Polar Active Ice 3.0 Cold Therapy Ice Machine System with Programmable Timer, Two Knee and Joint Compression Pads, Lightweight 9 Quart Cooler, Quiet Pump, Strong Cryotherapy Pain Relief Treatment

Updated 01/26/2025: rating changed from 2-star to 5-starAfter discovering the timer did not work, contacted Polar Products directly using their online form on Mon evening. Did not get any response Tue morning, so called company. Rep found the amazon order and set up a replacement timer to be shipped overnight. Replacement timer was received in time for initial use and it worked correctly. Kudos to Polar Products Customer support!Main review:The machine is EXCELLENT at cooling the knee area during recovery of (out-patient) total knee replacement surgery. The therapy pad was incorporated into the dressing put on the leg by the surgery personnel so it was ready to use during recovery. Once home, all that had to be done was prepare the "ice chest" with 6 frozen plastic water bottles and cold water, connect the two tubes from the chest to the pad, and start the flow using the timer.The timer makes the system sooo much easier! it eliminates the need to set a manual alarm or something as a reminder to stop/start the flow. Initially, it was programmed for 120 min on and 120 min off. When it was required to stand up and move around, the timer would be unplugged from the chest, shutting off the flow (if the pump was on), then the tube assembly was disconnected from the pad, and the machine could be left in place while moving around.Very little water came out of the tubes when disconnecting from the pad, and a small towel was used to catch what did come out.Once the machine was connected again, the timer would still be counting down and the flow would resume. If the timer was shut off completely and the power transformer was left plugged in, the timer remembered the settings that had been programmed before and was ready to go without any changes.18 total water bottles were used. Magic marker was used to mark the bottles as a 6-bottle set (#1, #2, #3), so the bottles would stay together and freeze all the same. 18 bottles might have been overkill, maybe 12 could have been used. The bottle group was changed out after the 2 hours of flow completed. The partially thawed bottles were removed, and the next set of frozen bottles were put in the water, ready to go for the next use.Things that were noted:1- Changing the water bottles with water in the chest caused the bottles to float, and made it a little difficult to get them all laid down sideways so that the lid of the chest could be closed. It took a little getting used to, but worked fine. The water in the chest was reviewed occasionally when bottles were removed, to see if there was any debris or anything that might plug the tubes. The water was never drained out of the chest during the entirety of use.2- As instructed, the wrapper labels on all bottles were removed prior to placing them in the chest.3- Plugging the tube coupling from the chest into the pad seemed to be finicky, leading to some concern that the O-rings on the male couplings of the pad coupling might get sliced. The instructions state to be sure to push down the metal tabs all the way down on the female coupling, before connecting the two assemblies. It was really difficult to hold BOTH tabs down at the same time using one hand for each, and then try to push the female coupling over the O-rings onto the male coupling. It was not clear if pushing down ONE tab also pushed down the OTHER tab, or if both were independent of each other. A spare set of O-rings came with the machine.4- When laying on the bed (about 32in above the floor) with the chest left on the floor, there would be pulsing felt in the pad and in the tubes while the pump was on. Evidently, it had a harder time pumping water up that high. Once the chest was raised about 12in off the floor, the pulsating stopped and the flow was smooth.Again, the unit performed excellently, and it is felt that it did a MUCH MUCH better job at chilling the knee and leg than if other methods had been used. The cooling was very uniform over the entire pad area. It is felt it was much more effective than using hard ice packs or something equivalent. The only caveat was the bad timer, but customer service resolved that completely.01/15/2025 initial review:Brand new Polar Products Active Ice 3.0 9 quart system included a programmable timer & temperature control that can be plugged inbetween the power supply and the cooling reservoir case. After testing the unit right out of the box, the timer failed to turn on or provide power to the pump in the cooling reservoir. We WERE able to get the pump to work by disconnecting the timer cables from the power supply cable and the reservoir receptacle, and plugging in the power supply directly into the reservoir receptacle.Hopefully, we will get a replacement timer assembly through a warranty request, but we are disappointed that we (probably) won't have the timer functionality after knee replacement is performed in two days.The instruction booklet that came with the unit has a section for troubleshooting the pump not running, and one paragraph makes it seem like this is a "common" problem:"Remove the Programmable Timer and plug the power supply cord directly into the plate on the cooling reservoir. The system may be operated this way while a replacement programmable timer is ordered".

First off, this company has awesome customer service! I ordered the targeted coverage pad (for small to medium shoulder) because I am a woman with narrow shoulders and another reviewer of similar size had said that the regular broad coverage pad was too big. A few days prior to surgery I thought that I’d get it set up while I had 2 functional arms and give it a test run so that I could get home post-op and start using it right away. The cooling pad was too small. There was no way I could make it fit securely on my shoulder. Their product info said that if you ordered the wrong size they would exchange it, and a few hours after I sent them an email I got a reply that they were sending the larger size along with a prepaid mailing label and packaging to return the smaller pad. 2 days later it arrived. As for the system itself? It is easy to set up, I was able to secure the pad in just the right place on my shoulder, and I used the handy timer to set for 20 min on, 20 min continuous icing. The water stayed cold for a long time but when I noticed that it was warming up a bit, my husband could easily exchange the bottles of frozen water that we used as “ice”. Because of the Velcro strapping on the shoulder pad, when I needed to get and move around I could leave the pad securely on my shoulder and just disconnect the water tubes. No leaking whatsoever. One thing that improved the fit for me was using the smaller piece of Velcro strap to hold the pad a under my arm instead of the larger stretchy strap as indicated on the instructions. The largest stretchy strap goes around your body to hold it in place. I used the smaller stretchy strap on top of the shoulder to snug the pads together so that they totally covered around the shoulder joint area and upper arm. Awesome product, good price (cheaper than renting cold therapy device from a medical supply store), great customer service, and made in the heartland of the USA!!