If you don't mind I'm going to join the conversation too. I've got a bone to pick.
I was looking for a new robot and wanted something with pretty nice features for a decent price. I had already heard of Aiper through their relentless advertising, and this thread. Was thinking about the standard Scuba S1 but when I saw the S1 Pro came with 1) an secondary pleated filter, 2) more power, battery, and brushing, 3) IR object avoidance, and 4) app functionality including remote control, water quality monitoring, and summoning, for only a few hundred bucks more, I decided on the Pro.
I received it last week and immediately put it on the charger and connected with the app to get it going. I noticed once I had it connected there was a strange lack of the remote control and other advertised features this was supposed to have. "No matter," I thought. "It probably just has to be running or in the water to enable those features." Wrong, but we'll shelf that for now.
I should preface that my pool "contaminants" mostly consisted of fine dirt, silt and small leaves/grass, so there's a noticeable layer of dirt on everything. I chucked it in on Auto mode in the shallow end near a wall, making sure no air is trapped. It went to work climbing the walls first and it was looking promising. It made it around my steps just fine, stumbling on them a bit but not stopping. It's path was noticeably cleaner now. The problems started when it got to one of my return jets. Instead of using it's "IR object avoidance," it decides to traverse the jet and it gets blown off the wall, falling down to the floor in a daze. It realizes it's back on the floor and tries to climb again, but doesn't realize it's not in the same place as it was before, as the jet had blown it slightly left (into the path it had already been on, as it moves CW for me). It tries to climb again and gets blown off once more. It actually doesn't stop doing this until I finally intervened. Pretty disappointing considering return jets are not a unique obstacle.
So after I moved it over, it started reaching deep end territory. My pool is like many of yours, vinyl rectangular sport with angled deep end walls halfway down. It didn't have issues cleaning walls in the shallow end, but. Once the robot had crested the waterline as it scrubbed for a few seconds and stops, it would normally go right back down the wall. Instead, now, the robot was losing grip of the wall when it stopped and it starts to float away. The dual drives seemed like they slowed down when it was stopped, letting the bot lose grip and as soon as it separates the drives go 100% to correct the issue, but by then it's too late. The bot floats down and goes back up the wall to do the cycle again. Oddly enough, at first, the angles didn't seem to be an issue as the S1 Pro appeared to traverse them fine looking for the wall. However, later on as it spent more time in the deep end, it started to be an issue. Reliably moving from floor, angle, to wall without getting stuck in a loop in a corner on an angle was rare. Albeit, it never got truly "stuck," but it took a long time for it to finally escape on it's own which is precious battery life and cleaning time wasted.
I left it for a while and came back toward the end of the cleaning cycle on the floor and actually was pleased to see most of the floor was clean. However, I watched as it passed over some last few dirty spots and I noticed it was quite literally blowing dirt and small debris out of the drive propellers. ??? WTF is that about? I thought maybe the basket was just clogged and full and it was escaping somehow. After I had had enough of it, I hooked it out of the water and pulled the basket. Not full, not even halfway full. There should be no reason for that dirt blowing, especially with my ultra-fine pleated filter, but THAT is where it gets good.
The design of the pleated filter and it's housing make it all but nearly USELESS. See the referenced photo below I grabbed from a review from "Definitely David" on YouTube (I will be referencing this video later on as well). The filter doesn't even cover the entire area entering the drives. Notice the blue line is the housing where the filter sits in, and the red arrows indicate the space between that and the whole basket housing. That area on the side allows water to freely pass instead of forcing water through the filter. Now, there may be a little bit of water making it through, but basic fluid dynamics tells us majority flow is in the path of least resistance. Even if the drives spin inverse of each other creating suction in the center, it still isn't enough.
All of that on top of my now learnt knowledge that WIFI doesn't move through water and the S1 Pro would not be communicating with the app while cleaning, unless you have the "Hydrocomm" buoy. It's only made more clear that this Hydrocomm is not included if you read fine print, but they sure do make sure you THINK it's included by showing off that the S1 "Pro" has these features in the marketing material. Essentially, without the Hydrocomm, pretty much ALL useful app functionality for the Pro model is destroyed. It puts it on par with the standard S1 in the way that you would never really need the app to accomplish the things the robot is capable of. Considering this and it's price difference is a really bad look.
