Product Description
You'll never run out of ice with the Insignia NS-IMN44BS4 Portable Nugget Ice Maker with Auto Shut-Off. This ice maker stores up to 3.5 lbs. to supply all the cold drinks at a large gathering. It creates small, chewable ice pellets in 12 minutes, letting you enjoy the restaurant-style ice you love right at home. An extra-large 2.3-quart water tank recycles melted ice, so you can refill it less often. A digital touch control panel makes this portable ice maker easy to operate, and the lighted bin makes it easy to see how much ice is ready to use. Match the ice maker to your kitchen décor with a black and stainless-steel design that will attract all your guests. Become the best party host with a portable ice maker that keeps up with the drinks and your guests' expectations.
Dimension
Product Height : 16.5 inches
Product Width :9.8 inches
Product Depth :16.1 inches
Product Weight :31.6 pounds
Features
Small, chewable ice pellets Enjoy ice pellets like those served in restaurants.
Removable basket Offers easy access to large amounts of ice.
Auto shut-off Ensures ice production stops when the bin is full to prevent overflow.
LED lighting Lets you easily see how much ice is inside the basket.
Fast-working system Produces your first ice in about 12 minutes.
3.5 lbs. (1.6 kg) storage capacity Gives you plenty of ice for any occasion.
Digital touch controls Makes using this ice maker simple and easy.
Drip tray and ice scoop Makes it easy to pour ice into individual glasses and keep your countertop dry.
Extra-large water tank Holds up to 2.3 qt. (2.2 L) of water.
Self-recycling water system Filters and reuses melted water, eliminating the need for a drain.
Auto cleaning mode Keeps the ice maker in good working condition.
Textured top Provides convenient storage for glasses or bottles.
Stable standing design Four rubber feet keep the ice maker stable on your table or countertop.
Stainless steel and black design Easy to keep clean and looks great in any kitchen.
TUV certified Tested for safety complies with the requirements of national, regional, and international regulations.
What's Included
Insignia Portable Nugget Ice Maker with Auto Shut-Off
Ice scoop
Drip tray
User Guide
Reviews
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Nugget ice maker
Works great love it the best purchase ever. Dont know why i didnt buy one sooner
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Good design but needs some improvements
This portable ice maker has some pros and cons. The good things about this maker is that the product that is made, being the ice is exactly how it is explained. It is small, crunchy and made pretty rapidly. If you are in a rush to make ice, this maker has you covered. Ice is created, in what seems like near seconds from plugging in. As the cubes are made they drop into the reservoir. The design of this ice maker is that when the ice melt, the water drips into the water container that feeds where the cubes are made, pretty neat. The ice machine does have a nice aesthetic with its crisp and satisfying lights Outside of the ice making, however this machine is a little on the noisy side, the cleaning process is a tad cumbersome and the buttons dont appear to be very responsive. I would equate the sound as a quiet, yet audible hum. Another item that was not optimal was the drip tray, it didnt serve a purpose as when I went to scoop ice out water spilled everywhere, not the end of the world yet slightly pesty. In summary, if you are looking for an ice machine that makes "the good ice" then this certainly will check your box. There are some small enhancements that could make this a better appliance, but all in all is really made well and does the job.
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This Ice Maker Rocks or At Least Nuggets
This ice maker is great. My girls and I love it and it is fun to use. It could have some enhanced features like a water input funnel, because it drips a bit when you take the basket out to put in new water. It’s got a pretty blue night light and makes bite sized nuggets. It’s a little noisy, like making popcorn very slowly, but not to distracting. Takes about 10-12 minutes for a full tray. The ice scoop and water tray are nice additions. Serves its purpose well. Recommended.
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Ice nuggets at home, just like the restaurant
If you're like me and love to have the restaurant ice nugget shape at home, then you're in luck. This Insignia Portable Nugget Ice Maker is a fantastic machine to have for my kitchen needs. The ice produced from this is exactly like one of my favorite fast food chicken restaurants. The ice nuggets are the kind of ice that is smaller in size, but also easy to chew and crunch on. The machine works extremely well in producing almost 3.5 pounds of ice when at full capacity in the removable basket. Extremely easy to use and efficient in making the right amount of ice. There is a water tank that can be filled to your desired preference, as it holds 2.3 quarts of water in the reservoir. The touch buttons on the front of the ice machine are easy to understand and operate. It takes approximately 12 minutes to start the production of the ice and it just keeps on going from there to fill up the removable basket with the water in the tank. This also comes with a small drip tray and an ice scoop to easily get your ice out of the basket. There is a very helpful feature included in this machine that my family has really liked. It's the self recycle water system, which filters and reuses any melted water back into ice. The machine itself is solid and requires a medium lift if you plan on moving it from place to place. We have this placed on our kitchen island nearby the sink. There are 2 tubes on the back which make this easy to drain out at the end of your use. The system empties out and you can easily have it prepped and ready for another usage again. The machine also has a auto cleaning mode that helps to ensure that you have a clean machine producing clean ice. The stainless steel design looks very nice and adds a nice industrial / restaurant look. I really like the blue LED lighting within the basket which lights up the area to easily see how much ice is available. Overall a great machine to have for anyone that likes to have restaurant quality ice available at home. A great machine to have for people who like to host parties and get togethers for friends and family. Wow your guests with this fun toy, which goes from a fun item into a must have that our family got hooked on very fast.
