GE Profile Opal | Countertop Nugget Ice Maker with Side Tank | Portable Ice Machine with Bluetooth Connectivity | Smart Home Kitchen Essentials | Stainless Steel Finish | Up to 24 lbs. of Ice Per Day

So I have waited a while to post this review, giving time to see how the machine holds up. I got this unit in June late. It started out working perfectly. Left it on all day, and turned it off at night. There would always be enough ice left over that I would still have probably 30oz of ice left to start my day with. Then in early July, I left it on all night one night, and the next day it sounded like it was struggling. Then the screech of death started (see video). Oh man. I was devastated. I splurged and got this machine for my disabled mom, and certainly didn't have the money for another one, or even to deal with shipping costs to send it back for a replacement. So I let it squeal for about a day, and then it stopped making ice. I tried running an extended cleaning cycle to no avail. Then I decided to take a stab in the dark with it... I ran a cleaning cycle through with a solution of about 20/80 white vinegar and water. The screach got a little quieter. I did the cleaning cycle again. Got a little quieter again. Then started making ice with it. It kept sounding like it was struggling, so I ran another cleaning cycle with 60/40 white vinegar and water solution. Followed some tips I found online about putting a paper towel soaked in vinegar up inside the extruder area. Let it sit for a few hours then started the cleaning cycle again. Ran a bunch of rinse cycles though and BAM! No more sounds of a struggling machine. Since then it has stopped making ice twice. Both times were my fault, as they were well over a month of me not doing a cleaning cycle like suggested (I DO only used filtered water in it, so it might need more cleaning cycles if you use tap water). Each time it stopped making ice, I run a cleaning cycle with a little vinegar and water, and it just starts working fine again when I leave cleaning mode. It's now November, and it works perfectly. No more squealing, only issues if I don't do cleaning cycles on time. And even then, it starts working again just fine once I clean it. I hope this review helps someone make their choice. And hopefully helps a few people out of they do get the squeal of death. This machine has been a wonderful addition to my home. Anyone on the fence about getting it, get off the fence and just do it already!

This icemaker is our absolute favorite in our home. We use it every day. The trick is to use distilled water that keeps it from getting mineral buildup. It does have a self cleaner which is great and works awesome. I love the reserve because that makes it so we don’t have to fill it as often.

Nugget ice is great, I admit it and my wife really wanted this in the house so I finally broke down and bought her this, but its been a bad experience. I’ve never written a product review, but have been so dissatisfied and frustrated with GE / Opal that I felt I needed to write this to vent and in the hope you can make the best decision about whether its worth the hassles for you. First, I knew there would be some noise, but it was annoying enough we needed to move the ice maker from our bar area (preferred location for access for us) to as far around the corner in our kitchen as possible so as not to have to have the TV cranked to hear it over the din of the ice maker. It pretty much runs all day if you use ice and as it regenerates the melting ice in the bin. OK, I expected some noise going in so we accept that. I also knew it would put out heat, it has to in order to make ice. So it warms the room its in, for us thats the kitchen / living room level of our townhouse. Again, we knew that going in and accepted it. I’m not sure what it costs in electricity to run the unit, then for your A/C to further exhaust that heat from your home. We live in Texas and A/C is nearly a year round thing. My guess is you’re looking at $25 - $50/month in additional electricity cost ... but this is just a guess TBH. Then you have the maintenance ... which is where the real nightmares starts. Ice makers are tricky and hard to maintain. First it’s weekly cleaning the involves 5 drain and refill cycles, plus cleaning all the bin(s) and components. If you hurry through it you can do it in under an hour and its possible to multi task with dinner or whatever, but thats best case. Trust me, its an ongoing pain. Never the less, I performed the cleaning religiously not wanting any “slim in the ice machine”. We only used Brita filtered water in the unit. However, what I learned after the unit crapped out in 4 months was that that doing the “demineralization” (which the manual sort of glosses over) may be more important than they lead you to believe in the owner manual. Also, once i got into problems the Opal maintenance people said one should be using distilled water, not just filtered water ... at that point I’m like wait a second here, where was all this advice when I read through the owners manual? In the end it probably wasn’t mineral buildup that caused the unit to fail anyway. Point is if you want it to last you probably should use distilled water. However, in my case there was little/no evidence of mineral buildup and none of the demineralization fix process helped. As mentioned before - a small ice maker (any ice maker) is hard thing to keep running correctly, there’s a lot that can fail. If that was all you’d never have heard from me, but the real nightmare begins with trying to get warranty repairs. If you’re outside the 1 year warranty, I’d for sure just junk it and move on - I would not waste money trying to repair this type appliance. Our ice maker quit making ice about 4 months after we bought it and I called Opal, but no answer “heavier than normal call volume” ... Please companies, quit hiding behind that using the pandemic as an excuse. Since Opal was unavailable I tried GE appliances which is offered as an alternate route. GE customer service was very polite and helpful ... I thought. The nice GE lady took all my information and asked about whether I wanted a GE person to come out and fix it (2 weeks wait) or whether a quicker available local contractor was ok. I said the contractor would be fine and got an appointment time, contractor’s name and contact info etc and thought i was all set for 3 days later. What the nice GE lady didn’t know about her own system/company was they don’t come fix Opal ice makers like they do other GE appliances, you send it back. So unbeknownst to me they just cancelled my ticket about 18 hours later. I was never notified of this due to email address mix up (an honest mistake of a dot left out of the address), but there was no other effort / method of getting me notice than their email attempt and nobody on GE’s end noticing the email got kicked back. So come Monday the repair guy/company never shows up, so I call back to find out what’s up only to learn the ticket was canceled and I need to open a new ticket with Opal which I did. First thing Opal service does is question about the unit and your maintenance - OK i get it and had all along been offering to try any recommended fixes that had. However, the Opal guy came off as condescending like it was my fault their POS failed. We got through that call and then they send you a series of email asking to to do various things; prove your ownership and purchase date, unit ID and finally a multi part troubleshooting which is mostly about masking sure the unit isn’t “mineralized up”. Frankly the web site they have you use, Onpoint, sucks and they don’t even trust it. Best they have I guess. You can’t even register your own unit for instance, they have to do it. Anyway, after working through all the suggested fixes in their email, and re-trying unit to no avail, they will replace your unit. Unfortunately, I had more delays in this process. They won’t resend a new (reconditioned) unit until you check all the boxes, including paying them another $300 which they supposedly will return once you return the old unit. I tried several times over a two week + period to initiate the replacement process to no avail, and each time after a week or so had to call again only to find out it was still pending things on my end. Of course there is no follow-up from Opal or GE to say the process is stuck, its all on you to fight through the process. So as we sit today I’m super frustrated and still wondering when I’ll receive a replacement and how that will go. I’m sorry I ever got into this mess and would just say stick with ice from your refrigerator or go by Sonic or some who has pellet ice and save the headache.

No hace hielo y no hay nadie. En México que me pueda ayudar a ver que es lo que tiene Porque en un principio salía perfecto el hielo