"But what if you get the Hydrocomm?" you may ask. Well, in Definitely David's YouTube video you hear him discuss this. As of now, you cannot buy the Hydrocomm in the U.S. Aiper doesn't sell it. He said he found (somehow) some models in international market but they were going for $250! YIKES!! Paying a premium on the Pro model just to have to shell out another $250 for functions they've proudly advertised? As for the U.S., though, he said in his video that two representatives gave him two different answers, "No, it's no longer in development." and "Yes it will be for sale soon." Someone in the comments section of that video said the rep they talked to said "It is no longer in development currently because the 'technology is not there yet.'" and that sounds like the most real answer to me.
A summation of this is, Aiper designed the S1 Pro to be capable of great smart technologies using their app, by way of a currently in development Hydrocomm buoy. So they advertised the S1 Pro as such. They probably produced a few prototypes Hydrocomms that made it to China, however, back in the R&D shop they've realized they can't actually get their precious buoy to work reliably for the big markets, so they can't sell it. What would a good company do in this situation?
A) remove marketing material for Hydrocomm-related technologies on the S1 Pro and lower the price and credit current S1 Pro owners
B) hire a team/company smarter than them to help develop the Hydrocomm into production, or
C) leave the marketing material up and say/publish nothing public about it AND release ANOTHER new model (Scuba N1 Ultra) advertised with HYDROCOMM-ONLY FEATURES!
If you guessed
C *ding ding ding* you win!
So, after all of this, I went ahead and shot an email over to support with my questions. It should be noted I did learn a few more things I've already discussed AFTER I sent this email which probably would've resulted in more questions sent but, regardless. I don't have a record of exactly what I said as it was on their own website submission page but here's the jist.
I'm having issues with my Scuba S1 Pro.
1. The robot is advertised to have object avoidance technology but it doesn't seem to avoid my return jets at all, which results in it getting blown off the wall.
2. Wall cleaning was working fine at first, but later on in the cleaning cycle it seemed to struggle making it back down the wall. It would reach the top and stop, and the drives would lower their speed allowing the bot to fall off the wall. It would try to correct itself right after it fell off but it's not enough.
3. Later in the cleaning cycle I noticed the drive propellers were quite literally throwing dirt out of them as it was cleaning?
Also some slightly non-related questions. Do you all have firmware updates you plan to release in the future, perhaps to correct any known issues or improve performance? And, where can I purchase the Hydrocomm? I was under the impression that these extra features were included with purchase of the "Pro" model, but even if not, I should be able to purchase the Hydrocomm to use these features. Do you have a release date or do I need to inquire directly to purchase?
This was the response...
Notice how they straight up lie about the fact that their robot has object avoidance technology advertised. I mean for goodness sake the dang thing has robotic eyeballs protruding out the sides... 2 and 3 are incorrect because as I established earlier, the basket wasn't even half full (plus the visual confirmation that the drives literally slowed down on the wall before ramping to 100% after losing grip). And of course they didn't even address the other questions I had not number-pointed.
In conclusion... (TL;DR) in a world where I would keep the S1 Pro, I would probably just use it in floor mode for most of my runs while doing the occasional wall/Auto mode. I'd probably never touch the app again. As far as straight-up cleaning performance, it's pretty good. Not great not bad. To be honest I never really had an expectation of actually removing all dirt from the pool since it's just a robot. However, the ignorant design of the ultra-filter rendering it useless burns me. I don't have an issue hooking it out or plugging in to charge, as I don't think I'd really want to leave my robot in the pool for extended periods anyway. As waterproof as this thing is, UV and salt water are like nature's powerhouse solvent. Essentially, I see almost NO reason to buy the Pro model over the standard S1 right now, as many of its touted features are unusable. I think the standard S1 lives in a place that's just right. For that price, the path intelligence, ease-of-use, and (so far) durability seems to be very good. And even if it does break after the warranty, you hadn't spent a fortune. With the S1 Pro, you get those benefits but without the peace of mind in its cost. If you need the extra capacity/power the Pro has, I'd be looking at our more reputable brands like Dolphin, Polaris, etc. At least if you spend a fortune with them you're more than likely getting a higher quality, stood-behind product with no bullsh*t advertising.
I will likely be returning this robot for the standard S1 and be saving $500, so long as I don't find a better alternative first. I'll let you know if I do. Peace.
