Product review (4 stars): Streamlined and Efficient Ice Maker
This Ivation Household Icemaker is a really good-looking and functional product. I brought it out of the box and it reminded me of my bread maker as its similar in look and size. Very clean and white, and the viewing window is a nice touch. I read through the directions once before starting.didnt seem too complicated, but Ive noticed minor issues with Ivations manuals before. So I decided to go through the instructions again as I did everything.

The first instruction is to plug in the power cord. Easy.
Next, Open the cover and remove the ice storage box. Okay, done.
Then pour in clean drinking water until it reaches the Water Level Max. (That turned out to be 3 Quarts).
Select the ice cube size, (otherwise it will default to the Medium Size).
Press Start.

Okay! But what about the Ice Storage Box that I removed?? It didn't tell me to put it back in! I went ahead and put the Ice storage box back in on top of the water, because I assumed that thats where the ice would accumulate, but still, someone with half a brain may not know to do that and then what?

The instructions continue with the automated settings information. How to set the clock, the auto-on timer and the auto-off timer. Its a lot of pressing buttons and hearing a pretty annoying beeping sound with each push. The beeps drove my dog (and me!) bonkers, but no volume control is available so be advised to set all that information before your household goes to sleep!  There are a fair number of automatic beeps that go on throughout the night as well, so if you are a light sleeper you probably won't want to leave this machine plugged in over night.

Once the start button was pressed, the machine immediately begins to work. Its pretty cool to watch it through the viewing window. We saw ice begin to drop into the storage box after about 18 minutes. Pretty cool!

It comes with a little plastic ice scoop which is nice. I could see this machine being a perfect appliance to have for entertaining at home, as well as any small business that may need extra ice as well.

Its worth noting that this ice maker DOES NOT function as a freezer to keep your ice once its made. BUT, it will keep it for a reasonable amount of time as the machine is fairly well-insulated. As the ice melts, its re-used in the next batch of ice, so you can potentially keep it going constantly if you wanted. But Id certainly recommend changing out the water regularly, especially if the ice doesnt get used.