Customer Ratings & Reviews

Stop working never could figure out if the ice cubes would ever be small

With 44 lbs this portable ice maker is all you can need to produce enough ice for all your family reunions. Works great produces plenty of ice in a limited amount of time and has a very quiet functioning. For me, producing ice with my fridge was never a real option. I am living in an area where the water supply is not especially good so we use filtered water to drink. With an independent water reservoir, I can produce my ice with the same filtered water as my drinking water. Couple of elements to consider before first use: .- The cleaning process is quite easy and all the parts can be reachable for a first-time cleaning. After that, you could be satisfied with the machine cleaning cycle. .- Before plugging into your electrical socket, the manufacturer is recommending to wait four hours for the refrigeration fluid to settle. .- The placement in your kitchen should follow some basic recommendations. The most significant is giving the machine enough space (6 inched) for proper ventilation. After cleaning the machine, my two first ice batches run for 16 minutes on average between I’ve introduced the water in the reservoir and the ice was available in the ice drawer. The manufacturer is claiming about 12, that seems a close enough estimate. Finally, I love the stainless steel look that matches absolutely with the other appliances in the kitchen and gives a distinct vibe to it. Probably, I will not use it during winter periods but this is without hesitation a great investment for my summer barbeques. With 44 lbs per day production, I can have enough when the full family is at home. Absolutely recommended investment.

In the box is the ice maker, a plastic ice scooper and an instructional manual. First impression, I love the design of the ice maker. The display screen shows the status of the ice maker to include how many minutes it will take for the ice to finish. Keep in mind that you can hear the fans while the ice maker is making ice. The sound is not extremely loud but it is noticeable. The tray for the ice is very deep and will definitely hold a lot of ice. I have noticed with the thicker ice cubes that when the ice drops, the cubes do not break so you have to check on it every once and a while and break up the ice. If you don’t use the ice at the bottom, the water does recycle and more ice is remade from the water. There is a red light that lights up when it is time to fill up the water reservoir. Another thing to note is this ice maker is pretty heavy, so I would find a permanent home for it, preferably near water but I use mine on my buffet and so far so good, no leaks or spills. There is a drain on the bottom side of the ice maker to release the water and this is good for when you don’t use the ice maker for a long period of time. It is recommended that if you are not using the ice maker to not let the water sit in there. The drain is also good for the auto clean setting as well, as you would need to drain the water once the cycle is completed. It is recommended to use the auto clean option every 3-7 days and deep clean every 1-3 months. There is also instructions on how to clean the hose that runs the water throughout the ice maker. There is an auto shut off when the ice tray is full of ice which works really well. I was able to fill three reusable 20-32 ounce cups with the ice and there was still ice left over. When the tray is full, there is a symbol on the display screen that shows a bucket with the letter F in the middle. Overall, my only cons so far is not having a specific holder for the plastic ice scooper to nest when not in use; and I would recommend to friends and family.

The Insignia 44 lb portable clear is maker is a great way to have extra ice on hand. Whether you are in a camper with the family or hosting a get together for the big game there never seems to be enough ice without going out and buying bags. Of course, if you are camping, its hard to keep those bags of ice clean. That is where the Insignia portable ice maker comes in handy. My family are campers and the small freezer in the camper doesn't have room for all the food to feed the five of us and store ice too. Ice in the coolers is usually there to keep water bottles and pop cold, so not so clean. Friends of ours were camping next to us and pulled out their Insignia ice maker. By just pouring water in the reservoir and turning it on, they had a supply of clean fresh ice for the entire camping trip. After seeing how handy the ice maker was for them, my wife made it a point to get one for our camper. There really isn't much to setting up the ice maker once you do get it. Make sure you pull off all of the packing tape and remove the included ice scoop. Plug in the unit and add water. Run the ice maker and throw out the first few batches of ice to clean out the machine and you are ready to go. The ice maker only has a couple of controls - on and off and buttons to increase or decrease the size of the cubes. My ice maker made its first batch of ice in 16 minutes from the time I plugged it in and turned it on. After that, it dropped ice about every 14 minutes. The cubes are solid and don't seem to melt quickly like some ice may do. This ice maker is not noisy, comes with a removeable ice basket and a scoop and has an auto shutoff, so it is almost completely automatic. Just keep water in the reservoir. It is a nice ice maker, doesn't take up a lot of room and does its job. if you think you need a portable ice maker, this is certainly one to consider.

