Doheny's Discovery, S200, Active20, Triton owners club

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ctrav said:
I saw no need for the ability to navigate my robot with an app on my phone or from a control unit. Totally cool (I guess) but just not worth the cost in my mind. Also less to go wrong so Im sure I made the right choice with my S200. I do run two cycles most of the time...
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It's a useless feature but it doesn't add any complexity to the unit. It's just software.
 
After all my research, I would have bought the S200, but I kind of wanted the convenience of the cart for storage. With discounts and rebates the S300 (which comes with a cart) was about the same price as the S200 and buying a cart separately. Functionally, I see no real differences between the S200, 300 and 300i. It’s just a huge price difference for a couple seldom or never used added features. In fact, I doubt if the manufacturing cost varies by as much as $20 over the whole S series line.
 
I have the S300i and I use a lot of the advanced features. It’s all about preference - some people want a simple, push-button robot and others, like me, prefer to have more control. I often switch between Standard, Floor-only and Fast Mode. Fast Mode is great in my opinion - a short 1 hour clean cycle where the robot runs at twice the speed and only does the floor. Great for quick cleanups before a party. The scheduling is a little more advanced as well - custom day and time selections. Ultra Mode runs the motor at higher power but the tracks at a slower speed so you can do a very slow, powerful and thorough deep clean (careful as that one might suck the plaster right off the gunite!!).

A note on the tech - the motor in the unit has a chipset that communicates with the power supply. So the motor actually tells the power supply what features are available. The logic that controls user experience is set by the robot and the user’s registration with Maytronics. That makes the PSU’s swapable.

CleverClean is the algorithm used by the robot to “figure out” the pool. PowerThrust are the jets on the side used to turn the robot.

Automation mode is a setting that leaves the robot’s PSU in a “listening” state for an outlet to power-cycle (like how LED pool lights change colors by having the switch quickly turned off then on again). So if you have a Smart Outlet or you use your pool automation to turn an outlet on and off, you can plug the PSU into that outlet and when it senses a power off/on cycle, it runs the robot in whatever mode it was last programmed to. After the cycle is done, the PSU returns to its quiescent state listening for the cycling of the outlet power. So for someone like me with an EasyTouch automation panel, I could do some very advanced scheduling (multiple times per day) if I wanted to go through the trouble of installing a dedicated outlet to one of the ET relays.
 
Quick question guys...
Does the active 20 come with a fine filter?
I was just about to order a e10 and realized that the fine filter is another $70+.

I was thinking if the active 20 comes with maybe i should spend the extra $ to get the next model up. Any opinions?

I have an AGP oval 15x30
 
My Doheny's Discovery came with fine pleated filters and the coarse screen filters. The Discovery is the same model as the S200 and Active20, so they might come with them as well.

I don't like the fine pleated filters because all of the little debris gets caught n the pleats and takes at least twice as long to clean. It's only a few extra minutes, but i need to be back in the pool! :-D Also, the pool is so much cleaner with just the coarse screen filters that I don't care enough about the extra cleanness to deal with the hassle.

Other folks here, some named Matt, will disagree and say they love the fine pleated filters because it makes their pool extra super sparkly. :-D
 
pooldv said:
My Doheny's Discovery came with fine pleated filters and the coarse screen filters. The Discovery is the same model as the S200 and Active20, so they might come with them as well.

I don't like the fine pleated filters because all of the little debris gets caught n the pleats and takes at least twice as long to clean. It's only a few extra minutes, but i need to be back in the pool! :-D Also, the pool is so much cleaner with just the coarse screen filters that I don't care enough about the extra cleanness to deal with the hassle.

Other folks here, some named Matt, will disagree and say they love the fine pleated filters because it makes their pool extra super sparkly. :-D
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You know me all too well, poodles ;)
 
Haha thanks for the quick replies!

Well im thinking if this robot can do alot more of the cleaning thats the less i have to spray off my canister filter. If i dont clean that filter once a week it could easily get out of hand for me.
 
If you order the S200 or Active 20 from Marina pools, they will swap out the filters for the one in the 300i/30i for no charge. It uses the pleated filter, but then you slide a "course" mesh filter sleeve inside that catches the larger debris before it gets to the pleated filters.

I have mine coming this week and feel like that will be the best of both worlds. Being in Arizona, we have fine dirt that will go right through the course filter and negate the point of the robot in the first place. So having the fine pleated filter, plus a "pre-filter" that captures the larger stuff should make cleaning it easier.
 