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Fastest way to get the "good ice" at home
I've had the Insignia portable nugget ice maker up and running in my kitchen for the past week. I have a few minor annoyances with it, but when I stop to think about its marketed use as a fast producing, portable ice machine, I think this ice machine works exactly as intended. In the box is the ice machine, removable ice drawer, ice scoop, and drip tray. After washing everything, setup is simple, remove the ice drawer, fill with water to the max line, insert drawer, and turn on. Note, it is recommended to run a cleaning cycle prior to first use and every three days post setup. A few other observations, the machine either needs to be placed within ~18" of a sink or moved every time you clean, as it drains through the two tubes that are attached to the back. To drain after a clean cycle, you detach the tubes from the holder, let the tubes drain via gravity (needs to be lower than the machine), and then reattach the tubes. I run RO water and typically clean it once a week, this has worked well for other portable ice machines, and seems to work well for this design. The stainless steel and black design of the ice machine is nice, it blends in well with the appliances, and sits next to my coffee maker without taking up a lot of space. The stainless steel handle is durable, and so far hasn't shown any scratching or pitting with frequent use. The bottom is black, so drips aren't as noticeable as they are on stainless. Due to the fan on the side, there does need to be side air flow versus placing it in a cubby or using it in a built in configuration. The counter space footprint is very reasonable at 16" deep and 10" wide. As far as performance goes, when considering this is meant to be a portable machine, I really like it. A few minor call outs are: there is not an external water tank (however it is plumbed to add one if desired), so its easy to move about, albeit a bit heavy / bulky at 32 lbs. It's also somewhat noisy, think older dishwasher level hum. Filling the water tank, which sits directly under the ice drawer, is a bit of a pain. Due to the shape of the machine, you can't easily dump a pitcher or measuring cup. If you had something shaped like a two liter bottle, that would likely be the only way you could fill it up in one attempt. However on the positive side, it was producing ice within the first 15 minutes, and it has intuitive controls and drawer lighting. I wanted to detract a star due to the noise and the annoyance of not being easy to fill, but when you consider this as a portable machine, those really weren't in scope of how this was intended to be used. I did find that if I let it run overnight, the ice drawer filled up and the auto-off kicked in, the ice melts in the drawer and would drip water and overfill the drip tray when opened the first time. Again, not an issue if you're running it and using the ice before it turns off and the ice starts to melt. Overall, I do think this is a 5 star machine, take it with you to a party, set it up for when the entire family comes together, or use it on occasion in the home bar. I don't love it as a machine to run full time due to the noise and the fill design limitations, but still those are minor aspects if you do chose to run it full time. The upside is this is an economical machine, it produces the "good ice" rapidly, and it takes up limited space.
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Quick Chewable Ice!
If you're looking for a portable ice-maker to get that awesome chewable ice that everyone loves, this Insignia ice-maker will do that job perfectly for you, but there are some downsides. First thing you notice when you get this ice-maker is that it's got some weight to it. Of course you can't expect something that can freeze water and keep the ice from melting to be lightweight. Even so, it's easy to set-up and get going, once you take care of the initial cleaning, which is simple to do as well and doesn't take long. Another thing that doesn't take long is getting actual ice! It says it only takes 12 minutes to get ice, but I think they mean 12 minutes to get enough ice to actually use in a full drink, because it really only took a little over 6 minutes for it to start spitting out ice! Those first bits of ice probably isn't enough for a regular drink, but give it 12 and you do have enough! And yes, it is those awesome chewable little nuggets! Even filling up the entire bin didn't really take too long. I timed it at just around 4 hours to go from completely empty with no ice to completely full and the 'ice full' indicator coming on. That's honestly really good, especially if you're using this while hosting parties. Of course you can always dump the full bin into a separate container to put in your freezer so that it can keep making more. Leave it on and it'll keep the ice cold and as you use it it'll automatically make more, at least until it runs out of water. Another nice feature is that when some of the ice melts a little bit, the melt water just drips right back into the reservoir to be re-used into making ice. Although the design to make that happen isn't entirely a good thing, which we'll get to in a moment. Probably the first downside to this ice-maker that you'll notice is that it's loud. The motor getting the water and freezing it into ice is loud, the ice dropping into the bin is loud, everything is just loud. It's not exactly unexpected, but in the days of open floor plans in homes where you're watching a movie in your living room while opened up to your kitchen where the ice-maker is, you definitely notice it. We honestly ended up having to turn it off while relaxing trying to watch some tv. If you've ever stayed in a hotel and noticed the sound coming from the small room typically in the hallway where the ice machine is, that is exactly what the sound of this Insignia ice-maker reminds me of. Once the ice-maker is full though and it stops making ice, it does become nice and quiet, but here's where the design to re-use melted water comes into play. Basically, the container of ice is in the same space as the water in the reservoir. All that separates them is the plastic bottom of the ice bin, which has holes in it to let any melted ice water to drip back into the reservoir. That means this space can't get as cold as your freezer otherwise the reservoir water would