Product Review: Is the Velocity 200IR the Perfect Iron?
I take irons seriously. This little-mentioned (but hard working) appliance can make your sewing time fun and productive or frustrating and unproductive (i.e. ruined fabric). So here is an iron review that you want to read…
I have tried LOTS of different irons, and quite frankly, I didn’t immediately jump when Reliable asked if I wanted to review their new Velocity 200IR. It looked completely normal. What could be so different? Well, I’m jumping for joy now. How about an iron that delivers on every promise and quietly does an excellent job so you can sew more? That’s what I’m talking about. Oh, and since that time I came to love the OVO Travel Iron too.
So I have to tell you a side story… I set this up in my studio the day I received it. Then the next morning after I had left the house to take my kids to school, my husband called me on my cell like it was some kind of emergency. He had to ask where this new iron came from… he was in love with the Velocity 200IR. I’m not promising that your family will iron their own clothes if you provide the right iron… but maybe you’ll be as lucky as I am and they will!
UPDATE: The Velocity 200IR has been replaced by the Velocity 230IR.
The first thing I noticed about the Reliable 200IR, is the steam pump that comes on when I touch the handle… wow! This iron has 2 heating elements, which means that there is a separate heating tank for the water. Water turns into steam before it reaches the sole plate so no drips or leaks! There are three levels of steam (none, low, and high), all of which are steady and very… reliable. High steam is perfect for fusing interfacing and getting out tough creases. I found low steam to be great for everything else. I don’t use steam for quilt piecing, so it’s nice that I can turn it off.
The sole plate is smooth and beautiful. And I’m happy to report that after 2 months of heavy use it is still perfectly clean. Sadly, my last iron stained almost immediately, but not the case here!
Besides the manual, it came with this handy little water jug that tells me just how much water I’ll need to fill up the iron. The pour spout means no more spills on my ironing board!
And it has the one feature that always makes me a happy sewist – the ability to disable the auto-turn off! I can’t stand it when I am busily sewing a quilt top and then I turn around to press and my iron is cold. All I have to do is hold the steam button down for 8 seconds, the iron will beep, and I know that we are in ‘pro-mode’. Or at least that’s what I call it!
Oh, and of course it gets hot, hot, hot. That goes without saying. I couldn’t recommend an iron that didn’t. 🙂
So, is it perfect? Well, nobody’s perfect. But the only thing that I could find to complain about is that the steam on/off buttons are really easy to accidentally press when I’m ironing. But that also means they are really easy to reach with my thumb when I want to press them. So it is pretty darn close to the perfect iron in my opinion.
Visit the Reliable website to read what they say about the Velocity 200IR, or if you are an Amazon shopper you can see it here.
Happy sewing!
p.s. Keep shopping smart with all my other sewing product reviews too!
Featured
Disclosure: some of my posts contain affiliate links. If you purchase something through one of those links I may receive a small commission, so thank you for supporting SewCanShe when you shop! All of the opinions are my own and I only suggest products that I actually use. 🙂
Oh I love that it has the ability to disable he automatic turn off. This feature is a reason I would love this iron. I’m excited to know this ☺
I don’t have the iron but I do have the ‘long board’ ironing board from Reliable and love it … next up a new iron. Thanks for the review – and all the best, Katie from http://www.westiejulep.blogspot.com and http://www.katiesews4fun.blogspot.com
I’m not sure which I’m more impressed with…the review of the iron or the fact that hubby irons his own stuff! LOL
The biggest problem I have with irons is that I always drop them and they never work right after that.
Get a silicone iron mat. They let you keep the iron in a horizontal position which makes it way less likely to fall. They are cheap on Amazon.
I’m glad to see that they changed the color of the water tank. My velocity has a blue tank that is impossible to see the water level through! Have overfilled it many, many times; that was very poor quality design for such a good iron. Other than that, I love mine.
