constant refill service, and it is only available through them.

It is also worth noting that a 130 liter carbonator will not come near making 130 liters of decently carbonated water. The only way we can do that is to make the carbonation so weak that the bottle goes flat before half of the water is consumed. This, of course, defeats the purpose of making one's own carbonated water. You are at their mercy when it comes to how much CO2 they put in a refill, how much they charge you for it, and how much they charge you for shipping.

So, do your homework before you commit to this company. The deal will change.

I recently placed and order for refills, and they took a week to even get them to UPS.

I initially bought the Penguin version of this soda maker (same maker, and also sold on Amazon), and it has quickly become the most used appliance in my kitchen next to the microwave. It makes flawless carbonated water and does so in a matter of seconds, from cold tap water without the use of any electricity. The carbonated water it produces lasts far longer in my fridge, in terms of bubbles and fizz, than any carbonated water I've gotten from the store, including Pellegrino.

I use my Penguin soda maker with a PUR 2-Stage water filter PUR DS-1800Z 2-Stage Water Dispenser, which sits in my fridge and dispenses cold water that can go right into the soda maker carafe/bottle.

I was skeptical before buying the soda maker as I could not fathom how such a small product could produce carbonated water almost instantly without electricity. But it surpassed all expectations and continues to amaze me every time I use it, which is basically every day.

I have not used any syrups with the soda maker but typically mix the sparkling water with natural juice, about 20% juice to 80% water, and it tastes amazing and is healthy too.

I saw this classic SodaStream version of the soda maker at a friend's house and he raved about it, so I just purchased it for a friend. It seems to work like the Penguin except that you screw the bottle in at the top to attach it to the machine, rather than slip a carafe into a holder like you do with the Penguin. I think the Penguin design is slightly less cumbersome but I thought the look on this one was more elegant and simple.

In any event, I highly recommend this product or the Penguin, without reservations. There is simply nothing wrong with it - it's perfect in every way and pretty darn ingenious (for me, anyway!).

It's a nice machine, works as advertised, and I find the Diet Cola is very close in taste to Diet Coke. The other flavors are variable in quality and in how closely they replicate the flavor of the market leaders.

However, you will not save money. I've put all the math below. For startup costs I've assumed you'll want at least two additional bottles, and two additional canisters. This is probably conservative, since the whole point is to save trips to the supermarket, and the bottles will definitely wear out over time. I've amortized these startup costs over 3 years, with four family members each drinking 45 gallons per year of soda. The Diet Cola flavor sells for $8.32 here on Amazon as of today, and refills on the canisters cost $15 each.

Put all this together, and it comes to $1.04 per liter. Average retail on Diet Coke is $0.70. So you won't save money.

What you will save is your time, your gas, your back and your fridge space. It's nice to be able to whip up soda any time without having to lug big slabs of cans or heavy bags of bottles in from the supermarket. It's nice not to have to fill up a whole shelf in the fridge with soda. That's the real benefit to this. I think they have actually priced this out accordingly, so the slight premium you pay per liter offsets the hassle factor of buying soda the regular way.

Here are the calculations. (No, I didn't factor in cost-of-capital. I'm keeping this simple.)

-------------------------------------

Consumption
Per Person 45 Gallons per year
People per family 4 People
Total Consumptom per year 180 Gallons per yaer
684 Liters per year

Startup Costs
Sodastream Startup Kit $129
Additional Bottles (2) $18
Additional Canisters (2) $60
Total Fixed Costs $207
Amortized over 3 years $69.00 $/yr
Amortized per liter soda $0.10 $/liter



Ongoing Costs Unit Cost Liters per unit Cost per liter
Canister refills $15 60 $0.25
Flavor $8.33 12 $0.69

Plus Startup costs $0.10

Total cost per liter $1.04

My husband is addicted to San Pellegrino. I go to Costco every week and carry that heavy box of bottles. But, I don't have to anymore! This works great and actually love this over any other bubbly water. It has a kick to it and you can adjust how much fizz you want! I wasn't a fan of the soda/flavored water so I can't adequately review that portion of it. Would get it as a gift for friends and family!

This item has seriously rocked our world - it is so great I want to tell everyone about it!!!

My husband and I are big seltzer drinkers, and would often stock up on a case or two when we went grocery shopping. Not only was that a heavy load to haul home, but all those plastic bottles felt SO wasteful and environmentally unfriendly.