This portable Ice maker works perfect. It is a really nice product. I do not have a fridge in my basement and it was always a pain to go get ice upstairs. With this unit, you have the perfect ice at your disposal. It was very easy setup. I removed from the box and discarded all the packaging. The instructions were short, exact and I was making my first batch in no time. First, I cleaned the ice tray with some soap and water as instructed. I replaced the ice tray and was ready for the next step. I filled the reservoir with filtered water. I used a gallon jug of filtered water but you could also just fill it right from the sink. There is a max level fill line which is clearly marked. Once filled, closed the top and turned the unit on. It prepares for about 10 minutes. The LED display keeps you in the loop on the process. Once the correct temperature is reached (about 10 minutes for me), ice began to fall into the tray. I had a nice supply of ice in about 20 minutes total. I left the unit running and the ice stayed formed and did not melt for several hours. The taste of the ice was crisp and clean and the squares were perfect size. Once I was finished and the ice melted, there is a drain on the bottom of the unit to remove the melted ice. Easy clean up and ready for the next use.

In the past, we have used several portable ice makers that have worked well enough for our needs. While larger ones existed back then, we traditionally only purchased smaller units. As luck would have it, the ice machine in our freezer unexpectedly stopped working. Naturally, we now needed a larger ice maker to make multiple rounds of ice. Thus, as you might expect, I was extremely excited to try out the Insignia ice maker to see how it would perform given our needs. As you unboxed the insignia ice maker, it was quite evident that this was the largest unit we have used. While somewhat large and taller than expected, it was still extremely elegant; moreover, it looks quite stylish in the kitchen. The brushed aluminum finish has a nice feel to it and matches our other appliances. Once opened, you will note several items including the ice basket and a scooper. On the front of the unit, everything should be straight forward: you will note the power button, timer button, and the thickness buttons (ranges -3 to +6). Before testing the unit, there are a couple of things I would like to mention before you prepare your first batch of ice. First, upon prepping the unit, as noted in the instructions, the ice maker should rest upright for four hours to allow the refrigerant to settle in position. Next, we filled the tank with 2 liters of water then initialized the self cleaning session by holding the timer for five seconds. Another important reminder is that you should always use clean water that is soft in nature. To accommodate this, we filtered our water using a Zero Water filter. Lastly, the water temperature should be within 50-77F. After that, the ice maker was then ready to create its first blocks of ice! For my first test, I immediately used the filtered water at room temperature and filled it to its full capacity. I left the thickness setting at default and started the machine. After a couple of minutes, the timer initialized itself; the first batch will be ready in approximately in 13 minutes. While the ice was being made, the noise level wasn’t as loud as I expected it to be. Additionally, as the machine repeated the ice making process, each batch finished slightly quicker. Furthermore, I was able to get seven batches of ice, with about 25% of the tank still full. The ice cubes were of good quality; clear and transparent. This was quite a drastic improvement from our previous ice machine. As far as texture, the ice was overall wet to the touch so I was curious to see if by increasing the thickness it would yield a different result. For our second test, I decided to use colder water from the fridge that measure around 66 degrees. In addition, I wanted to see if the thickness setting would have caused any drastic changes to the overall texture to the ice. Before starting it, I changed the setting to the maximum (+6). Naturally, this increased the time between ice making intervals by 6 minutes. Additionally, this also increased the amount of water used in each cycle. To my surprise, there was a notable improvement to the ice as it wasn’t as was wet to the touch. It was much more solid. In addition, the ice was slightly heavier and thicker, though I do want to caution to keep your expectations reasonable. Afterwards, we let this setting continuously run until it was low on water. As expected, it did not make as much ice as before; yielding only about six batches on a single tank. The rule of thumb is if your ice is too wet it needs more time and that your water might be too warm. Overall, I was pleasantly pleased by the performance of the ice maker. Lastly, I would like to mention that the ice maker will require some cleaning to keep your machine running at optimal level. Specifically, the ice maker should be cleaned at least once a week or every three days if you are running it constantly. In addition, the internal pump will alert you that once it has reached a minimum of forty hours of operation time, the self cleaning cycle will needs to be completed. In addition to cleaning, you can also manually clean the evaporator grill; it is recommended you can use lemon water and a damp cloth. Also, be sure that for storage purposes, you wipe down and drain all remaining water using the pump valve located at the bottom of the unit. This is especially important if you will not be making ice on a consistent basis. In conclusion, the Insignia Ice maker is an excellent option for anyone who needs a portable ice maker. It accomplishes everything it was designed to do in an elegant and stylish package. I was extremely impressed with the quality of the ice cubes and the relatively short amount of time it was able to create one batch of ice. The thickness setting seemingly works as intended, allowing you to adjust the time needed to improve the shape and texture of your ice cubes. As such, I could not find anything negative with regards to the latest insignia ice maker. With that said, the Insignia Ice maker comes highly recommended.

