GE Profile Opal 2.0 with 0.75 Gallon Tank, Chewable Crunchable Countertop Nugget Ice Maker, Scoop included, 38 lbs in 24 hours, Pellet Ice Machine with WiFi & Smart Connected, Black Stainless Steel

I love, love, love my Opal icemaker! It was expensive, but I saved up to buy one after I saw one at my friend's house. It is so neat! It makes the ice like you get in your drink at Sonic. It's tiny and crunchy and perfect for all my drinks. It is a little bit noisy, but it only runs until the ice bin is full, then it stops on its own. I imagine I could empty the bin into another container to keep in my freezer so I could have tons and tons of this great ice to use at a party. The bin on the icemaker doesn't hold a lot, so when the item description says it will make 38 pounds in 24 hours, I would HAVE to do that. The place where you pour in water (without the side tank) isn't very big and would only support filling the bin up about halfway. You need the side tank or you'll be filling it up every hour or so. I like that I can turn the light off or have it bright or dim. I haven't messed with the WiFi or voice control, so I can't speak to that. I don't know why anyone would give it fewer than 5 stars. Buy one! You'll like it.

UPDATE: I got the third unit and IT'S ALSO DEFECTIVE. I'm convinced there is ZERO quality control going on at GE, and I am extremely dissatisfied with the service. It takes AGES to get anything done, and their support phone line closes before I get off work most days, so it's near impossible to reach them on top of that. I can't use the actual word here, but enborkification is very real, and I will not be purchasing from GE anytime soon.TL;DR: Great machine if you can get a good one. I got three defective units in a row, one of which appears to have been used before. Currently waiting for a FOURTH replacement unit. Customer service has inconvenient hours and seemingly can't play most video files (.mov with h.264 seems to work best for them). 2/3 of the reps I spoke to were great, the other one being frankly pretty rude. For now, I'd recommend getting a 'dumb' nugget ice maker, a cheap outlet timer (like the ones for fish tank lights) if you need the scheduling feature, and set calendar alerts for cleaning and descaling.I want to start off by saying I love this ice maker. Nugget ice is great, I love the smart features, I love the design, and I love how easy it is to use. The instructions, especially in the app, are clear and thorough. The machine tells you exactly what it needs on both its display and through push notifications to your phone. The scheduling feature is great, and allows me to have ice in the morning and when I get home without wasting energy when I'm away. It's decently quiet for the amount of ice it pumps out with the occasional fit of light noise, mostly quiet squeaking every now and then. That is if you get one that works properly.Now, for how expensive this thing is, I would expect some good QC. My first unit developed a rapid tapping noise whenever it was running within the first couple of months. Since this was near a major living area in my home, this was unacceptable. I do not have hard water where I live, and I only ever put filtered water through it. I cleaned it whenever the cleaning light came on, and I took very good care of it. After some fruitless troubleshooting, I decided to contact customer support only to find out you can only CALL them since Opal apparently has its own support separate from GE. This would have been fine, except I had to take time off work to contact them, as their business hours lined up perfectly with my own work schedule, not that I could have known that going in since Opal Support doesn't have its hours posted anywhere at time of writing.Having done that, they actually took my call quite quickly and were pretty friendly and attentive despite connection issues from a storm at their office at the time. They sent me an email so I could reply with the information they needed. Their computers seem to have trouble with certain video files, so if you need to send them videos, make sure you sufficiently compress them and do NOT use HVEC encoding or the MP4 video format. After working through the technical difficulties in communication, they sent me an advance replacement, which was great and more than I was expecting. I thought that'd be the end of it, but I had issues with the replacement immediately.The replacement I got looked used (not refurbished), and since I initially paid for a NEW unit, I was pretty disappointed. There was a large scratch across the top panel, a scuff on one of the sides, and a chip in the front control panel that could be seen from across the room. Even after bringing this up with support in a follow-up email, they said I still had to send the first one back since the RMA was tied to its serial number and I would need to initiate another exchange, so I set up the second ice maker and cleaned it thoroughly.After turning the second one on, it was noticeably louder than the initial one. It buzzed loudly like a power transformer, but that wasn't even the worst thing about this one. On top of making ice more slowly than the first one, it shuts off and refuses to make ice seemingly at random. Every time this happens, it needs to be unplugged for 20-ish seconds, then plugged back in and have the power button pressed, which is tough on my knees since it's plugged in under my counter. Consequently, the scheduling feature, one of my favorite things about this machine, is no longer reliable since no one knows when it will decide to go on strike.I tried to contact support via email again, but even after a few attempts over the course of just over a week, I didn't get a response, so I had to take more time off work to call their support line again to talk to a rep. This time, I was on hold for about 15 minutes with an estimated wait time of 0 before being connected to a rep. This rep, unlike the first, made me feel like I was inconveniencing her by seeking support, and like I was an idiot for asking clarifying questions to make sure we were on the same page. She also seemed like she wanted to pass me off to Opal WiFi support (which is bafflingly ALSO its own separate service) to troubleshoot the "connection issues" I wasn't having with this device. I was told to send more info to our existing email chain and the rep hung up to "let me do that" rather than just hanging on the line while I did.After sending the info, I was connected to a different rep and had a better experience similar to my first contact (no wait time, friendly rep), which was a relief. A second exchange is now arranged, but this time I'm not getting an advance replacement and I will be without ice for about two weeks.For something this expensive, this level of QC is frankly embarrassing. I bought it in May of 2024 and still don't have an acceptable unit. I'm starting to think they're taking this long on purpose to dodge honoring their 1-year warranty. With service and QC like this, I cannot in good faith recommend this product, as much as I liked it the first month I had it.

UPDATE - so after pulling off the back panel & trying everything under the sun to get the water tank to start flowing again, my husband noticed the little pump balloon looked clogged. So with a few quick succession of squeezes, water started flowing again. We descaled it using vinegar & through cleaning cycles for about 2 hours. We also used a straw brush to descale the inside of the tubing on the back of the machine. We stopped cleaning when there was no more scale visible in the water. All the issues we were having are resolved. It’s quiet and making ice quickly & nicely chewable. Lol From now on, we will descale each week to keep it clear. A small task given how much we love the ice. Did I mention we love the ice nuggets? Loved this machine for about a month. Then it began screeching like a cat being killed. Then it started making other strange noises. Ice wasn’t made as often. Sometimes not at all. Constantly on defrost. We’ve tried everything to clean it, remove scale & all the other things in the booklet to address these issues to no avail. Now it won’t run water through it when there is water in the reservoir. I’m beyond frustrated. We found a lot of people on diff sites abs even YT to address the same issues we had but it’s been useless. GE warranty is very limited so if they say we did something wrong (like what tho bc we’ve done everything we read in the booklet) we’re out the money. I will call but have my doubts. I wish it worked.

It works amazing. It’s exactly like sonic ice and it’s easy to clean and to fill. It’s fast and simple to use. I love it