Robot Pool Cleaners

Hello, I would like any reviews on the best robotic pool cleaners that you may have used.
thanks

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If anyone has robotic pool cleaner, we’d love to hear about your experience in the comments below. CHOICE offers this general advice:

Pros
  • Good for large pools.
Cons
  • Don’t tend to filter water while cleaning.
  • Probably the most expensive of the automatic pool cleaners.
  • Can be inconvenient – you need to place them into the pool for a cleaning session and then remove them.
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I bought a Dolphin robot pool cleaner 4 years ago and would not ever be without it! Fantastic! The old chugga, chugga system that plugged into the skimmer box inlet was a pain in the neck to install and to remove when people wanted to swim. Also it meant the skimmer box was out of action while it was working.
The robot cleaner is so easy to use. You just lower it into the pool, set what program you want it to use by pressing a button - I always choose the bottom and sides and an every two days cycle - then off it goes. You do have to empty the basket when it is full but it does not interfere with the skimmer box system so you end up with a more effective filtration because the robot does the bottom and sides and the skimmer box keeps dealing with the leaves on top. I will admit I have had the motor replaced once, at the cost of about $200 parts and labour.
If people want to swim all I do is turn the robot off and lift it out of the pool. With the old system I had to turn off the whole pool pump, unplug the long tubing, remove it all from the pool and roll it up, then re-instore the skimmer box basket. A real pain.
In addition the robot cleaner actually rises above the water line on the sides with its scrubbers and does a much better job of cleaning the sides and the bottom of the pool than the old fashioned system did. The robot also climbs up the stairs and ledges in the pool and cleans them.
I will add that, because of the huge Lilly Pilly hedges surrounding our pool, we got so swamped with leaves and junk during windy periods that I also purchased a solar powered surface skimmer from the United States and it also is brilliant. So easy to use, just travels around the surface sweeping up the leaves and junk. I can have a very dirty pool surface fully clean in about an hour with this unit. For some ridiculous reason no one in Australia has thought of importing these units to Australia so I bought it directly from America for under $300 including postage. It has been working solidly for 3 years and if it blew up tomorrow I would immediately buy another one.
These two robot units have made pool cleaning so much easier and more efficient.

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Hi Jules, I would have to agree with RJStevens, we purchased a Dolphin Robotic cleaner when the kreepy (which came with the house) died. It was woefully underpowered and not suited to the needs of the pool. We live on a golf course and the pool gets alot of leaf litter from the course along with fruit from a neighbouring moreton bay fig (the bain of our life). The old kreepy continually stopped working while the new dolphin picks up everything from the bottom of the pool. Only drawback is having to physically turn it on every time you want it to zoom around BUT a small price to pay for a superior cleaner that cleans up the walls, along the water line and keeps the pool cleaner than any other cleaner we have had. Highly recommend and worth the hefty price tag. On this occasion, you are paying for quality but it is worth it. Hope this helps.

I am very pleased with the Dolphin s300i I bought about 4 years ago. https://maytronics.com.au/product/dolphin-s-300i

I did need to get it repaired once - some electronic component needed replacement. But the service went quite smoothly, and wasn’t particularly expensive.

I had a Kreepy Krauly before, but it didn’t perform very well. It relies on suction from the filter pump, and after a while it ended up sucking too much air into the filter. I like the way the Dolphin is completely separate and self powered. It is a little more effort to put it into the pool and retrieve it afterwards, but worth it for the results.

My model is technically steerable using an app on my phone, but I don’t find the manual steer function to work very well. I think it’s better just to set it going on its own random course, and just walk away for a couple of hours.

Hi - seeing as you’re happy with it, would you mind mentioning the brand of solar powered surface skimmer you bought?
Our pool gets similar litter and it might be a useful addition!

Hi Floriani, my Dolphin does not need to be turned on each time. You can set a simple cycle - daily, every two days, every three days etc. and it runs automatically.

Small pool I built a small pool near our neighbour’s large, shedding tree, so put two skimmers in to cope with the leaf load, but it meant it was impractical to have a kreepy style cleaner. I bought a Dolphin with split rollers that rotate independently so it can actually turn in its own footprint. It does a fantastic job in a little pool. I believe a kreepy style cleaner would have struggled.
Filter cleaning I agree it is inconvenient to have to clean the filters rather than have the stuff go through the filtration system. Also you need to keep in mind the leaf litter remains in the pool until you clean the filters, so it can still cause phosphate problems. So you need to clean them regularly, but it is a small price to pay for an excellent cleaner.

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Hello BGM - To answer your question, it is the Solar-breeze NX robotic pool cleaner. The website is www.solarbreezenx.com. I notice that the website now says out of stock and I don’t know how long that has been the case. I also note that it is now about $600 US, so you might think that is too much. All I can say is I think it is excellent and so easy to use - an On/Off switch! You slide out a tray to empty it. I then hose the tray down. Easy.
As I said, I use this for the surface leaves and bits and pieces, especially after a windy day. I use my main robot cleaner for the rest of the pool. Strangely when I read some online reviews before I bought it there were some complaints about it breaking down. All I can reply is that I have had it 3 years and nothing has gone wrong.

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Thank you!

Hello, this response may be a bit late, but we have an article on our site that compares several robotic pool cleaner models, including ours. To remain objective, the comparison table just compares technical specs, but there are links to productreview.com.au where applicable. We don’t think that it promotes our devices unreasonably, other than to point out that ours are battery operated, not mains powered. Here is the link if you are interested.