Convince me a robot is better...

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S

SoCalGuy

0
Nov 16, 2015
171
San Diego
Hey all,

Our 7 year-old Hayward Navigator is getting a little long in the tooth, so I'm looking at getting a new cleaner.

I'm open to getting a robot, but still not convinced they're worth the extra coin. Help me out. The Navigator did a decent job of cleaning our pool. Is a $1000 robot really going to do a significantly better job and cost less in the long run than another $300 non-robot cleaner?

Thanks in advance.
 
My signature has a link to my S300i thread.

Here's the biggest plus for me - I saved money switching to a robot! Before a robot, I had to run my suction cleaner using the VSP at speeds over 2000RPMs to get everything to flow and move right. After switching to a robot, I was able to drop my pump speed significantly to a point where I run my pump around 8 hours a day (at various speeds) but only use a total of 2.8kWh doing so (so about $0.36 per day). Before that, my pump was costing me more like $1 per day. Also, the cleaner does such an amazing job that I only have to run it every 2 days or so whereas my old suction cleaner stayed in the pool and ran all the time.

Are robots expensive? Yep. Are they worlds apart from pump driven cleaners? Definitely.
 
SoCalGuy said:
Thanks Matt. We run the Navigator 3 hrs a day @ 2350 and it keeps the pool clean. Haven't done the math, but it seems pretty efficient.
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At 2350RPM, your VSP is pulling close to 1kW of electrical power. A robot uses about 200-250W. The standard cleaning cycle on a robot is about 2 hours. You can figure out any electrical savings from there.
 
A robot will filter your water in addition to the pool pump. I have the oasis z5 and it has a finer filter than my cartridge filter. It filters 4350 gallons per hour, so that means on a cycle, my cleaner itself is turning over my pool water. It's allowed me to drop my VS pump to between 600rpm and 950rpm (for SWG). My pump uses 43 watts per hour at 950rpm compared to 610 watts at 2400rpm which is what I had to run it at for my suction cleaner. That's a huge savings. Now my pump only costs me about $1.30 a month to run, and that's for 20 hours a day.

Robots don't get stuck like suction cleaners and you know it's getting the whole pool. My suction cleaner would do part of the pool but always miss about half since it was so random. Also, with a robot, all the leaves, sand and debris is going into a separate filter, not your pool one, so you have to clean, backwash less. If you have a cartridge filter, it will last longer.

In addition, a robot scrubs so I don't have to brush my walls any more. Suction cleaners don't do that.

My pool is so much cleaner since switching and it's less work.
 
Matt - based on your numbers I'm not sure we'd see any energy savings with a robot. We're only burning around 3kW a day total (pump runs for 3 hrs @ 2850rpm with suction split between the skimmer and the cleaner). You're consuming about 2.8kW a day with about half the water. Am I missing something?

Umpmanjoe - we have a DE filter and it seems to filter pretty well. The Nav did occasionally get stuck in some spots -more often as parts wore. We have some nooks around the steps that are particularly challenging for the Nav, but I wonder if any cleaner could get to them.
 
The example that many have given after switching from other types of cleaners to a robot is that they ran their robot immediately after having run their previous cleaner and were quite surprised by the debris that the robot collected. No better testimonial in my mind.

We have generally small to fine debris (leaves are not a big issue for us due to our site and autocover). Our pressure side cleaner was woefully inadequate at capturing fine dust-like debris that settled on the bottom.
 
You think that thing cleans the pool until you have a robot that really does. This is another thing we hear over and over. If there is something out there that cleans better, I can't imagine it.
 
Yes, de filters are efficient, but it still is getting all the sand and debris your suction cleaner is sucking up. With a robot cleaner, none of that is going into your de. I have the Oasis z5 robot. It costs about 5 cents an hour to run.

If you have a vs pump, you can eliminate that high speed you are running it at and run your pump really low.

For me, it's not so much as the electric, but the fact that my water is cleaner, my main pool filter is cleaner and doesn't need to be cleaned as much and most importantly, I don't have to brush the pool anymore.

I paid $975 for my unit and it has a 3 year warranty. If it dies at the end of 3 years, that means I paid $325 a year for it. To me, the advantages are worth that $325. Pool companies in my area charge $90-$110 a month to clean pools once a week. And the biggest reason to hire them is for the vacuuming and brushing.

On the other side, a decent suction cleaner (I had the mx8) cost $400
 

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I bought a Dolphin Active 30i last year and cleaning the pool is virtually a non-chore. My pool is 60' x 20', the vacuum hose in the skimmer was an hour long chore and a real PITA. "Robbie" is out cleaning the pool for me while I'm drinking a cold one in front of a ball game. It's a no brainer. Do it now, do it now, do it now. You won't be sorry.
 
SoCalGuy said:
Matt - based on your numbers I'm not sure we'd see any energy savings with a robot. We're only burning around 3kW a day total (pump runs for 3 hrs @ 2850rpm with suction split between the skimmer and the cleaner). You're consuming about 2.8kW a day with about half the water. Am I missing something?
Click to expand...

Im including the added features I have that require a higher speed.
 