I got this because my fridge has a real fickle ice maker. If I have a small gathering at my house, I always run to the store beforehand to pick up one or two bags of ice. It is what it is. This Insignia Ice Cube Maker, model NS-IMC44S344, is proving itself to being a capable unit. While I doubt I’ll ever need it to produce 44lbs of ice per day, the fact that it creates ice so frequently (every 13 – 25 minutes, depending..) hopefully should fix my ice shortage problems. The Insignia itself has the capacity to store 2.6lb of ice within the unit, meaning that my running a number of cycles before my guests arrive will provide a good start on my ice cube needs. I just transfer the ice to an ice chest after each cycle will provide plenty of space for more cubes in the Insignia. Do remember that each cycle creates about 24 small cubes. If you need a substantial amount of ice for your needs, you’ll need to start making ice hours earlier. I don’t normally go around marveling at ice, but the ice it makes is nicely shaped and perfectly clear. This is quite different from the usual milky-white appearance of the ice my fridge kicks out. And because these cubes are clear, they apparently melt slower and creates less fizz. Plus, if any ice melts while sitting in the holding receptacle, this unit will recycle the water and refreeze it. From an aesthetic perspective, this is an attractive looking ice maker. The outside is constructed of stainless steel, and it looks quite good. The whole unit weighs 22lbs empty, and is 14.6in tall, 9.9in wide, and 14.15in deep. Here are some things you should keep in mind: • After initially unpacking, the manufacturer provides a warning that before plugging it in the first time, that you should let the unit sit for 4 hours to allow the refrigerant fluid settle. • Before using it the first time, run the automated self-cleaning program • It is recommended that you run a cleaning cycle every week. After running the unit for three to seven days, or about 40 hours, the automated self-cleaning icon comes on to remind you to perform a cleaning cycle. • There is also a deep cleaning cycle they recommend you performing about every 3 months. • Fill the reservoir with regular drinking water. However, if the clarity of the ice cubes declines, try using distilled or purified water instead. If you find that the ice cube size is not to your liking, press the + or – buttons prior to the iced making cycle to increase or decrease the ice making time in one-minute increments. The more time it runs, the thicker the cubes become. Less time makes for a thinner cube. Per the manufacturer’s instructions, an ice cube making cycle can last from 13 to 25 minutes, depending on the ambient temperature. If the very first time you do this the ambient temperature is high, it can take longer – although not longer than 35 minutes. For my first go at it, the initial cycle took about 20 minutes to complete. I wasn’t entirely sure what it was doing because water cycled through the evaporator the whole time, all the while no additional water was leaving the water reservoir. At precisely 20 minutes, the unit paused for a few seconds and ejected about 24 small and crystal-clear ice cubes. After another moment passed, the ice maker started pulling additional water from the water reservoir, just as it had done initially. Oh, and there is a minute countdown timer on the front of the Insignia that displays how long before it will eject the next batch of ice cubes. When this timer reaches zero, it ejects the ice. While the first cycle took 20 minutes to complete, the second cycle took 18 minutes, and the third cycle about 15 minutes. The size of the cubes that were dispensed were to my liking, so I didn’t find it necessary to increase or decrease ice thickness. As an aside, I did do an initial cleaning cycle beforehand as recommended, so don’t forget to do this when you first receive the unit, or after any long break in its use. I like this ice maker. In all, this unit is easy to use and easy to maintain. I haven’t run into any issues, the ice cubes are a good size, and the cubes both look good and taste good. As such, I’m giving it a 5-star review.

