Does the world need another soda maker? My tech-journalist-self answers, “Yes, if it brings a novel feature that differentiates it from legacy devices”. Today I want to show you the Drinkmate OmniFizz, a soda maker that on top of everything, can not only add sparkles to regular water, but to other beverages as well. We received a review unit from Drinkmate and tested it out for you. Let’s first check into what a regular soda maker does and then check into the value proposition of Drinkmate.
What’s a soda maker there for?
A soda maker (also known as a sparkling water maker) is a device that has been around approximately since the mid-90s. Such a device is used to upgrade regular tap water with a bit of sparkling, thus turning it into sparkling water. It’s possible that you’ve come across such gadgets as well in the kitchen of your friends or family, even if you never used them yourself. The legacy devices, from brands like SodaStream, work by releasing gas from a CO2 cylinder through a relatively simple mechanism into bottles already filled with water and therewith turning it into sparkling water.
Now, why would you need a Drinkmate OmniFizz?
What Drinkmate changes here is that they addressed a decades-old missed feature of older soda makers. They built a system that allows users not only to add CO2 to water but to a much wider scope of beverages and drinks. The only thing you have to pay attention to is that the liquids you are using are free from things like fruit pulp or other little things that could damage the device. Other than that, you’re free to go wild and try out adding a little fizz to all the drinks you like.
The benefits of the Drinkmate OmniFizz are many and varied. Firstly, you don’t need to buy premade sparkling drinks or mix your own sodas at home, which can be expensive and time-consuming. With this device, you can customize the amount of fizz in each beverage to your taste and create something new every time. It also adds a fun twist to drinks, which can be great for parties and special occasions. The device is small and easy to carry around with you and finally, it’s eco-friendly since no single-use plastic bottles are needed.
Okay, you get it, but what cool things can you do with the OmniFizz?
So, this is where testing at TechAcute got fun. I don’t know about you, but I really like to fizz up drinks for an extra bit of refreshment but where to start? You can start with any drinks you like that regularly do not come in “sparkling” versions. For instance, you can try to do a cold brew coffee, filter any debris out and add a bit of lemon – then give it to the Drinkmate OmniFizz – if you like add some ice cubes, and voila you got a really refreshing drink for a nice pick-me-up. Of course, you can also try out sparkle-up tea variations like iced tea or milk tea but make sure to add the tapioca bubbles after you sparkled it up.
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If you’re already through the work day and looking to prepare something cool for an after-work happening, you can try to mix up wine or cocktails you like. Just keep the golden rule in mind to keep the liquids free of objects before you add sparkles but other than that you can try out this new tool in your cocktail bar – this would surely also surprise guests if you like being the mixology artist at parties. Since the device is very portable and doesn’t even need electricity to work, you can easily bring it elsewhere too. My recommendation is to fizz up wine a bit and add some frozen fruits from the store instead of ice cubes to give it both the right temperate and a little bit of fruity flavor.
Any issues here during the tests?
If you stick to the rules and read the manual you’ll not experience any issues. At least we did not encounter problems. It’s possible that there could be issues if you ignore the instructions and try to sparkle up juices with fruit pulp or other things like that but then it would be your own fault, but I don’t think anyone will have a hard time with the few rules on how to operate the Drinkmate OmniFizz.
Beyond that I’d say it might be wise for a novice sparkler to first try a low or medium load of fizz until you’re more confident, just to avoid over-sparkling that could lead to liquids from “blowing up” and going “cola-mentos-challenge” in your kitchen. So long story short, if you do everything as you’re supposed to, I don’t think there will be any issues – just like with any other appliance as well. If we find any issues later on during a long time test, we’ll update the article accordingly, but as of now, we give it two thumbs up.
Is there anything they could be doing better?
Just as some personal thoughts I would add that I personally prefer glass over plastic bottles, so I hope that the Drinkmate OmniFizz would be available in an edition that uses bottles made of glass in the future perhaps. As far as the operation of the device goes I thought that at times it would be good to carbonate a drink even without filling the bottle to the max. This would require a longer dispensing unit on the device to reach further down into the bottle but you’d benefit from that so you don’t need a larger amount of liquids as a minimum.
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I understand that at parties it’s no issue to go for a full bottle as a minimum for carbonation but if you’re just a single-person household, you might not want to process full bottles of coffee, tea, juice, wine, cocktails, or something else. As far as their marketing goes, I have to say that the claim “carbonates any drink” is not true, because it doesn’t work with juices with fruit pulp, for instance. If you can look beyond that fact, I think you’ll be okay. My marketing recommendation to Drinkmate would be to adjust either this claim to be truthful or upgrade the product to keep this promise.
So is the Drinkmate OmniFizz worth buying?
The Drinkmate OmniFizz currently is available on Amazon for about $120, including a CO2 cylinder (test sized) and a bottle, so you could start right away. With that sort of price tag, it’s a bit more expensive than the legacy soda makers, but you can unleash the OmniFizz on all sorts of beverages instead only water. To me, this feature makes it well worth the price as it comes in a nice design as well.
The CO2 cylinders that the Drinkmate OmniFizz uses are the same standard cartridges that other soda makers use as well, so you don’t need any special cylinders and can buy and swap empty for full cylinders at the existing places. If this was the last thing that held you back, then you can consider getting an OmniFizz right away and start bubbling up your drinks. If you’re not yet sure what it all looks like and works like, have a look at the video that we embedded below.
YouTube: How to Carbonate with the Drinkmate OmniFizz Carbonation Machine | Sparkling Water Machine (promotional video)
Editorial notice: We received this Drinkmate OmniFizz test unit for free but were not paid for the article.
Link to article: https://techacute.com/drinkmate-omnifizz-review/