Newbie here. Lots of good suggestions on this site, but still unsure about a robot or not. Just put in a 17x37 fiberglass free form pool. Stairs, ledges seating areas all over. How does a robot deal with that and which is the best for kind of pool. I have the basic come-with-the-pool suction head and does a lousy job. Fair amount of dirt and tree droppings as the concrete was recently poured but landscaping hasn't been done yet. Live in the southeast and probably best to wait till the fall for that so cleaning needs done often. Not opposed to spending money for a robot but also don't want to waste it. I'm retired now so if manually cleaning is the best option the time doesn't bother me. Did like the comments about how much cleaner the pool is with a robot though.

thanks for any suggestions.
 
Thanks for the input everyone.

Putting aside energy comparisons - which I think are hard to make unless someone out there has actually used a brand new Nav and a new robotic cleaner back-to back - do robots really clean better than a well-functioning suction cleaner? Do they pick up more dirt? Finer dirt? Heavier debris?

Matt - How long and at what speeds do you run your pump? Just curious why you run it 8 hrs in addition to your robot.

Umpmanjoe - you seem to like your robot mostly because you feel the robot's filter keeps your pool cleaner than using just the cartridge filter. In my case the DE filter only needs a backwash every six months and a total scrub down every year. I wonder if a robot would just be adding another thing to the list of things that need to be cleaned. How often do you clean the filter in the robot?
 
I spray down the filters every other use but I really don't have to, it's just a habit. It literally takes 30 seconds.

As far as comparing it to suction, I have used several suction cleaners from the barracuda disc style to the mx8 and the Hayward navigator. The robot absolutely does a better job at cleaning my pool. It doesn't miss anything, gets all the little sand in the bottom and scrubs the walls and waterline. My last suction cleaner was the mx8. I tried the Hayward navigator right before buying my robot at the recommending of a friend who owns a pool company and discouraged me from buying the robot.
 
Our Nav has no trouble sucking up sand and fine dirt, even at its age. It never did climb up to the waterline, or get on steps. Our pool walls are steep and I don't know if any cleaner would be able to. Maybe I'm underestimating robots. This year I cut back a lot of landscaping around the pool and there's much less debris in the pool than there used to be.

A couple of years ago I hired a pool company to maintain our pool for a few months while I was recovering from knee surgery. They did a great job, kept the pool spotless. The owner was a good guy, knew his stuff, no b.s. I asked him about cleaners. He had nothing bad to say about robots, but wasn't a big fan. He said he keeps a dozen or so Navs and Poolvergneugens on hand and puts them in his customers' pools between visits - sometimes in place of the customers' own robots. He liked them because they cleaned well, were simple to use, didn't break down, didn't require constant cleaning, parts were easy to get and they were simple to repair. He said for value, durability, efficiency and overall ease-of-use that's what he'd recommend. So there you go. That's what got me wondering if a robot is really "better".
 
At the end of the day, what one person considers valuable and reasonable is purely an individual and personal decision. Those of us that switched to robots did so for very specific reasons and I have yet to see a post that's entitled - "Switched to a robot and it ruined my life...". My specific reasons, along with pictures of the fine silt that my robot can pick up, are in my signature link. You're welcome to go look at that thread if you like.

Clearly you are happy with your Hayward Navigator and it runs in a manner that you find easy and efficient. So, honestly, there is no reason for you to switch to a robot and there's no point to asking people to "convince" you otherwise when you're clearly happy with what you have.

If you truly are interested in robots, then I would suggest you call around to some pool shops in your area and ask if they have any loaner models you can test drive. Two of the three shops I contacted had such loaners available because they do repairs and want their customers to have a cleaner if the repair is going to take more than a day or two. They also use the loaners as demonstration units. If you're interested in what a robot can do for you, then that's the best way to determine if a robot is right for you.

As for my pump schedule, I run a low speed slow skim feature for most of day (9am - 5pm) and then inside that feature I bump up the speed as needed for chlorine production (4 hours) and a 90min run of my spa spillway. If all I wanted to do was filter and generate chlorine, I could compress that all into one 4 hour block. Typically in the winter when the pool is not in use, my pump only runs about 2 hours per day. Having the robot means I can now clean my pool without needing the pump and dealing with cold hoses that don't flex well and requires higher flow rates to get a suction vac to move.
 
Thanks Matt. I clicked on the links in your signature but couldn't find any pictures of the silt your robot picks up. I'd be interested in seeing those.

I wasn't expecting to hear that a robot "ruined anyone's life"... lol... just curious why some people seem so ga ga over them. Yes, the Nav has worked well in our pool. I may end up just replacing it with another. But I'm open to anything that's better, faster, easier when it comes to the pool, and I don't mind paying for it if it works. One thing about robots that turns me off is that they apparently can't be left in the pool. The Nav spent most of its life in the water. It only came out for repairs or when people were using the pool. Dragging a robot out of the pool after every use doesn't particularly appeal to me.

A demo is a great idea. I'll talk to the local pool store and see if they have one. Thanks again for the input.
 
Here's some silt. I have it pretty much daily when it's windy and dry. Which, is a lot of days out here. What these things can do is pretty impressive. I don't have this much daily, but let a few days pass or a good sand storm or two, and it adds up pretty fast.

 
They say they can't be left in the pool, and they aren't upposed to be, but we all do it. And who says you have to remove them after each cycle? You might want too if it's a heavy duty cycle, but I don't every time. It just depends on what was in there. Robots actually clean the pool unlike some of the other products or systems, and none of this junk winds up in your filter.
 

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