I bought the Pure seltzer maker for my husband for Christmas and it has far exceeded all expectations. It seriously tastes EXACTLY like store bought seltzer (using the flavor essence you can buy from sodastream, [...], and I simply LOVE being able to make seltzer whenever we want it, which is multiple bottles each day.

I will say that I actually bought the product directly from [...] because Amazon doesn't stock the "Seltzer Value Kit" which gives you 4 bottles and 3 carbonators, plus the flavor stuff: [...]. (Note to Amazon, you should definitely stock the Value kit). Since we use it so often, I definitely am glad we have multiple bottles to use, so would suggest ordering the Value Kit directly from [...].

Its hard to say how many bottles we got from 1 carbonator: the instructions say 60 liters. Ours lasted about a month, but like I said we often make multiple bottles per day.

While the general idea of this product is solid, consumers should understand that they are grossly overpaying for SodaStream carbon dioxide refills. In fact, the prices charged are sixteen times (16x) wholesale costs or many, many times more expensive than the prices a restaurant would pay. In Europe, frugal consumers are aware of such markups and actually purchase their own restaurant-sized CO2 refills. In the US, we aren't so frugal.

Other than the outrageous costs for the CO2 refills, there are other issues with the SodaStream Fountain Jet. One is the construction quality is quite low with very thin molded plastic and little weight. Additionally, the taste of generic soda flavors do not match that of the brand name products.

Below is the calculated cost per two liter for the output of SodaStream soda. This includes the cost of the consumables AND the equipment costs. I have used very generous assumptions, including a low discount rate (i.e. cost of money).

Transportation costs were not factored because 1) purchases of typical groceries should more or less overlap with soft drink purchases 2) grocery delivery has long been available in many areas 3) most people live closer to a grocery store than to a home furnishings store (I walk 100 ft. for groceries and drive one mile for BB&B) 4) the reverse logistics for the CO2 refills is an extra expense for the retailer that has to be factored into their profit margin and will ultimately be borne by the consumer.

One of the reasons Bed Bath & Beyond, Macy's and Crate and Barrel choose to carry SodaStream is that they want the consumer to make MORE FREQUENT trips to their establishments for consumables. Instead of going to such establishments once every 3 to 6 months, customers will now visit once every 1 to 2 months. That makes an enormous difference for generating impulse purchases at such retailers. One could argue then that transportation costs could increase for the individual consumer.


Total Costs = $1.73 per Two Liter -- More Expensive Than Retail

*Concentrate
Flavor cost bottle of concentrate $4.99
Liters of product per container 12
Flavor/l $0.42

*Carbonator
Volume of CO2 130
Cost of CO2 per refill (130 liters) 29.99
CO2 cost per liter $0.23

*Sodastream Equipment Costs - Amortization Per Liter
Equipment cost $89.00
Equipment life (years) 5
Discount rate (cost of money) 8%
Liters per month 10.00
Monthly amortized cost $1.80
Cost of equipment per liter $0.18

*Water Cost with Brita Filtration
Municipal water costs per liter in US $0.0004
Brita filter three pack (454 liters of water output) $16.95
Brita cost per liter $0.0373
Water and filter costs per liter $0.0377
(assumes you already own Brita Pitcher so no equipment costs, just incremental filtration)


***TOTAL COSTS PER TWO LITER = (Flavor + CO2 + Equipment + Filtered Water) * 2
SodaStream Total Cost Per Two Liter = $1.73

Without filtered water:
SodaStream Total Cost Per Two Liter = $1.65




THE MATH BELOW IS WHAT SODASTREAM DOESN'T WANT THE CONSUMER TO KNOW


*Restaurant Carbonation (note distributor prices, so there is still a distributor profit)
weight of CO2 contents of large restaurant CO2 tank: 50 lbs
weight in grams: 22,680 grams of CO2
cost to refill - Summer 2011: $35

CO2 grams/liter of carbonated water: 7 grams

*Efficiency of Restaurant CO2 Carbonation
losses: 10%
available CO2 in tank (residual is required for pressure): 85%
net accessible CO2 of total: 77%
usable grams of CO2: 17,350 grams

*Output
carbonated liters of water: 2,479
cost per liter in USD$: $0.014

*SodaStream Output
SodaStream Refill: 130 liters (quoted end product)
Cost per refill: $30.00
cost per SodaStream carbonated water: $0.231

*SodaStream Markup Economics
ratio of SodaStream to Restaurant prices: 16.3x
SodaStream inflation price over restaurant pricing: 1534%
math: [y/x-x] to give increase over base case restaurant pricing

This is an incredible 1500% markup


Pros
Saves plastic
Allows flexible mixture of flavors

Cons
Grossly inflated CO2 refill costs
Another store trip required for refills separate from grocery store visit

***Disclaimer: I am an investor who has used the product multiple times. At the time of this review, I did NOT have an investment in SodaStream either short or long. In the past, I have both owned the stock and shorted it (bet against it). I may be on either side of the trade by the time you read this -- I am not very sentimental.

