Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

This is one of the "coolest" products I've bought lol. Seriously though, it's so awesome to have hot/cold/room temp water with a built in ice maker. While I was on the fence about buying it (admittedly this is a little pricey), it was well worth the investment and was exactly what I was looking for. Here are my notes about the product. The ice function produces way better ice than my last countertop ice maker made. The ice it makes is quite solid and takes quite awhile to melt (especially considering it makes the bullet type ice which typically melts pretty fast). The ice tastes good as well...no funky taste like you sometimes get with freezer made ice. I'd also add that the ice it makes is great to chew if you're like me and like chewing on ice :) The ice storage area is huge...in fact it holds quite a bit more ice than I was expecting...and it's really well insulated. Without officially checking with a thermometer I'd say when it's full of ice it's about as cold as a fridge...even though it's not a fridge/freezer. Additionally as the ice melts, it collects in a separate area (so your ice isn't sitting in a puddle of water) and when the sensor detects the ice level has dropped below a certain level it automatically starts making more ice by reusing the melted ice water (of course it draws water from the tank if there's not enough melted ice water to make ice). The sensor works when the ice function is turned on...of course you can turn the ice function off but I personally leave it on all the time since it only makes ice when the sensor detects it's low. Figured I'd mention that for people who haven't owned countertop ice makers and not sure how that works. The hot water is very hot...brews tea or makes a cup of noodle with zero issues. If you've ever owned an inferior water cooler you'll know why I added this point to the review. It also has a safety switch on the hot water faucet which is great if you have kids in the house...but I'd also say that the safety switch isn't too difficult/annoying to use like it is on some water coolers. The cold water is ice cold and refreshing...and the unit cools the water down very quicky. Enough said lol. The manufacturer also did a great job designing the unit functionality wise. I love the purge valves that allow you to completely purge the water from the unit when cleaning or putting in long term storage. My last water cooler only purged from the faucets, which didn't actually get all of the water out without tilting it, so having actual purge valves on the back of this unit was a pleasant surprise. Additionally they've made it easy to remove most of the parts on this machine, allowing you to thouroughly clean and sanitize the pieces. I removed the parts during the initial cleaning and they came out if the unit and cleaned up really easily. A few reviews mentioned the unit is a little noisy. I personally don't think it's very noisy at all, but ymmv depending on how quiet your house is and where you place it. With that said, the unit only makes noise when actively heating up/cooling down the water or making ice. Otherwise it's silent. In terms of looks, I thought the pictures in the description make the silver color look a little cheesy, but in person it actually looks really nice and quite premium looking. So while it's not polished stainless steel, the color is quite nice and has a smooth clear coat like feel to it. I've noticed it doesn't attract fingerprints or smudges like polished stainless appliances tend to and can easily be wiped down with a wet cloth. Style wise, it also goes well with existing stainless steel appliances. I can tell after looking closely at the unit that it's built to last. My only suggestion to the manufacturer is while it's great it comes with a warranty (3 months I believe) it would be nice to have the option to purchase an extended warranty/service contract either from you directly or through one of the companies that offer them for similar products on Amazon. Other than that little suggestion (which I will not mark this product down for) everything else about this machine is great! **I will update this review after a few months of use so I can speak to the product's longevity...but so far it works great!** UPDATE 1/2020: After having the product for 9 months now everything I mentioned in this review still stands. Still working great! I have some tips to share about cleaning the unit: Every 2-3 months, I turn off the unit for a few hours until the water coming out of the hot faucet is cold and ice is melted, empty out the water in the water cooler and ice compartment using the purge valves in the back of the unit and clean the removable parts with soap and hot water (lots of rinsing...you don't want any soap residue in your water cooler). After they're dry I put them back in the water cooler. Then I sanitize the unit. To sanitize, swish 1 tbsp of regular bleach to 1 gallon of water in your empty water jug and let it sit a couple mins (since I have two, I dump the bleach water into the other jug and swish it around and let it sit while I'm rinsing out the bleach water residue from the first water jug). Put a little bit of the bleach water in a spray bottle and dump the rest in the top of the unit where the water jug goes. Rinse out the water jug(s) with several gallons of water until there is no bleach smell and let it dry. Then I use the spray bottle to mist the ice compartment with bleach water and dump the rest of the bleach water in the spray bottle into the bottom of the ice compartment and rinse out the spray bottle until I don't smell bleach and fill it with tap water. After sitting a couple minutes, I run the bleach solution in the water cooler through all 3 faucets. Note the hot water and room temp only let you run so much through so make sure you do these two before the cold water faucet. I've also read you should block the hot water inlet to prevent bleach going in the hot water tank but I forgot once and found it didn't really matter as long as you rinse really well. Once empty, I use about a gallon of tap water per faucet until I no longer smell bleach and do another gallon through the purge valves in the back of the unit until I don't smell bleach. You do go through about 5 gallons of water for purging purposes which is why I use tap water instead of filtered water for cleaning. For the ice compartment, after the bleach water mist sits for a few minutes I dump a gallon of tap water at the bottom of the ice compartment and use a spray bottle of tap water to spray down the inside and purge the water using the purge valve in the back of the unit until I don't smell bleach anymore (sometimes it takes 2 gallons) and completely wipe it out with a paper towel. This does take a bit of time, and I usually wait until the next day to refill my water jugs but I figure it's only every few months and worth having clean water and ice. I also deodorize the ice compartment with baking soda and water in the same manner every other cleaning (occasionally the ice compartment gets a slight odor like anything holding water gets) and purge out the baking soda water with a few gallons of tap water. Never had to run baking soda through the water cooler itself...that seems to always stay clean smelling/tasting.