If you're like me you love carbonated (seltzer) water, chances are if you're here that rings true for you as well. No matter the medium, it gets expensive to purchase from the grocery store week after week. I looked to the SodaStream OneTouch to provide some affordable bubbly refreshment, what could be cheaper than "doing it yourself", after all? Unfortunately, after I purchased the device and started digging into the numbers I ran across various stipulations along the way that made the Sodastream less and less compelling.

Misleading from the start

If you look at a cylinder of SodaStream CO2 it "clearly" states that it will provide you with 60 L of carbonated water per refill:

Unfortunately, the fine print of this is that it's really "60, 1 liter bottles". This gets a bit dubious as each 1 L bottle needs to be filled to 0.89 QT (842.25 mL) to carbonate. Multiplying it out, we're left with each "60 L refill" really supplying 50.535 L of carbonated water.

Even if you just go by their numbers, things get a misleading. Their website also states a cylinder can make up to 15 gallons of water, but 15 gallons converts to 56.8 L. I'm assuming this is a rounding issue and wanting a whole number, but it still is a relatively significant difference I would have expected not to be overlooked.

Lost Carbon

If that wasn't enough, as the cylinders are used their carbonation power wanes since the pressure in the cylinder is reduced. Towards the end of the cylinders life, it can no longer carbonate your "1 L" bottle. When this occurs, I measured that there is ~20 g CO2 left in the bottle. For reference, each refill contains 410 g CO2 per its packaging, so with the lost CO2 we're down to 390 g CO2 per refill.

One Touch

During my initial purchase I made the decision to start with the SodaStream OneTouch, the allure of this being I thought it would give consistent results and I wouldn't have to fuss with manual options. Once I got my hands on it, I realized I was somewhat mistaken.

The OneTouch seems to simply work by toggling the valve on the top of the CO2 cylinder with a total "on" time depending on if you select low, medium, or high carbonation.

Unfortunately, as pressure in the cylinder reduces so too does the effectiveness of a given amount of timing having the Co2 cylinder 'open' to your SodaStream bottle. As the Co2 cylinder empties over its life, you'll need to adjust which level of carbonation you select to compensate. For example on a brand new CO2 cylinder I found that the "low" carbonation setting was more than enough to acheieve my desired carbonation, however towards the end of its life I started having to switch to "medium" or "high" carbonation to get the carbonation I was craving.

Therefore, I don't think there is a ton of value in the OneTouch versus manual models, albeit I've never used another variant. The OneTouch doesn't offer consistent performance, and I can't imagine the manual versions are particularly difficult to use to make the electronic model worth it.

Cold Water

CO2 is easier to dissolve in cold water than it is warm water. This most likely works out well, however it's worth noting this means you need to have some access to chilled water for the Sodastream to work best. If you already have filtered water in a pitcher, that will work fine. If you don't normally keep water in your refrigerator, then that's something you'll need to plan for.

Bottle Sizes

For the OneTouch, Sodastream offers 0.5 L bottles and 1 L bottles. At first I thought this was great, it would be nice to choose how much water you want to carbonate and you may not always want a 1 L bottle full of carbonated water. Unfortunately the Onetouch doesn't have any way to detect which bottle you're using, and just pulses the CO2 for a set amount depending on the setting then vents out the CO2 that does not get "caught" in the water. I did a quick test, and the 1 L bottle took 7.4 grams to carbonate on the medium setting and the 0.5 L bottle took 8.5 g. Unfortunately this makes the smaller bottles essentially useless, as they take the same or more CO2 to carbonate for half the amount of water.

Changing Standards

A few months after my purchase, SodaStream has started selling and exchanging a new "quick connect" CO2 cylinder as well as the 'old' screw in CO2 cylinder:

"Innovation" will of course happen with a kitchen gadget like this, but I'm disappointed in the way that they are approaching the refills. The old style isn't compatible with the new style SodaStreams and vice versa.

They're also still selling machines that utilize both the new and old CO2 cylinders, so hopefully they will keep supporting both, but without any cross compatibility it would be hard to recommend buying an older machine if you for some reason wanted to.