I hate to be the only naysayer, but my DH gave me this iron for my birthday last year after I read about it and fell in love on paper. Everything you said was true for me, and I loved it, except for one thing: it did not get hot enough when ironing dry. I do a lot of dry pressing when quilting and I need a seriously hot iron, but this iron didn’t get very hot. I could see the pieces weren’t getting flat enough and they just didn’t feel that hot after pressing. With my old (30 years!) Rowenta a piece is so hot after pressing it that I can’t touch it for a few seconds. I loved the Velocity so much for all the other reasons you mentioned, so I was really disappointed. I thought maybe I got a defective one (hope, hope) so I called the company, which has excellent customer service, BTW. I talked to one of the technicians (his name was Luigi) who told me the iron is designed to never get hotter than 350 degrees F. I researched and found that, although it varies by manufacturer, some irons get as hot as 400 degrees on cotton, and 445 on linen! I tried to use it for over a week because I loved it as a steam iron so much, but finally had to admit I wasn’t happy with the dry setting. I would have kept it if I had the space for 2 irons so I could have a dry and a steam, but ultimately returned it.
I though my favorite feature would be the ability to turn of "auto-off", but actually it was the little "beep" that it made right before the iron turned itself off. I rarely needed to use the auto-off disable because when it beeped I just turned around and touched the handle and it would stay on! I wish all irons had that little beep.
Aside from the ability to shut off the "auto off" function, wha makes this iron so much better than the Oliso Pro? I know you have previously reviewed that one, and loved it. I love my Oliso, too, so I’m interested in comparisons.
Rhanks for the great review! For those of you who have this iron and have been commenting, how often do you need to clean it and can you use tap water? Cleaning the face of an iron is my pet peeve…
I have had my Velocity for over 5 years and it has never missed a beat! My only complaint is the rubberized handle. Although I love the grip it provides, after 3-4 years the rubber began to flake off onto my quilting projects. I called Reliable, hoping for a replacement, but no help. I fixed it by wrapping in medical tape–looks bad, but still using. For the price, I would have anticipated better customer service. I am interested if this has happened to other owners?
I recently purchased a Reliable Velocity 200IR iron to replace my 4 year old Reliable Sensor Velocity V200 which blue its fuses. I tried the new iron today. It seemed to work fine but I am concerned with the "growling" noise that it makes when I touch the handle to iron. The noise stops when I take my hand off of the handle. I read the instruction manual and found no mention of this anywhere. Is this noise a normal function of the iron?
Hi Ellen,
The steam pump will turn on when you put your hand on the iron, so make sure that you either have water in it (so you don’t burn out the pump) or you have the steam function turned off. Hope you love it!
Caroline
This post is a few years old and I’m looking for a new iron. How has this iron held up?
My Velocity Iron was amazing until something heartbreaking happened: I allowed a friend to use my sewing room. She let the steam pump on the iron run for some time with no water in it. When I came upstairs to check on things I noticed it and quickly filled it with water, but the pump had burned out. I almost cried!
Let this be a warning – if you don’t want to put water in it, turn the steam function off.
I LOVED this iron, but after having 3 of them, I am beginning to suspect some kind of design flaw. I sent one back to a Reliable and they were wonderful about repairing it. The repair only lasted about two weeks. Another purchase got me one that was dead right out of the box. I returned it and tried again. The next one started making a very loud alarm sound after a few weeks. That first one (v200) that lasted three years was terrific. The best part was being able to use steam at a lower temperature on fabrics that couldn’t take the heat. I went back to Oliso. I will give Reliable a few years and then maybe see if they figured out the problems. I really did like it.
Thank you for your posting! I currently have another brand, and although I LOVE it- I have replaced it twice, so I have been doing a little research lately, and your posting is very helpful!
Being fairly new to your blog, I was excited about the reliable velocity iron. When I attempted to check it out on Amazon, it’s not available. The website says it’s 404 not found. Then I realized that this was a review from a few years ago. Disappointed, but will continue using my irons till something better comes along. I’ve enjoyed many of your patterns and ideas for sewing. Thank you as it’s been fun learning to see in my twilight years.