This ice maker works great and has some nice features. Once it's filled with water and turned on, it continually makes ice until the bucket/bin is filled and will need to be emptied. Operation is very simple, it has an LCD display panel and four buttons - On/Off, Timer/Cleaning Cycle, Plus to add time, Minus to decrease time. The panel also has indicators showing the status of the ice making, cleaning cycle running/reminder, low water warning, ice bucket full warning, ambient temperature, and cycle time remaining. The Timer button can be used to either start the ice making cycle in a set number of hours from the current time or turn the ice making off after a set number of hours running. The thickness of the ice cubes is adjustable by increasing or decreasing the cycle time in 1-minute increments. The cubes are about 1 inch square, and the default thickness is a little less the 1 inch. Each batch is 24 cubes. According to the user manual each batch of ice takes between 13 and 25 minutes, depending on the ambient temperature. I had the ice maker in an unairconditioned 86-degree room, and the first batch of ice took 21 minutes and subsequent batches took 16-17 minutes, which I thought was pretty good considering. It takes about 5 to 6 batches to fill the bucket and trigger the full bucket warning/shut off depending on how the cubes fall and break apart. A full bucket of ice is about 2.5 lbs and fills a gallon freezer bag about 3/4 full. The unit has a cleaning cycle, and the user manual recommends at least weekly cleaning and possibly more often depending on usage. The cleaning icon on the display panel will start flashing as a reminder to run the cleaning cycle after the compressor has had 40 hours of use. The cleaning cycle takes 20 minutes and there is a drain plug to drain the water after cleaning. The drain plug is difficult to pull out if it's pushed all the way in. I found that leaving it about an eighth to a quarter inch out made it much easier to pull out and it didn't leak. This ice maker is high quality, well designed and well made. I've made about ten pounds of ice with it so far with no problems. The cubes drop out when they're ready, there's no mechanical mechanism pushing them out that could break down. If you stop the ice making process, you can eject the cubes by holding the On/Off button over five seconds. I think because of the quality and simplicity of this ice maker it will last many years. If there was anything I would change it would be to include a larger ice scoop, the one that comes with it is a little too small. Other than that, Insignia got this ice maker totally right.

Insignia – 44lb Portable Clear Ice Maker Machine Quality: The quality of the ice maker is premium stainless steel. The ice scoop could be more substantial, it does the job, but feels pretty cheap. The inside of the icemaker and the “bucket” is quality and the stainless being used inside for the “ice tray” looks durable. Performance: I cleaned the machine prior to using which was simple enough. I then filled it with water and powered it on. Instructions were very clear and accurate which made all the pre-use of the device a cinch. I allowed the unit to sit on the counter for 4 hours prior to use to make sure the freon settled after being shipped as instructed. I then powered the machine on and off it went, dumping ice every 12-15 minutes. I dumped the first three batches per instructions. Watching the machine is a bit of a marvel. Water runs over the “ice tray” forming the ice inside the tray, making a water fall behind and underneath the device. I was impressed with how quiet the machine was other than the fan, you wouldn’t realize the machine was running. When it dumps ice it isn’t load like the fridge ice maker thankfully. Quality of the ice: I was very impressed with the quality and consistency of the ice cubes themselves. Very nice style/design of the cubes themselves and filled my first glass with the ice and poured me a drink. Very impressed to say the least. Actually am able to put more ice in the glass, which means my drink remains colder during my “happy hour”. Overall: If you need additional ice when you go on a trip in an RV or camping out with electricity, I would highly recommend this portal ice maker, it will do the trick and save on the expenditure of buying bag ice. I wish we had one of these when I was a kid and had a pop up camper for the 8 of us. This would have done the trick. We would buy 20lb bags of ice each day. This thing will make the 44 bags of ice per day for sure, you just need to supply the water, which I would buy or take about 5 gallons of filtered water to use for this maker. Saying all of this, I am using this to supplement my ice supply in my house to keep us from buying a couple of bags of ice each week. We usually buy around 30 lbs. of additional ice each week during the summer so this will definitely keep us in stock without the need to carry a bag or two each time we go to the store.

I worked for over 4 decades in the soft drink industry. Most of us kept an ice chest full of soft drinks and water in our vehicles for ourselves and to give samples. We had a couple of industrial sized ice machines that we were allowed to use. Since retirement I don't have access to free drinks and ice but still love having a cooler with me at all times. When I saw the description of this countertop machine that made 44 pounds of ice a day, I immediately thought that it would be plenty to keep my 35-quart ice chest going. This machine claims to make a batch of ice in 14 minutes under ideal conditions. I haven't timed the machine, but it does make ice quite quickly. In the evening it will drop enough ice to fill the bin 4 or 5 times which is enough to top off my ice chest most days. I let it run overnight and if I empty it first thing it has time to fill the bin again before I'm ready to leave for the day. I have yet to buy ice since I have had this machine, even in the 90-100+ degree Summer days here in Texas. There is a convenience store near me that had 20-pound bags of ice for $1.99. Those 20-pound bags recently became 14-pound bags at $4.89. I am extremely happy with the amount of ice that this machine produces. There is an automatic self-cleaning cycle. The cleaning cycle requires only the push of a button and a water change (unlike a machine I previously had that required a $25 bottle of cleaning fluid). There is a time adjustment that allows you to make the cubes thicker or thinner. Whatever thickness I chose, the ice tends to come out in sheets that rarely break into more than 2 or 3 chunks. The sheets can easily be broken into individual cubes if desired. I made ice with tap water, filtered water and with distilled water. I was only able to get clear ice when using distilled water. Cloudy ice is not a deal breaker for me since the ice will mostly go in an ice chest. I suspect there is something in our city supplied water that prevents the ice from being clear. I love this little machine and I really don't miss carrying 20-pound ice bags out of the convenience store!