CO2 Exchanges

SodaStream offers either in-store refills at various retailers (Kohl's, Staples, Walmart, etc...) or through the mail directly through them. At current prices, exchanges are $14.99 each. Through the online option, shipping breaks down as:

I tried visiting both a Target and Kohl's near me to exchange my (old style) cylinders, and both only had the new style cylinders and were unable to do anything with my "screw in" refills. Right now this leaves my only option as doing the mail in exchange, which is both less convenient as I'll have to drop off my empty cylinders and potentially significantly more costly if there aren't 4 empty cylinders to exchange

Price per Liter (L)

Personally this is where the Sodastream falls apart for me. From the extra effort listed above such as exchanging cylinders and storing cold water to the upfront cost of buying the actual Soda stream and cylinders you'd expect the savings to be enough to make your money back over time if you consume a lot of carbonated water. Unfortunately, the cost is fairly close to what you can buy at the store for name brands and more expensive than store brands; in this case the store brand I'm comparing comes from Stop & Shop. For a frame of reference, here's the price per L for a few different options:

For the price of Sodastream usage I've created the following table comparison of pure carbonated water and flavoring from both Bubly and Flavor Essence. Personally I found I preferred the Flavor Essence drops over the Bubly, and still like using them in plain water or mixed drinks. I chose to compare the Bubly cost also, as that is the "official" flavoring that Sodastream references.  Sodastream instructions state to use ¾ teaspoon (3.70 mL) of Bubly per "1 L bottle", and recall from before each 1 L bottle actually makes 842.25 mL of seltzer water. I also found that I thought the flavor best using the same amount of Flavor Essence per bottle. Breaking this down, I've created the following table with the price per L:

Noting the in-store prices for Seltzer, Sodastream produces seltzer priced between Polar and store brand. However, with the initial investment required, it's definitely a hard sell.

If we go a step further and assume a best possible case scenario that no CO2 is wasted and each cylinder makes 60 L of carbonated water, the price per L of carbonated water comes down to $0.25/L, but the flavorings still put the pricing of this firmly between the store prices:

I've included the spreadsheet (ODS) file here if you'd like to play around with the numbers yourself:

Positive Notes

The Sodastream system does have some positives, if you want to experiment with flavoring your seltzer water in different variations than you may find at the store the world is your oyster. There are also flavorings available that you can't find in stores, such as one of my favorites from Flavor Essence, honeycrisp apple. If you don't want to flavor your seltzer at all, the Sodastream can also provide carbonated water at a fraction of the in store price even with all the considerations we discussed above.

If you live in a location that makes it inconvenient to bring in groceries, such as the top floor of an apartment, it's also somewhat convenient not having to bring up cases of carbonated water.

There is also the environmental aspect, you are preventing the equivalent in cans or plastic bottles being sent off into the world after you are done with them using the Sodastream so that probably counts for something.

I was initially excited about the Sodastream, I love seltzer water and anticipated significant savings by performing the carbonation at home. Unfortunately as we learned the savings isn't substantial, and in some cases it's not there at all. It's not a bad kitchen gadget and so far has worked as advertised, but with the large initial upfront investment to ultimately not be particularly savings focused make it a hard sell.

An even harder pill to swallow is their changing standard of the CO2 cylinder, preventing me from exchanging for refills in stores around me. I can only imagine they ultimately will stop selling the old screw in style blue cylinders and force you to switch to the quick connects or be left in the dust, but we'll see what the future holds.

So who could this be for? If you particularly enjoy plain, unflavored, carbonated water this could eventually save you some money as we found the cost before is $0.34/L, but still keep in mind the upfront cost.

I've decided on 2 stars for the Sodastream, the device itself works fine though is a bit bare bones in terms of functionality. My main qualm with it is the lack of savings compared to store bought seltzer water, and if you aren't saving money after the upfront cost of the Sodastream then I have a tough time seeing a huge benefit to it.

SodaStream

For the extra upfront cost and effort of having a Sodastream I would have expected savings that quickly added up, unfortunately when all is said and done the cost of Sodastream flavored carbonated water quickly comes out to the same or more per liter than just going to the store and buying it pre-made.

Sodastream Onetouch

Currently I do not have a regenerator ice maker, and have no way to replace that appliance. This led me to a search for countertop units that could fulfill the same role.

