Aiper Scuba S1 Review

[Katodude]

Well Amazon just delivered it.

It came in a box, in box, in a box. Got the Russian dolls unpacked and here it is.

 

[Katodude]

First order of business get her charged up.

Took out the basket to look. It has a fine mesh style filter. I compared it to the mesh filter on my dolphin and it’s almost identical. So I would expect it to perform similarly.

 

[Katodude]

It only has one set of brushes in the front. So I guess it would be comparable to the E10 model?

 

[Katodude]

Well it’s in the pool. Took about an hour to get fully charged, but I am sure it came mostly charged.

 

[Katodude]

First impressions are not amazing. In auto mode it apparently wants to do the walls until the battery gets to 50%. Well it went into a corner and kept scrubbing the same set of tiles 7 times before I got the net to push it somewhere else.

It has no problem climbing the walls and scrubbing the tile, but it does not move horizontally across the tile line like the dolphins do. It scrubs for a second goes all the way back down, thinks for a second and then moves to the next section of the wall. Seems very inefficient. They call this a N pattern but its not going to get much of the tile line doing it this way.

 

[Katodude]

Well battery life is good, but it’s still new. It ran for over 3 hours. And guess what it cleaned the pool.

Still no full judgement. Need to run it a few more times.

Filter was very easy to clean. It’s back on the charger now.

 

[JoyfulNoise]

That N pattern is exactly how the old Dolphins worked and how they turned themselves - climb the wall, break the surface, fall back down into the water, go on your way … very random uncontrolled process. Then Dolphin started to add the directional thrust ports to make the cleaner tilt and move along the water line tile.

Nice little robots. Definitely looks an E10 equivalent.

 

[Everett_88]

Very interested in this review. I’ve almost bought this 867 different times.

Torn between this and a Polaris VRX iQ

 

[Katodude]

Well you are going to have to wait a week. I ran it once, but now I need to travel for a week so the review will pick up then.

But a few points, after annoying me at the start of the cleaning cycle it did finally start to clean the floor (which was quite dirty). It was dark when it finished but it looked like it picked up everything. The basket came out easily and was very easy to rinse clean. However, I am comparing that to the old style twin baskets of the M500. I have never owned a S200/S300.

I need to test it in Floor only mode and see how it does.

I also need to stick a lot of debris against the tile and see how it does removing that.

One concern that I do have is what happens if I want to end the cycle early? With a powered robot I just turn it off and then pick it up. There is no capability for that here that I know of.

 

[Everett_88]

Well you are going to have to wait a week. I ran it once, but now I need to travel for a week so the review will pick up then.

But a few points, after annoying me at the start of the cleaning cycle it did finally start to clean the floor (which was quite dirty). It was dark when it finished but it looked like it picked up everything. The basket came out easily and was very easy to rinse clean. However, I am comparing that to the old style twin baskets of the M500. I have never owned a S200/S300.

I need to test it in Floor only mode and see how it does.

I also need to stick a lot of debris against the tile and see how it does removing that.

One concern that I do have is what happens if I want to end the cycle early? With a powered robot I just turn it off and then pick it up. There is no capability for that here that I know of.

I’m excited to here what you learn!

I’m interested in how the eco mode works? The mode they runs 45 mins every 48hrs and you just leave the guy in the pool. Seems like a good compromise. Charge and clean once a week? I think that mode only does floors but if you did that weekly and than ran a wall / waterline mode as needed I think you’d be covered.

Thanks again for doing this review!

 

[Katodude]

Hey, you know what. I am going to turn on Eco mode and throw it in the pool while I am away. Let’s see what happens.

 

[Katodude]

Well it’s in the pool, cleaning in Eco mode. Let’s see what the pool looks like when I get back.

I will say it is more deliberate in its cleaning pattern. It is absolutely doing an S pattern around the pool. The Dolphins seem more haphazard. I dont know if one is better than the other. Just an observation.

 

[tcat]

Sounds a lot like the Seagull Pro. Takes less than 3 hours to full charge and runs 3 hours. Mine's a year old and going strong. Runs the same "N" wall pattern, although I normally just do floors. Does tend to go over same area several times, but does get the whole are in a cycle. I don't think the filter is quite fine enough, hopefully they improved it on the S1. Looks like the S1 would have less change of getting struck on the drains.

 

[Katodude]

So far Eco mode is working. Just checked the camera and 48 hours later it’s running around the pool cleaning. Bonus, it can operate while the Betta2 is in the pool.

 

[cssnms]

Mine arrived yesterday. Guess mine was on the slow train.

I feel okay if there are a few shortfalls given the price, but sounds mostly positive so far.

 

[curtisimo81]

I'm interested to see how it works for you. I'm sitting here debating on buying one since mu booster pump took a Crud once again.

 

[Katodude]

Just checked the camera again. 48 hours later its working again.

 

[Katodude]

So I did not see it on the camera yesterday. Either I missed it, or it did not run. Anyway took it out of the pool last night gave it a full charge and just dropped it in for a full clean.

Sometime this week I am going to run the M500 right after I pull it out to see what it misses.

 

[Katodude]

Also I am not crazy about having to use a pole and hook to get the robot out. It is not easy to grab with the hook. I also have to remove my net to put the hook on.

So I just found a cheap pole on Amazon for $10. Going to try having a dedicated hook for removing it.

It also interesting it climbs the stairs but does not clean the stairs while climbing them. I did not expect it to clean stairs but it would have been a bonus.

 

[tcat]

Agreed with the hook. I think either the hook or the plastic is going to break everytime I pull my Seagull Pro out. I bought a pole at HD that I use for hook & brush. Since I seldom brush the pool anymore, it's pretty much just for the hook.