AUR001 Hot&Cold Water Filter Machine - Descaler issues, stand and fill for 3hrs + :-( No Override function Curious to find out if it is in fact boiling water coming out of the Aqua Optima Aurora, I tested it with our cooking thermometer. Hot and Cold Filtered Water Dispenser: Get instant hot and boiling water at the press of a button, with 7 temperature options from chilled to boiled; Select your ideal water temperature depending on your drink type or preference The other pro is, of course, environmental. The energy-use picture is good when you compare its boiling water with a kettle. Kettles tend to need filling with a minimum of 500ml and everyone puts a bit too much water in, which is boiled wastefully again and again. Then there’s the times we forget the kettle has boiled and reboil it. That’s wasted electricity (and money). For a machine that is not cheap, and is only 9 months old, this is not what I expected for this product.

But it’s not as simple as electricity use. If you buy bottled water, then swapping to a filter is of course a huge environmental improvement. Meanwhile, the question with all products is how much energy and materials went into making them and how long will they last? Build quality seems good. If your kettle dies and you choose to replace it with the Aurora rather than a new kettle, the lower energy-use over its lifetime might make up for the extra materials. But if you’re going to have a kettle too, then like many kitchen appliances, it’s an indulgence. I liked the machine’s adjustable drip tray. You can move it up to lift smaller cups to the perfect height for no splattering or go low for large cups. I even found that I could remove it completely to fill my cafetière or a saucepan with hot water. I did start using it to make pots of coffee but the habit of boiling the (1.7 litre) kettle if I needed to fill a big pan was harder to shake.

An affordable appliance that dispenses near-boiling water for cuppas. You can adjust the height of the drip tray but you can’t adjust water volume or temperature. There’s no filter or chiller. You also have to refill it with a jug, there’s no removable reservoir. But it’s great value. My frustration today, is that I have had to stand for 3 hours plus continually filling machine, not very good use of my time, especially that I have to work, and I did not expect this at all. No override facility. Very frustrating. Convenient and Efficient: Select from 4fl.oz to 35fl.oz dispense options, perfect for a cup of tea or boiling water for pasta; Combine kettle, chiller, and filter jug into one small footprint appliance; Requires no plumbing, simply plug, fill and go

However, as someone who cares a lot about their tea, I did struggle with the temperature settings. While it claims to go up to 100°C, I suspect that the Aurora struggles to quite get there. I say that because the tea I made with the dispenser reminded me of the tea you'll get on planes or from the office hot tap. It was just shy of boiling, which meant that my tea was never quite able to get that perfect brewing. I have put a call through to Aqua Optima Office in the Isle of Man, lines open till 2pm, only to find that no one is in the office to help me. Not good Customer Service at all. There are 7 buttons on the front of the Aqua Optima Aurora. They are touch controlled, and I feel that a pushable button may have been a little easier to use, but this does give the panel a sleek finish. Better Tasting Drinks: This bottle-less freestanding hot and cold water dispenser uses Evolve+ filters with 5-step filtration technology to reduce chlorine and limescale up to 80 percent; Independently certified to NSF/ANSI 42 and NSF/ANSI 53 standards Taste the Difference: We carry a full line of filter jugs, replacement water filters, instant hot and cold filtered water dispensers, and water filter chillers for all of your household

What I’d change

Quantifying the energy use for the chiller is more complex because it’s easy to keep a filter jug in the fridge door. It’s hard to say how much extra energy it takes to keep that cool and how much is lost all those times you open and close the fridge door to fetch water. Aqua Optima: Our filters significantly reduce the number of unwanted substances found in tap water, including microplastics, chlorine, limescale, and heavy metals to bring you purer water that tastes great Aside from the maintenance of the filter, it's important to descale regularly in a very similar way as you would with a coffee machine. When it's ready to be descaled the descale icon will be illuminated in orange, which takes out the guess work of when to descale. I'd recommend referring to the user manual for this, again, so best to keep this somewhere safe. Should you buy the Aqua Optima Aurora? Convenient, chilled, filtered water from a tap – both still and sparkling. This is the deluxe option if you don’t need a boiling water tap but you do want to free yourself from a bottled water addiction. Look out for Grohe Red if you want boiling water.