Works quickly and efficiently with a production volume that isn't excessively loud.

If you are stuck with an older fridge with no ice maker, you need this. I was surprised at how quickly this made ice and it has a decent capacity as well. It looks sleek and matches other stainless appliances we have so that was a nice option as well. It's quieter than I imagined it would be, other than when the ice falls into the bucket obviously. I appreciated the clear window to easily check the water level as your doing other things in the kitchen. The little ice scoop was a nice extra as well. We use a big Tupperware type bucket to keep the ice in our freezer and don't have to refill the ice cube trays several times a day anymore. This melts nicely in iced coffee and does seem to last a little longer than traditional ice. The clear squares are cute and look great in drinks if you are serving others. The clean cycle was nice with the countdown and the plug for draining was placed in a convenient position. I'd highly recommend this to anyone and can't wait to see how it does when we go camping.

Excellent ice maker! This machine makes great ice; clean, clear and cubed, unlike those hideous crescent-shaped cubes from most refrigerators. I've been running this machine daily for the last couple of months, with absolutely no hiccups. Some have complained that the ice cubes do not fully break apart when dispensed, but I do not consider this a problem. I look forward to this machine providing a long and trouble-free life of ice making.

This is certainly a convenience to have around. I've currently got it set up on the bar in my basement. It's not so heavy that you can't take it places, and I could see scenarios where you set up outside near a power source to provide fresh ice for an outdoor party. However, this isn't the sort of thing you're taking along to a picnic or to go camping - unless you're camping in an RV. It's fairly quick to make ice. It'll fill the basket in a couple of hours. You can adjust the thickness of the ice, which will also affect how quickly it makes ice cubes. In my experience, this is a necessary feature. The default setting didn't so much make ice cubes, as it made a sheet of ice with a waffle shaped pattern that couldn't even be broken apart into cubes. I dialed the thickness back by 3 "minutes" (because what you're controlling is how long a cycle runs), and it came out perfect. My wife thought it was still a bit difficult to break up, so I cut it back by one more minute, and it's still ok, though I think I would rather have the cubes just a bit thicker. That thickness will also affect how quickly the ice melts in your drink and how quickly it melts while sitting in the ice maker. I use filtered water to fill the reservoir, and I don't notice any change in flavor, so it's not picking up any weird metallic or plastic odor or taste from the machine. All in all, this is a solid appliance, but I still wouldn't call it "portable."

I have had 2 of these. First worked well and summer passed so I shut-off, and when I tried to restart it was a no go. Took back and got a 2nd, 2nd is very noisy....so not sure about it.

It takes just under 20 minutes to make 24 cubes that are about 1 inch square. But like several other ice machines, they tend to come out in an 8 cube x 3 cube sheet which you'll probably have to break apart. Increasing the cycle time results in a sheet that is quite difficult to break up, which might actually be good for use in large coolers, but not for drinks unless you move the sheets to a sturdy container & find a solid tool to break the sheets up with. Decreasing the cycle time seemed to help with reducing the sheet effect. It says the storage bin will hold a little over 2 ½ pounds, but I think that’s being pretty generous. Especially if it’s been putting out the sheets of ice, which trip the ‘bin full’ sensor rather quickly. One feature that I did like is that it recycles the water from any ice that melts in the storage bin & uses it to make more ice. Didn’t notice any unusual tastes to the ice. Ice cubes themselves are quite clear. Portability is okay. It’s not something you’re going to move frequently, but you can easily move it from one room to another. It doesn’t take up as much countertop space as I had expected either. Couple of other things to note: -It puts out a decent amount of heat, so keep that in mind when you select a location. It easily raises the ambient temperature around it by 10 degrees. -The drain plug is cheap plastic, connected by a thin plastic cable, so I’m sure that will become separated fairly soon. -The rubber/silicone covering the plug isn’t securely attached, so it’s already gotten stuck in the drain hole. You can easily push it out from the top, but something to watch out for. -The ice that is produced is still quite wet on the surface, so I wouldn’t plan on being able to just dump the ice in an ice bin in your freezer - it’ll quickly freeze into a block. -The power button just stops ice production; it doesn’t really turn the machine completely off.

This was the perfect present for my mother in law for Christmas! She uses it all the time and has found it very user friendly and efficient.

Very reliable makes sheets of square cubes every 12 minutes and self cleaning

Space saver and works extremely well. Great purchase!

Works well! Only downside is the setting for thicker cubes comes out in a big block instead of individual cubes.