As the "Insignia™ - 44 Lb. Portable Nugget Icemaker with Auto Shut-Off - Stainless steel" is the only ice maker I have ever owned, this review is focused on the features/problems of the unit without comparison to other products.

Overview

I considered several products for my ice maker purchase, and eventually settled on the "Insignia™ - 44 Lb. Portable Nugget Icemaker with Auto Shut-Off - Stainless steel". From what I was able to determine, ice makers fall into 3 main categories:

1. "Bullet" style ice makers that create ice by plunging cold prongs into the water reservoir. The ice created here is probably most familiar to you from air travel, and have a vague 'bullet' shape and hole in the center.
2. "Nugget" ice makers like this one, which function by compressing ice to give it a crunchy, chewable texture and a clear appearance. These are usually a bit more expensive than the bullet ice makers, and produce ice more slowly.
3. "Clear" ice makers, that have water flow over a refrigerated tray that then pops out ice, but where you might have to break apart the ice after it's ejected from the tray.
4. Ice makers that occur in a freezer that already has a low enough ambient temperature to create ice, like you would find in a normal refrigerator / freezer unit.

Functionality

Design

The Insignia ice maker is designed to constantly make new ice while the ice in the tray is melting, "recycling" the water. If you've looked at the variety of ice makers available already you've most likely noticed most countertop ("portable") ice makers work like this.

There are a few exceptions, such as this Edgestar Ice Maker that keep the ice in a 'freezer' compartment and work by having an ice maker you'd find in a typical fridge/freezer combination in a mini-freezer. However, I found a number of complaints that frost quickly jams the ice maker. The Edgestar also requires a water connection which may just not be viable for you, and wasn't for me so I did not consider it further.

The Ice

I've come across a few claims for "nugget ice", them being; (1) The ice is chewable, (2) The ice melts slower, (3) The ice takes on the flavor of the drink. Let's address them:

1. The ice from the Insignia is chewable, though I'm not sure how it falls in line with "hospital"/sonic Ice or ice from the GE Opal series as I've never had it, however it is more chewable than ice you would make in a freezer. If you've never had it before think of it like an ice cube that's had some time to melt that you can easily crush it with your teeth.
2. There are claims that the "ice melts slower", which I haven't found to be true. I've seen this claim generally stated. Slower than what? Ice cubes, spheres, large squares? You may be aware, but the larger the ice cube (and smaller the amount of surface area exposed to liquid) the longer the ice will take to melt and vice versa. I finally found the origin of this comparison, nugget ice will melt slower than shaved ice, which you would typically find used in mixed drink/cocktails. I haven't done any specific tests to this end, but I would expect nugget ice to melt faster than an equivalent temperature ice cube as it exposes more ice to the liquid than the cube does.
3. I haven't found the ice to take on the flavor of the drink at all. I've tried nugget ice with cocktails, lemonade, etc... by having the refreshment and trying the ice after and it always just tasted like ice. As stated before, I can't compare this directly to hospital/sonic ice so it may be possible for those systems. However, for the Insignia, I wouldn't expect the ice to take on the flavor of the drink.

Ice temperature

As the ice is always melting, it won't be as cold as ice you would normally get from the freezer. Functionally, I tested this with an insulated tumbler of water with both nugget ice and freezer ice as shown above.Using this test I found that with the nugget ice the water reached 35 °F (1.67 °C). With the same test, using ice from the freezer the water reached 34 °F (1.11 °C). Obviously not a lot of difference in performance here. The only consideration I would give both methods is that per mass of ice, ice from the freezer will be able to cool more water than an equivalent mass of nugget ice as the freezer ice will be at a lower temperature. However, it's worth noting that most of the cooling potential of ice is when it switches the state of matter (solid -> liquid), which the nugget ice will provide you.

Cleaning & Maintenance

Water in the ice maker is held in 2 compartments, the "lower" compartment which is below where the ice is held and you fill with fresh water, and a mystical "upper" compartment that the water is pumped from the lower reservoir to. Unfortunately, there is no way for you to access the upper compartment to physically clean it so you'll need to rely on the "clean" button that recirculates water through the appliance. You drain both compartments using the silicone tubing on the back of the unit into either a sink or large bowl to collect the waste water.

