We got this for our kids, who love hot cocoa all year 'round. It works great, reliably makes good cocoa (assuming you use good cocoa ingredients). It heats it up so you don't have to heat the milk (or water) and mixes it nicely, shuts off automatically. Again, it does a great job. It's easy to use.The "magnetic impeller" is a little disk with a tiny paddle on top that you wouldn't expect to work, and it's magnetically coupled to the motor (no shaft running from the motor into the jar as on most blenders, so no seal to leak, etc.), pretty cool and it does the job well.It's easy to clean, the magnetic impeller comes out and you clean the impeller, the inside of the jar, and the cover.(As an aside: It would be nicer if the jar could come off and be cleaned without having to be careful to not get water into the underside, but it's not all that difficult, just could be a bit better. You can not immerse it, it's one unit: jar, motor, and controls, so you clean by washing and rinsing the inside of the jar without letting water get into the underside of the bottom, which again is do-able and not all that tough but one does have to be aware and careful. I guess they wanted the no-seal-required magnetic impeller and couldn't do that with a removable jar or the heating system needs to be intimately connected? Also, it doesn't alarm when done, it just shuts off, but if you are around you'll obviously know when it's done. Again, not a problem nor a pain, but the designers could make an improvement next time.)At first we were looking at the cartridge coffee makers which generally can also make hot cocoa, but they are much more expensive, typically make only one cup at a time, and you're limited to the small selection and overpriced cartridges available for the unit you have, so we scratched that, and on a whim or from desperation did a search on Amazon for "hot cocoa maker" and this unit came up, highly rated and reasonably priced.Recommended. It works well and a good value.