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The fine pleated filter is very fine. It catches some of the finest dust, which is great, but that also means it must be cleaned to wash that fine dust out. It does take a few minutes extra to backwash everything out.
 

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Just received my S200 from Marinas yesterday. Let it go into a pool that appeared to be a pretty clean (previously serviced by the Baracuda G3) and it came back with quite a bit.

I had Marina ship with the coarse and fine filter. Since I'm in Arizona and it is monsoon season I picked up plenty of dust in the fine filter.

NOTE: Looks like I'm the third person from Arizona to post in this thread in a row. :)
 
So here’s a personal example of the advanced feature use - two nights ago we had a huge lightening storm pass through, lots of wind and some periods of heavy rain. As such, the pool was a mess in the morning.

So I ran a 2-1/2 Standard clean cycle in the morning. At the end of that cycle the bottom of the pool was mostly clean but, after some more afternoon winds, there was a bit more junk in the pool. My son was having a friend over so I decided to do a Fast-Clean cycle (1-hr, floor only). While the kids were in the house playing I noticed that about 40mins into the cycle that bottom was clean except for one spot. So I grabbed my phone and clicked on the App. I then selected Manual Mode, drove the bot over to the leaves I wanted it to get and then took it out of manual mode. When you do that, it returns to the previous cycle it was running and finishes that up (Fast mode). After the fast mode clean was done, the pool bottom was sparkly clean and the kids were swimming.

Could I have gotten those leaves with the skimmer pole? Sure. But it was way more fun to drive the bot over there to do it and it required only enough effort to lift up my phone and use the App. I call that worth it in my book ;)

And, as always, the pleated filters captured a ton of silt and fine particulates while the coarse screen held back all the leaves.
 
saltystevo said:
Haha thanks for the quick replies!

Well im thinking if this robot can do alot more of the cleaning thats the less i have to spray off my canister filter. If i dont clean that filter once a week it could easily get out of hand for me.
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That is exactly right! When I cleaned my cartridge filter last fall after running Gilligan for a year my filter cartridges were cleaner than they've ever been before. I went from 2-3 filter cleanings in spring and fall to once.
 
I am looking to order a s200 from Marina today!
The s200 is 699, s300 849 and s300i is 949.
The caddy isn't that important to me but the bluetooth seems great - are you able to start a cycle from the phone without needing to go outside? It also is likely that Ill probably use this extra feature once or twice and just let it run its normal cycle usually.

anyone else who is in the same boat or made the decision recently- any advise would be great. the s200 is already 699 the difference of 150 or 250 more isn't the biggest deal in the world if its that much better...
thanks!
 
S200 was my choice after going thru what your thinking. Didn’t need a caddy and the coolness of being able to guide it with my phone would soon wear off. Plus that left more money for other toys later :)
 
bretpool81 said:
The caddy isn't that important to me but the bluetooth seems great - are you able to start a cycle from the phone without needing to go outside? It also is likely that Ill probably use this extra feature once or twice and just let it run its normal cycle usually.
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It's bluetooth, so you need to be within 10 meters or so. I've got the Active 30i and I find the the app to be close to useless. The first couple of times that I used it I changed the cycle time, but now I just leave it at 2.5 hours and let it run. I don't eeven bring my phone out to the pool anymore. I just throw the cleaner in and press the start button. When I bought the Active 30i i knew that I probably wasn't going to be using most of the app features, but I wanted the caddie and the longer cleaning cycle.

edit - bluetooth distance is 10 meters (32 feet) not 10 feet
 
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I can sit at my kitchen table and startup the cleaner since the power supply is about 20ft away. So yes, if you leave the cleaner in the pool and the power supply plugged in, you don’t have to be near the unit to start it up. I regularly use different cleaning options (as stated in previous posts) and so, to me, the added functionality of the App, along with the integrated basket and caddy, were well worth the extra cost. I also purchased locally (brick & mortar) because I wanted a physical shop to bring the robot to in case of repairs. The shop offers loaner units if the repair time will exceed a day so that was a bonus too in establishing the purchase with a local vendor. Pool stores are NOT required to do repairs on bots they did not sell even if they are a Dolphin Certified shop so I did not want the hassle and down-time of having to ship it out.

The S-series is a great cleaner line and any of the units will do a great job.
 

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