freeze, and it wouldn't be able to make ice, and since the water is obviously at a warmer temp than the ice, it plays a big part in why some of the ice melts. So the peace and quiet you get when the ice-maker is full, doesn't last long, since as soon as enough ice melts to drop it below the sensor, it immediately kicks back on to make more ice and gets loud. Unfortunately it doesn't have the option to keep the ice that's in it cold while turning off the actual ice-making portion. Just keeping the water reservoir empty isn't an option either. It'll stay quiet for a minute with the 'add water' light on, but as soon as some of the ice melts and drips into the reservoir, it doesn't take much to trigger the machine into turning back on. This is where the on and off cycle gets even more annoying. In the end, while we absolutely love the ice that this machine makes, the annoyances from the sounds it makes are too much for us to have it in use daily. To be fair, we live in a modestly small house so that probably contributes some to the noise level. Even though we won't be using it daily, especially since we do have a working ice-maker in our kitchen fridge, this is going to be a game-changer when we're hosting parties. For those times we'll definitely turn it on the night before and I really feel this use case is where it'll really shine, mainly because of how quick it makes the ice, but also because who doesn't love chewable ice nuggets! All that said, this is an ice-maker and that is the main reason anyone is buying this. As an ice-maker this does an excellent job and that's why I still give it 4 out of 5 stars. Besides the fact that any type of refrigeration unit is always going to be a noise-maker. Unfortunately this is my first portable ice-maker I've ever had so I have nothing to compare the noise against either. Oh, and the blue light is really cool too, especially at parties!
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The debate continues - cubes or chewable nuggets
The Insignia portable nugget ice maker is a great looking appliance and will fit in with pretty much any decor. This is the third type of ice maker I have, including the half-moon model in my freezer and a gourmet/bullet maker. Unboxing and setup was simple. The packaging is sturdy and does a great job at protecting the unit. Also, there is a protective film on the stainless portions of the unit. Run the unit through a cleaning process and discard the fist bin of ice. Heavier than my portable bullet ice maker, I don't know that I would take this one camping like I do with the bullet model. Doing some research, the Insignia model resembles the well-regarded GE Opal 2 which makes me think these units are manufactured by the same company and should have the same or similar internals. Another reviewer stated the side water tank from the Opal 2 fits this Insignia model. Adding water. Unlike other machines, the holding bin slides out the front of the unit rather than lifting out the top so you have to remove the basket to fill it up. This works much better with a long neck bottle and was a little difficult with a larger Brita pitcher. Also, having an add-on water bin similar to the Opal would resolve this. The Insignia does start producing nuggets in about 12 minutes however, unlike bullet cube makers, ice constantly trickles out a few pellets at a time rather than dumping 9 cubes per cycle. It takes about an hour to get enough ice for a couple of cocktails. It takes about 3 hours 15 minutes to fill the bin so plan on bagging ice prior to any large parties or backyard bbq’s. A full bin fits nicely in a gallon ziplock bag and once frozen it breaks up nicely to keep the nuggets. The rated ice production is about 44 pounds per day which is almost double to my bullet machine however, according to my math - 3.25 hours per 3.5# bin comes to just under 25 pounds per day. I love that there is a light in the bin making it easy to see at a glance how full it is. It does shut off when the bin gets full and if not dumped, the sitting ice did freeze together in a large clump. The included drip pan is a necessity when removing the drawer either to dump the ice or refilling the water. Heat is a byproduct of any refrigeration and know that this unit really pumps it out, something to consider when deciding placement. It also seems a bit louder when first turned on but it does quiet down after running a few minutes. Also know the manual recommends running the unit through a cleaning cycle every three days which seems to be the case with pretty much all nugget ice makers. Regarding the filling process, I would have liked it if there was a port either on the top or side and a viewing window for the water level, similar to some coffee pots. I give this unit five stars - I was going to take away one star for the filling and length of time to usable amounts of ice but these are by design, not faults in workmanship. This model is one of the least expensive nugget/pellet machines I’ve seen and I recommend it to all fans of this form of ice.
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Better than most
This Insignia icemaker is better than other icemakers I have owned of similar size and cost. The setup, cleaning and start-up instructions are clear and helpful. After a couple of cleaning cycles according to their instructions, the machine started making ice in 12 minutes after completing the cleaning process. However, the ice is made slowly and it took over another half hour to complete making ice from the initial cycle, so plan on running the icemaker well in advance of the time that you will require it. Insignia refers to the style of ice as "nugget" and chewable. It is indeed similar to the nugget-style ice found at fast food restaurant franchises such as Sonic or Raising Cane's, not the cube style ice made by competitive icemakers of similar size and price. Insignia recommends running a cleaning cycle every three days. Since I plan to use this as a back-up to my refrigerator icemaker, I will probably perform a cleaning once a week so I will keep white vinegar on hand as well as the distilled/filtered water for making the ice cubes. So far I am very happy with this icemaker and look forward to it lasting longer than the last one I owned.
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Great ice , great price
Does a great job. Works as well as the previous owned Opal ice maker