I can't say enough of this. Ever have that craving for sparkling drinks, (soda, seltzer...) well in 5 seconds at the most, you can make your own. BUY THE PURE MODEL! Please, it looks beautiful in your kitchen, and the sparkling drinks taste so good, and so much fresher than store-bought

I purchased the SodaStream Pure, and have had it for 2 days now-I love it. Taking it out of the box it was a breeze to put together-the users manual had step by step pictures. You put the co2 tank in the head of the machine then twist that on to the rest of the body. The BPA free bottles it came with are actually nicer than I expected, it came with one white and one stainless. I like the stainless bottle, it just has a good feel and weight, and I think the stainless bottom helps keep the bottle cold. They are supposed to be one liter, but seem a little small, so I will probably order another one. I used to buy about a case a week of 1 liter bottles of sparkling water, and now all I have to do is remember to fill up a bottle as soon as I finish one. The quality of the water is wonderful, I have been making it according to the recommendations-3 buzzes, and its very fizzy just like the store bought stuff. Also the bottle caps seem to really hold the fizz in, even the next day the water is still very very fizzy, unlike what I used to buy which would go flat after being open for a few hours. It is very easy to use-although at first I was listening for an actual buzz sound, and then realized the word "buzz" was the only word you can describe the sound it makes. Its more like air coming out of a balloon- or the sound of a kazoo. So you take your bottle filled with cold water up to the fill line, and then you can actually screw it on to the machine, and then you pull the tab in short quick bursts until you hear that "buzz" noise, after that each time you pull it it will buzz, and the recommended amount is 3 buzzes for average fizz. I also got this model just because the white and stainless really match my kitchen, but I do not believe there is any difference between the Pure and Genesis models other than looks and a slight difference in size. The white parts of my machine are a very matt plastic, and it looks good with the stainless accents.
Very happy with this, and would recommend it to anyone to regularly buys bottled sparkling water.

A little background on me: I had kidney cancer, and recently kidney failure on my one remaining. I found out purely by accident that my kidney issues were probably caused by Diet Sodas which contain Sucralose or Phenaly..something (brand name, Equal).

I've been a diet soda addict since the early 80's, and was hard pressed to find a healthy substitute that I would enjoy as much as soda. I tried everything from flavored seltzer to home made iced tea with Sweetleaf as a sweetener.

Then I discovered this! Wow, makes great soda as fizzy as you wish. The carbonation stays better than regular soda, and it's great because you actually control how much fizz to do.

I've been using unsweetened fruit concentrate like pomegranite or Black Cherry, filtered water, and Sweetleaf sweetener.

I like this product so much I decided to buy the stock!

One Month Later...

The first cartridge is still going strong, and I've bought a backup for when it runs out. refilled cartridges from my local store costs $18.00 when I exchange one, but a new one cost me $35.00.

I've learned that four quick, strong pulls of the CO2 lever results in a loud, growling "burp" when I've hit the proper amount of carbonation, and to leave the bottle screwed onto the unit and walk away for a couple of minutes. When I go back to remove it, the homemade soda doesn't spray everywhere.

I also put the flavorings and sweetener in the bottle of water first, then carbonate... but also clean the carbonation prong with water afterwards so it doesn't stay sticky.

One month, two weeks later...

I finally ran out of C02, thank God I had a backup cartridge handy!

This thing is AMAZING! Every kitchen should have one of these. I want fresh coke? I got it! Fresh mountain dew next? No problem! And I love the flavored water too. There are no calories (or anything else) in it, just a fresh lemon lime flavor. The machine is so simple to use & takes up no counter space. I would give it 10 stars if I could! And to make things even better Williams Sonoma will now switch out the c02 tanks for (I think) $15. You give them the empty, they give you a full one! Very simple. BTW- they sell this exact item for the same price if you don't want to wait for it to ship!