Aqua Products Evo 614iq first impressions (3 weeks of use):
In a nutshell; good suction, turns on a dime, not good for settled dust.
I finally replaced my Dolphin Active 30i/S300 (same guts as S200) after replacing the motor and every other moving part over 2 years, so this is also a comparison to that unit.
Overall General Cleaning:
Not quite as good as the Dolphin but comparable for typical environments, although I have noticed that it seems to miss more areas than the Dolphin even if I run back-to-back cycles.
Suction:
Seems a little stronger than the Dolphin. My landscaper likes to blow small pebbles into the pool and I usually have to dive down and pick them up by hand, but the Evo was able to suck up a few of them.
Filter/Basket:
Works well for medium to large debris, and very easy to dump and replace (the Dolphin dual filter was awesome but a little more of a chore). One concern is that very small debris is ejected from the top port of the Evo throughout the cleaning cycle. It’s not a significant amount, and it’s very possible that I would see the same from a new Dolphin if I watched it as closely. I think this could be improved if there was a little better seal between the lid and the basket (more on that below).
In regard to fine dust in the desert SW, unfortunately it’s a fail. After a couple good AZ storms, I’ve been able to really get a good look at how it handles settled dust. In short, it just re-circulates it. The Dolphin would collect the dust and it would cake together like mud between the dual filter surfaces...a bit of a mess to rinse out, but a sure sign that it was working. The Evo filter doesn’t hold any of the dust, just larger grains of sand. At the very best, maybe (maybe) the Evo helps circulate some of the dust to the pool drains, but either way I’m still having to manually sweep a lot more with my pool brush. I think this could possibly be resolved if there was an optional 2-stage filter system similar to the Dolphin.
I’ve said it before, and obviously this more of a specific regional issue, but in the SW we get a layer of this dust on the bottom of our pools after every storm, it’s too much for in-floor pop-ups to circulate it back to the main pool drains and filter, but it’s also light enough that many self-contained vacs will just suck it up and blow it right back into the pool.
Wall/Waterline Cleaning:
Not nearly as good as the Dolphin (when the Dolphin would actually climb walls). The pool I have now is basically a rectangle, and after watching the Evo go back and forth over multiple cycles, I can’t figure out the pattern. It will climb the wall on one side and hover at the water line nicely, then go back down, do a 180, and head to the wall on the other side, but on that side it might only go about a quarter of the way up. After a few more passes it gets up to the water line on the second side, but then only partially up the first side. No apparent rhyme or reason, and it seems to miss a lot of spots along the bottom of the wall where it curves into the floor. With the dolphin it seemed like, if it found a wall, it just knew to climb it until it reached the surface, then scrub along the water line.
The Evo also seems a little less smart when it does reach the water line. Once it gets there, it stays in the same spot (no lateral movement). I guess that one spot gets a good scrub, but I was always impressed by the Dolphin’s ability to thrust-vector itself along the surface a few inches before it dropped back down (again, only cool when it actually worked). Something about the waterline cleaning with the Evo also makes me think it’s going to burn through tracks fairly quickly.
Removal:
When I remove the Evo from the pool by the handle as directed, water flows out immediately, so it gets much lighter much quicker than the Dolphin which was quite heavy and slow to drain, BUT it will dump a lot of dirty water back into the pool from the top port if you just lift it straight out. You really have to be deliberate when you pull it out as not to let the dirty water escape through the top or the back. I think part of the problem is a poor seal between the lid and the basket and the other problem is that everything in the basket area slopes directly toward the top and rear ports as you pull the unit from the water (good for quick water evacuation, not so good for debris retention). When I open the lid after the unit has been pulled out of the water, I can see a trail of sediment from the bottom of the basket up through the gasket where the lid comes down.
Oddly enough there seems to be less of an issue with this when using the Lift feature (only on the IQ model with the app). I didn’t plan on using the app much, but I was curious about this feature, so I tried it out. With the propeller continuing to spin as the bot climbs up to the surface, the flow and pressure seems to keep the dirty water in and only clean water coming out.
Modes:
The Evo just has two modes; Floor Only, or Floor/Walls/Waterline. I like that it’s simple, but I do miss the Waterline Only mode on the Dolphin, and I don’t see the Evo handling the waterline very well in everything-mode.
Less-tangle Cable:
I appreciate that there was a more robust attempt at a tangle-free cable, but I'm not sure how much good it will do. I will say it’s much easier to get things sorted out once you do get twisted... the built-in anti-tangle device makes it much easier to relax a twisted cable, and the quick-connect on the controller end makes it a breeze to unplug, unwind, and reconnect.
I don’t see any significant improvement for these in the future short of someone actually changing the shape to something that is maybe more horizontal on the floating/surface end and curves down more vertical on the submerged end (with the spinner in the vertical section), then add a couple anti-rotation fins on the horizontal surface end. Or something like that.
I also don’t love that the cable is at the front of the bot. It always seems to be in the way when opening and closing the lid, and when placing the bot in the pool and trying to turn it away from the wall (which is recommended)... and I personally prefer a clearer representation of a front and back on a cleaner (this one looks a little backwards), but that’s just me.
App:
I didn’t think I’d use the app for much, but I had the impression that it was necessary if you wanted the ability to update controller firmware (and I did pay extra for it). It connects seamlessly via Bluetooth, and fairly simply to wifi. It doesn’t have as many bells and whistles as the MyDolphin app but it is more responsive. One thing I’ve found kind of useful is that it can send a push notification to my iphone when it completes a cycle... that means on a particularly dirty day or night I can start a new cycle from the app immediately after the first cycle finishes without having to go out to the pool.
Thoughts for now:
It’s not as smart as the Active 30/S300 and certainly didn’t blow me away in any performance aspect, but if it lasts longer than the Dolphin, I’d recommend it for basic pool cleaning (especially since it’s slightly less expensive). If you live in the desert SW however, I would stick with something that has a better filter system, even if it’s a little more expensive.
I think it would take a pretty major revision to improve things like overall coverage and wall/waterline cleaning, but other things like a 2-stage filter and a better seal could be easier fixes (my vote would be to call that a “basket gasket”!).
Mind you, I've never been good at video games so we shall see...
I doubt the seal is perfect, but I would not expect it be so bad that all the dirty water would flow right past it.. 
