Aerflo Soda Maker Review: Is This Portable Soda Maker Any Good?

Before we talk about whether or not you need a portable soda maker, let’s talk about what kind of water drinker you are. Do you need your water to be flat? Flavored? Fizzy?

There are people in the world who can’t stand drinking plain water. I am not one of them, but I appreciate these people for existing, because I enjoy living in a world populated by people with strongly held eccentric opinions and beliefs.

This anti-plain water crowd has really claimed its space in the market in recent years. There’s a whole genre of videos on TikTok featuring people making their daily water recipes, i.e., filling up large jugs with flavorings and mix-ins to reach “hydration goals” in a more palatable way. Many of these water snobs use a product called the Cirkul, a water bottle that infuses regular water with calorie- and sweetener-free essences, and which is targeted specifically at people who don’t like plain water.

When I first encountered the Aerflo, a personal water carbonating system, my who is this for senses were piqued. It seemed like a product for a similar yet slightly different water-hating crowd—people who only drink seltzer. The bolded copy on its website that reads “never go flat again” is a maxim that only a person who hates drinking plain, un-bubbly water would find reassuring.

As someone who appreciates water in all forms, I wasn’t entirely sure if the Aerflo would be for me. More than simply testing to see how well it worked, I wanted to know if the Aerflo was just a gadget for strict soda enthusiasts or if it had the power to charm the water agnostic.

How the Aerflo Works

The Aerflo is unique among home water carbonators in that it is a personal system that you can use on the go. It’s designed like a regular old reusable plastic water bottle with a carbonating mechanism built into the lid (check out our full review of sparkling water makers here). It utilizes small CO2 cartridges that contain enough gas to carbonate around four refills—or enough to carry you through a day or two, depending on how much water you consume. The instructions were easy to follow, and I was able to get the system set up and ready to go in under a minute. To carbonate, you fill the bottle with still water, then press the button on the top of the lid three times until it vents a little puff of gas, which is your signal to shake the bottle for a second or two. Then you repeat that process two more times. After that, you have sharp, crisp sparkling water that you can make anywhere you refill your bottle.

For me, anywhere meant a day around the office, but Aerflo as a brand really digs into the idea of anywhere. With the Aerflo, you can have sparkling water on the top of a mountain! You can have it in the woods! You can have it on a train! you can have it in a plane!—well you can’t because pressurized air canisters aren’t allowed on board—but you get the idea. Personally, the office is the extent of where I’d want sparkling water. I prefer still water at the gym, and one time when I was a kid I went on a hike and accidentally grabbed a bottle of sparkling water from the fridge on the way out, and I found the experience of drinking warm carbonated water on a hot July day to be pretty miserable. But hey, that’s just me.

Is the Aerflo worth it?

If you really, really need sparkling water wherever you are, I’d say yeah, it definitely is. The only real drawback to me is the idea of replacing and mailing in the cartridges. However, the brand works hard to make this as easy as possible for you. Each order comes with a pre-labeled return box that, once filled with nine empties, you can seal up and drop into a mailbox. Each canister is supposed to make two liters of water, and the math works out to about $1 per liter of sparkling water, which is more than the 50 cents or so per liter of a regular soda maker’s tank. But hey, you’re paying for the portability. So long as the brand continues to function and stick around as is, it seems like a pretty seamless system to sustain a well-carbonated lifestyle. Ultimately, I think I’ll stick to my regular water bottle, because I’m a diehard ice water fan. But for the soda enthusiasts in my life (they know who they are), this would be the perfect gift.