Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

I love this little gadget! I rarely need help opening jars, but pickle jars and big olive jars (not the little ones) are impossible for me and drive up my husband's blood pressure, so he told me to get a jar opener. I didn't have room for one of those big stands like my mother in law has, and they're about $100, so I was really excited to find this little automatic jar opener. And it works really well! As others have said, it's very loud, but unless you have a sleeping baby to worry about, it's not a big deal. There are only two buttons- one to open the jar, and one to release the lid. When I got it, I was so excited about trying it that I didn't read the full instructions- just the quick start guide. The quick start guide does indeed tell you how the machine actually operates (just open it fully, set it on the jar lid, and press the button- the outer arms grip the jar while the inner arms twist the lid). Well, my husband grabbed the jar as an additional safety measure, but neither of us thought to grip the machine. The quick start guide didn't say anything about holding anything, so.... Anyway, the machine worked great! In about 30 seconds, it had the jar open. But, it worked a little too well. When the lid popped open, the force of the machine twisting it made the lid AND the machine fly off AND twisted the jar out of my husband's grasp. The whole jar went flying and I lost half of the juice and about a dozen olives (like I said, it was a big jar). I thought it was hilarious. Anyway, after I got everything cleaned up, I sat down and read through the actual instruction manual. Lo and behold- it tells you to grip the jar AND keep a firm grip on the machine. That would have been useful in the quick start guide. (yes, I know, you'd think common sense and all, but common sense goes flying when you're excited about something) All in all- great little product. Slightly larger than I expected but much more easily stored than those big jar opener stands. UPDATE: My first machine died a quick death (simply stopped working). This is most likely from the flying incident mentioned earlier, though I don't know. It was within 2 weeks of using it, and I contacted the company. They replaced it super quick, and the replacement still works very well. (I'm not sure how long ago that was, but I believe it's been more than a year.)