I've never had an ice machine and I'm not sure I would've chosen to have one if my builder hadn't already had it in the house. However, it is nice to have. I prefer the smaller cubes to the moon shaped ones from the refrigerator. It does seem like I just cleaned it and need to do it again, which is kind of a pain. But I can't ignore the "clean me" light that illuminates when you open the door. It is much louder than I would've expected - both the dropping of ice and the motor when it is running. We've had two guests that thought someone was breaking in our house in the middle of the night when it was unloading.