Dolphin Robotic Cleaners

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CrashingMetal

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Mar 11, 2013
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Hello -

I am new to this board. I've been looking at pool robots and I'm getting dizzy. I've scaled it down the brand I want and now need to choose the model. My pool is 16x32 in-ground. My finalists are the following:

Dolphin Nautilus
Dolphin Quest
Dolphin Premier (A bit out of my price range)

Does anyone own these or know about them. Any help is greatly appreciated!

Eric
 
I'm really glad to hear that. I almost bought an Aquabot until I started seeing very consistent reviews on the Dolphin product. The other brands are very inconsistent. After reading up on the 3 models it seems that remote controls, cable length and other external factors are what differentiates the different Dolphin models. I believe the performance is all the same. (I hope)

Eric
 
FYI. There is a private labelled model called the Dolphin Sprite Plus that several stores are selling out on the web and eBay. Should be somewhere in the 600-700 dollar range and is very comparable to the DX4 or Nautilus and includes a caddy.
 
I actually found the Dolphin Triton for $699 +$99 for remote and caddy with free shipping and no tax. Looking forward to trying it. It seems that the Maytronics product in general is solid regardless of the model. (hoping)
 
It's brand new. I did a ton of research because I was skeptical. The price was substantially lower than every place I've seen it and I even called Maytronics to get info on the reseller. The company is http://www.doheny.com/. Maytronics said it was their best reseller and I should not worry.
They were back ordered and told me it would ship directly from Maytronics. I followed up with Maytronics to confirm. They confirmed.
 

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Anybody familiar with the Dolphin Discovery that Doheny's is selling? It looks like a private label but I can't find any reviews or figure out other names it could be selling under.

They have the cleaner with remote and caddy for $899, currently.
 
kammel78 said:
Anybody familiar with the Dolphin Discovery that Doheny's is selling? It looks like a private label but I can't find any reviews or figure out other names it could be selling under.

They have the cleaner with remote and caddy for $899, currently.
Click to expand...

Looks interesting. Remote with caddy, free shipping. Price is right. I've haven't seen any other robotic cleaner that had a shape like that.
 
The closest match I could find is a private label model they're doing for Leslie's called the Dolphin Deluxe 5 for $1499. http://www.lesliespool.com/Home/Automatic-Pool-Cleaners/Robotic/84321.html

There are a few minor differences in the description (length of the cord) but it looks the same.

I went ahead and pulled the trigger and ordered one, should be here today, so over the weekend I'll test her out and give everyone an update.
 
So, I've got the Discovery up and running now. Please keep in mind I'm a first time pool owner with no experience other than with my old Hayward Navigator suction side cleaner.

Extremely easy to assemble the cart, plug everything up and get it up and running. Probably took me 10 minutes to read the manual and get her in the water. I could see immediately how effective it was by the paths of clean bottom it left. Went up my walls a couple of times fairly easily. Seemed a little awkward to me when it gets to the top of the wall it kinda falls backwards and the floats stabilize it and then it sort of drifts back to the wall and continues cleaning. Not sure how normal that is but thought I'd mention it anyway.

Let it run its first 3 hour cycle and opened up to get the filter bag, and dang it was filled with all kinds of crud I didn't even know were in the pool. I was concerned about how difficult it would be to clean the filter bag, but I just turned it inside out, hung it over a hose reel I have and hosed it off. Couple of minutes later and it was clean! Pretty easy. They do recommend tossing them in a washing machine once every couple of months. Did a good job of picking up small leaves, some twigs, sand and bugs. After seeing all that, I'm glad that I'm catching it before it hits my sand filter. Makes a nice "pre-filter".

Remote works well. It's not like an RC car, obviously, it's a little slow responding to the commands but absolutely functional for getting any spots it might have missed in the pre-programming.

The roller brush it comes with is a "Combined Brush" for "rough ceramic surface and mosaic tiles". They do offer a "PVC Brush" for "concrete, PVC, fiberglass and liner" as well as a "Wonder Brush" for "smooth ceramics". I'm not sure if the PVC Brush would clean my plaster any better than the Combined Brush. It looks like the Wonder brush is all foam, the PVC brush is all rubber brushes and the Combined has both rubber and some foam.

Like I mentioned before, it came with a filter bag, but there is an optional filter cartridge that requires you purchase the frame to hold the filters (around $100) and you can buy replacement filter cartridges. Again, not sure the effectiveness but the filter bag seems to be working pretty well for me.

I like the extra long 60ft cable and the included cart is not heavy duty by any means, but it seems like it will hold up well.

Of course, the ultimate test will be to see how many seasons it will last but Maytronics (manufacturer of Dolphin) does have a 2 year warranty so we'll see. So far, I'm happy with the value and performance (after one day, mind).

Any questions, feel free to ask. BTW, it was $899 with cart and remote with a 10% coupon code and free shipping.
 
How did the remote work. Did the cleaner run in any kind of a pattern? How long did it take to get the whole pool clean? I'm still on the fence. I'm looking at the Dolphin DX 5 plus. It's $145 more, but has a 3 year warranty.
 
The remote is pretty basic. You can use it to switch between Normal Clean, Quick Clean and Manual. Manual mode is a little awkward in that it takes a few seconds for the signals to reach the robot and for the robot to move, so it takes a little practice. Think more like a remote control tank than a remote control car, but like I said, you can easily use it to get it to hit spots it may have missed previously. It's not something that I'd use all the time.

The pattern seemed random to me and nothing that I could recognize that it was repeating. I ran it on 3 3-hour cycles (keep in mind this is the first real cleaning I've given my pool. First time there was a ton of Crud, second time a little less and the third time it was just a little bit of gunk. You can run it in a Quick Cycle that lasts 1 hour and does not climb walls.

The DX 5 looks to be fairly similar (minus the remote). Where did you see the 3 year warranty? Pool Supply World has it for $749 but states a 2 year warranty.
 
I was looking at the DX 5 Plus. Comes with remote, pool caddy and 3 year warranty for $1045. I have also been looking at the Aquabot Elite RC. I'm actually leaning toward that. When I got the bug up my rear to get a robotic pool cleaner I did a little research then I went into the store to see if they had anything in stock. I told them what I was looking for. They wanted to sell me a Polaris 9300 with remote. But that was more expensive. Then the guy from Aquabot came into the store. He told me he'd get me the Elite RC, with caddy, remote and 3 year warranty for the same price as the Dolphin DX 5 Plus. I asked him about the split rollers. The Dolphin has split rollers, but the Elite doesn't. I don't see any real advantage but I noticed the more expensive Aquabots also have split rollers. He doesn't know what the advantage of split rollers is, but he tells me he will have a tech guy contact me. Tech guy e-mails me a sales brochure for the elite and that's it. Well I left it there for a couple of weeks. Now I'm back in research mode. I read the brochure for the Elite. I notice the Elite has two suction openings, just like the Dolphin, two motors, just like the Dolphin. But the Aquabot Elite has two small wheels on the bottom. They call them "never stuck" rollers. It also has what they refer to as "deep clean washing jets". They shoot a stream of water beneath the cleaner to dislodge dirt. So I'm really interested to hear about your experience. A few more questions if you don't mind. Does the Discovery have one motor or two? When you run it on "quick clean" does it move faster, less time cleaning the walls and water line, or just a shorter amount of time. Does it seem well made, solid plastic? Thanks for the info.
 

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