Why This Pool Cleaning Robot Isn’t Worth the Money
Swimming pools are maintenance black holes, so I was eager to try out one of the new pool cleaning robots, the AquaSense Beatbot Pro ($2,199), to see if it could alleviate this pain point. On the first trip, I threw a twenty-four pound beatboat into a pool that had been covered all winter. The robot soothingly began to bubble and float in a tight circle, seemingly sensing a place, before tilting 45 degrees and descending into a pool so murky that I lost sight of the bot just below the surface.
Over the next three hours I could occasionally see a brown cloud of dust moving toward the surface, but as the day passed without the bot surfacing, I feared it had become lost in the dark depths until it could be retrieved by hand. I returned several more times in the following weeks to see how the bot performed in increasingly clearer waters and was both impressed and entertained by the beatbot. However, I think that robotic pool cleaners have a long way to go before they are as useful as robotic vacuum cleaners or lawn mowers, and while Beatbot was not without utility, it is not as cost-effective or feature-rich as more traditional pool cleaning devices. systems.
The beatbot is heavy, but holds a reliable charge.
BeatBot comes ready to use right out of the box—no assembly required. There is a docking station, the robot itself and, if purchased, an additional cartridge with water purifier . Docking works the same way as with a vacuum cleaner or lawn mower: the docking station has two metal plates that allow you to align the robot to charge it. Unlike other machines, BeatBot does not dock itself; when this is done, the robot will float to the surface of the pool and you will need to take it out, rinse the filter and place the robot on the dock. When it’s time to clean, you’ll have to put it back in the pool.
At 24 pounds, the Bitbot is certainly not lightweight, and I struggled to imagine anyone with any physical challenges being able to regularly move the bot safely. However, it charges quickly and does not drain power while in use. It also holds a charge perfectly. The bot lay at the bottom of a muddy puddle for ten days and still came out with 65% charge.
Beatbot lacks common robot functions.
My main problem with Beatbot is that the app doesn’t do much, even though it’s supposed to. Of course, the robot was easy to connect via Bluetooth, allowing it to be connected to Wi-Fi. You can give the robot a name and choose whether the bot should clean the floor, walls, surface, or any combination thereof. There are no buttons to start the bot – you just throw it into the pool and it starts.
Here’s the main problem with pool robots: Once in the pool, whether on the surface or underneath, you completely lose contact with the robot. In the app it simply shows up as “offline”. This means you can’t cancel a task, ask the bot to return to the surface, or even track where it is in the pool. If the pool is clear enough, you may be able to see the bot, but this is often not the case. Plus, if the pool is frozen, no one will want to jump in to get it, even if you can see it. In most cases, your vacuum cleaner or lawn mower will estimate how long a job will take, but a robot pool does not. Aquabot estimates that a deep clean will take three hours, but even a “quick clean,” which is just one wipe of the pool bottom, took nearly three hours on a relatively clean, average-sized pool.
I was surprisingly bothered by the lack of control over the bot during this process – I just had to trust that it would surface, and when it didn’t, I realized how much I valued being able to control my other robots while they were running. When the robot mower moves, you can see it on an interactive map – where it mows and where it doesn’t, the same with your vacuum cleaner. You can see where it is if it gets stuck, but you can also track progress and in some cases direct the robot towards you using the remote control. If the cleaning was successful, the beatbot would eventually rise to the top and remain there at the edge of the pool, waiting for me. But it occurred to me that the battery doesn’t last forever, and if I’m not around to pick it up, the battery will eventually run out and the robot will drown. A robot that requires your presence to put it in and out of the pool in a short amount of time is not very autonomous.
Poor documentation and support.
This brings me to complaint number two: I’m increasingly finding that robot support is difficult to access because it’s slow and often unhelpful. Many of the companies that produce these robots, like Aquasense, are located offshore. There are a limited number of frequently asked questions online about the bot, and there isn’t much documentation to search through. Of the nine phone calls made during business hours Wednesday, seven went to voicemail. However, on two calls (both to the same customer service line), I had difficulty understanding the directions offered by the representative due to the language barrier. There were no answers to basic questions, and the best the technician could do was offer to leave a message with tech support, who would come out overnight.
I first asked how to change the Wi-Fi network, which is a basic operation for most robots, but BeatBot requires removing the robot completely and adding it from scratch using a new network. This will mean that you will have to delete the card and wipe history just to change your Wi-Fi password. On the second call I asked how to cancel the loop or how long to wait until I was sure the bot was lost and the operator just couldn’t answer and kept repeating that it would resurface when it was done (as above this was not the case) .
Even on the day when the pool was already the cleanest, with only a little dirt remaining at the bottom and 20-30 small leaves floating on top, it took the robot three hours to do a mediocre job on the bottom of the pool. Despite the fact that 85% of the dirt got on it, there were noticeable large puddles on the steps and in the corners. What upset me was that I watched him linger in these corners several times.
Why you should use traditional pool cleaners
Most people with inground pools have a filtration system that does some of the work of cleaning the water, and also have a pool vacuum that attaches to the water hose. Some require you to manually move the vacuum cleaner, which is physically tiring. Many pools have automatic cleaners that move autonomously around the pool on a schedule and simply remain in the water at all times, attached to the waterline. Prices for these cleaning products vary widely, ranging from $30 to $500 to $600. At $2,199, Beatbot simply can’t compete, nor is Beatbot the only pool bot on the market.
Traditional pool cleaning products worth paying attention to:
Other robotic pool vacuum cleaners:
Aquasense said through a representative that they look forward to software updates in the future that may resolve some of my issues. The robot must be able to connect to Wi-Fi from the surface of the pool, and the bot can be programmed to surface from time to time to do this. This alone would solve many problems, such as being able to cancel a cleaning procedure or update a map. You’ll probably still need another vacuum on top of the Beatbot for seasonal cleaning, since the Beatbot is essentially only designed to keep the pool clean, and it does so-so work. At its current price, the Beatbot should perform as flawlessly as similarly priced robot vacuums or lawn mowers, and I found it fell far short of that.