The user manual suggests running a cleaning cycle every 3 days:

However it's not particularly clear with what, at the start it says to wipe down the inside with a baking soda solution, but it never elaborates if that is what you should be using when running the cleaning cycle. In the caution statement the manual also states to not use bleach or vinegar, and doesn't expand on if that includes diluting either and using that solution. In terms of longevity of the appliance the most conservative approach would be to just use tap water for the cleaning cycle, but personally I don't think that's sufficient to clean the upper compartment via recirculation alone as there is no way to wipe it clean.

So far I've been making the diluted baking soda mixture, running the cleaning cycle, then draining the ice maker and running another cleaning cycle with tap water to remove any baking soda that may have been left over. If it starts getting dirty I plan to try hydrogen peroxide or a very dilute bleach solution and assuming they were warning against using undiluted bleach.

In contrast the GE Opal line of ice makers is much clearer when it comes to cleaning, and does suggest that you use a dilute bleach solution and it also suggests cleaning once a week, not every 3 days.

If you follow the user manual to the letter, the ice maker does require a good bit of maintenance. It recommends changing the water at least every 24 hours, which I've been ignoring this since I am operating under the assumption that we've been using enough ice and refilling the ice maker for it to be sufficient. As stated earlier it also states to clean the ice maker using baking soda and the cleaning cycle every 3 days. I think this is a bit too aggressive (and also time consuming), and have been doing it every 5-7 days without issue.

I've measured the temperature of water in the reservoir after the ice maker has run a bit and have found the water to be between 45-53 °F (7.2 - 11.7 °C), so the water is somewhat chilled from the melting ice which will help stave off cleaning somewhat, however it is still warmer than what a typical refrigerator would be set to.

Flaws

To fill the ice maker you remove the tray and fill the unit up to the "max" line inside the reservoir. This maximum fill line also corresponds to the bottom of where the ice tray sits, and filling to this line prevents you from overflowing water out the front of the ice maker.

Under normal operation if you fill the ice maker when both chambers are empty and turn it on, the ice marker pumps some of the water into the upper chamber and starts making ice. As the system is closed water is never drained, if you turn the ice maker off when the tray is full of ice, then allow all of the ice to melt, the water would only ever fill back to the "max" line.

The problem with this system is that it doesn't have a second line for the amount of water possibly contained in both the upper chamber, and as nugget ice in the tray. So if you have the ice maker running and full of ice, fill to the "max" line, and turn the ice maker off the ice will melt and overflow from the reservoir around the ice maker.

So far I've had this happen once, and it's not the end of the world but it is obviously inconvenient. As a future improvement it would be nice if there was a secondary "max" line to show where you can fill the main reservoir to if the ice maker was already running and the tray completely full of ice as a worst case scenario.

Placement

The Insignia is portable in the sense that you can set it up without a water line, but weighing in at 34.4 lbs (15.6 kg) empty it's not something you'll want to move often.

The silicone tubing on the back connected to the drain plugs allow you to drain the ice maker into a large container, and you can fill it from the front. However, due to the fact that the ice is always melting when you remove the tray to fill it with water there is a considerable amount of water that ends up in front of the icemaker and under wherever the tray is placed.

In general, I would recommend the home for this appliance someplace you don't mind getting wet from general cleaning and use both on the flooring near it and counter or table where it resides. It's not unreasonable to put it away from a sink, however for convenience that's currently where mine is living as it makes filling, draining, and cleaning the ice maker more convenient.

Another consideration is that the ice maker requires requires 6 inches on both sides and the back of the unit, so when measuring for placement ensure to include this as it won't be able to sit flush with a wall or other barrier for proper airflow.

When designating a space for the ice maker it's important to note that beyond its size (H: 16.5 in, W: 9.81 in, D: 15 inches) [H: 41.91 cm, W: 24.92 cm, D: 38.1 cm] you will also require space for the plastic tray at the front. The tray slides under the Insignia, but ~3.35 in (8.5 cm) of the drip tray will stick out in front of the unit. When buying the ice maker I was under the impression that the drip tray was an optional accessory, but it is definitely required for normal operation. No matter what state the ice maker is in, when you pull out the ice tray it will drip from the melting ice and occasionally ice cubes may even fall through the cracks.

