Product review (4 stars): Great ice maker but "ice basket full" sensor poor, still highly recommend
I like to make iced tea in summer which requires a lot of ice (enough to completely fill your glass with ice cubes) to be able to instantly chill freshly brewed hot tea (brewed with the amount of tea leaves for the size of your glass but with only half a glass of water) which you pour into the glass filled with ice and you have instant fresh brewed iced tea.

I had been using ice cube trays but I went through several trays per day and it limited how much I could make. I had no idea how ice makers worked so I looked into them and two things were different than I expected. Firstly, I assumed it would take several hours to make a batch of ice as it does in a freezer, but ice makers make a batch of ice every 6-11 minutes depending on the model and ice cube size setting, this model doesn't have a size setting but makes a batch of 9 ice cubes every 9 minutes. Secondly, I assumed they kept the ice frozen once made, but the ice compartment is not refrigerated, rather it's in a hole lined basket that sits above the water tank, so as the ice melts it simply drips back into the water tank to be made back into ice, so I don't find this to be a problem at all as the machine easily keeps the basket full even if no ice is taken for hours (once ice melts enough, or is taken out, so it no longer touches the "ice full" sensor at the top of the basket the machine will automatically resume producing ice).

When I first used the machine, it made only 6 to 8 ice "bullets" instead of the 9 it should and they were very small, I thought I would return the machine for sure as it would have taken close to 10 batches of 9 to fill a 16oz glass. But I let it run, and as the batches went by the ice bullets were getting larger and larger, I now know the machine needs to go through 3-4 batches after starting before the ice bullets are the normal size, so it seems to take half an hour or so to fully cool down and produce the largest ice. I thought this would be an issue as it can take a while after turning on to get enough ice for even one ice tea, but I found a solution to this. Before I go to bed and turn off the machine, I empty the basket full of ice into a plastic container I keep in the freezer, this way the next morning I have a basket full of ice immediately available while the machine starts producing new ice, so I'm never out of ice.

I have been using the machine daily for over 3 months and love it but there is a frequent issue but it's not really a problem. The "ice full" sensor is only a short temperature sensing metallic bar near the top of the ice basket. The issue is ice must touch (not just be near) this sensor for it to detect it, and very often, the ice piles up in such a way that no ice touches the sensor even when full, the machine continues to make ice, over filling the basket and eventually the back part of the machine, causing the rear basket mechanism to jam due to being flooded with ice that shouldn't be there, but despite frequent overflows/jams, the machine has never broken itself as it seems other brands do, it seems to rather sense the jam and sounds the beeper to alert something is wrong (it can probably only get overfilled this badly if you refill the machine with water after it has already made a basket full of ice, as I tend to do, otherwise it would run out of water before overflowing with ice). This ice sensor issue is the only reason I took off a star, they should have either put a much longer sensor bar to be sure a cube will touch it somewhere, or used an optical sensor as other machines use to "see" when the basket is full. I've actually taken the habit of moving the ice cubes when the basket is full so that one touches the sensor so it doesn't overflow. Another minor drawback of using a temperature sensing bar is that after you take out ice, it can take a two minutes or so for the sensor to detect the temperature change, time that could have been used producing ice, and I've actually taken the habit of touching the sensor bar after taking ice to warm it up and get it making more ice faster.

Another minor complaint is that the alarm for "out of water" and "ice basket full" are the same (8 beeps), it would have been nice to have a different alarm for the 2 situations because if it's out of water I better go fill it back up but if the ice basket is full that's just good to know, but the LEDs at the front indicate the exact issue. There is a different sound (1 beep) for "resuming ice production" (when it detects the ice basket is no longer full).

I do like that this machine has a cleaning cycle by holding down the power button, this fills the top basket and dumps it without making ice 5 times in a row to clean the machine. They recommend running a cleaning cycle with a mix of vinegar and water, then drain and run another cycle with water to rinse.

The manual says to not leave it with water in it overnight, I thought this was weird as other machines like coffee machines and water dispensers don't require that you empty them. I did try to leave the water in for a few days (adding new water regularly as I use the ice) and it does start to smell weird after a few days so I now open the rear drain and let it drain into a pan before I go to bed and refill it with new water the next day.

I would still highly recommend this machine despite the ice full sensor as despite several jams nothing has ever broken as I hear happen with lesser known brands.