Energy Consumption

If you look online you'll find many baseless estimates suggesting that ice makers will cost you $10-$21 per month, assuming a cost of ~$0.06/KWh. This estimate comes from simply taking the Wattage of the ice maker and estimated Amps and seemingly assuming the ice maker is always making ice. This is incorrect for several reasons:

1. While you may have an ice maker always "on", it's not always making ice. The Insignia will occasionally pause when making ice (presumably to let the compressor system cool off)
2. The ice maker will turn off when the ice tray is determined to be full by the sensor.
3. You may decide to not always have the ice maker on if you aren't home

So how much does it cost to run?

An important aspect of the ice maker to remember here is the ice it creates is always melting when left in the tray. When the ice maker is turned 'on' and left to its own devices the ice tray will eventually fill with ice and the "Ice Full" indicator will come and the device will pause. After some time the ice will melt enough that the ice maker will turn back on as it no longer sees "ice full".

I've tested the ice maker with a smart outlet, and found for the ice maker to keep replenishing ice that is melting ("steady state") takes 0.4267 kWH of electricity for 12 hours. An important item to note is that this is after the ice maker makes its first batch of ice. With this measurement I found the ice maker would take 0.8534 kWh/day and 25.97 kWh/mo, using the average of 30.437 days/month. For the state I'm currently in, this cost comes down to $4.84/mo if you turned on the ice maker and left it on and never withdrew ice from it at 0.1864 $/kWh.

Real-world use

For my current holdhouse (2 people), I've found the monthly total cost to be $5.29/month so far. For a week, the use and costs can be seen in this graph:

Needless to say, this is a large variance with the cost of "up to $21/mo" which was all I could find before purchasing the Insignia.

Note that this will vary based on how much ice you consume and how you approach the "always melting" part of the Insignia. Personally, I turn it off at night when I know I won't be using any more of the ice in the tray or if I know I won't be home for a while. It's hard to say exactly where the cutoff for energy savings is between the unit being off and the ice melting away or the unit being on and the ice being replaced. It would be nice if you could schedule it making ice on an app or with another system like the GE Opal lets you, but I figure the price differences between the GE and Insignia more than makes up whatever theoretical energy savings and convenience that may get you.

Noise

The ice maker doesn't make as much noise as I expected after reading some reviews on the store page, but it does make more noise than your refrigerator does. The unit utilizes both a medium sized fan on the side and the actual mechanism for the ice contributes to the noise level. The ice falling into the tray makes a varying amount of noise, from its loudest when the tray is empty and barely any noise if its full of ice as the rest of the ice cushions the new ices fall.

Overall, I'd put the noise level of the unit somewhere between a refrigerator and an air fryer with the intermittent sound of ice falling into a tray but I quickly tuned it out and it does not bother me at all.

Storage

If you're planning on storing the ice maker when not in use there are a few items to keep in mind:

1. The ice maker is somewhat heavy as previously stated, so moving it from storage to its area will be inconvenient.
2. The ice maker needs to stay upright in order to avoid the refrigerant from going back into the system in an unintended pathway.
3. The top and bottom chambers have to be drained. I personally have my doubts you'll ever be able to fully get the upper chamber you can't access fully dry so I would have concerns draining the Insignia and setting it up for storage later. Since this isn't my use case I can't comment more of this is an actual problem you may face, but it is something to consider.

Overall we've been happy with the ice maker so far. The energy costs ended up being substantially lower than predicted from various blogs (though I was ready to return it - I'm not willing to spend $21/mo for ice) and the ice is enjoyable to use in a variety of drinks as well as convenient to have always on hand for other applications, such as using in a cooler.

I've rated this 4 stars. It's a solid appliance, and has been performing its functions well but as cleaning is such a fundamental part of a countertop ice maker I think the lack of clarity in the cleaning section is hard to forgive. I'd also like to see a few energy saving features, such as being able to schedule it or set how much ice you want in the tray not just "full". However, it still remains a good value when compared to the price of the GE Opal series or the cheaper "bullet" ice makers as the ice is more enjoyable.

Insignia™ - 44 Lb. Portable Nugget Icemaker with Auto Shut-Off - Stainless steel

A competent countertop ice maker with a demanding yet unclear cleaning regiment

Best Buy