I know there are lots of posts about robotic pool cleaner recommendations, but I wanted to list my specific needs to get the best recommendation. My Polaris 9450 finally failed. I think water got into the cable connection on the robot. Besides this, its pretty beat up. It has served us very well for seven years. No complaints at all.
So, I’m ready to buy a new robot and I’m blown away by the vast array of models offered by each manufacturer, and they all seem so close to each other in feature/function. At the end of the day, I want to drop a robot in the pool, press a button and have it do its job. Cool features are good if they are something I’ll use. I’m wide open with regard to manufacturer, model and price. I do like the fact that the Polaris has a caddy but thats not a deal breaker.
Our pool is large, probably 40K gallons. It’s 50 ft x 15 ft at the wides point. The shallow end is 3-4 ft and the deep end is 8 ft. It has one small bench and a tanning ledge. The Polaris didn’t go onto the tanning ledge which is fine. It also has a large vanishing edge tank that I would drop the Polaris into periodically, so whatever I get needs to be nimble enough to navigate the VE tank (probably 4 ft wide by 25 ft long). I assume most are. Like I said, the Polaris did a good job. If I had any gripes they would be bin capacity and speed. Due to the size of the pool I would often have to empty the bin and send it on another pass. Two passes was probably 4 to 5 hours. We do not cover our pool in the winter so it has its work cut out for it during those months.
Given that the 9450 was a fairly basic machine, are there must-have features that I should consider? Maybe knowing this will help me wind down my choices. Is mobile app important? If you have a specific brand/model that is working well for you in a similar pool, please share. I’m not too worried about price, but if a $900 cleaner will work as well as a $1,500 cleaner than I will certainly go with the value decision. If the high-end unit is truly better then thats fine too.
Priorities: gets the pool clean with no fuss, reliable, reasonable speed, reasonable capacity, parts/service availability.
Thank you in advance.
Dave
So, I’m ready to buy a new robot and I’m blown away by the vast array of models offered by each manufacturer, and they all seem so close to each other in feature/function. At the end of the day, I want to drop a robot in the pool, press a button and have it do its job. Cool features are good if they are something I’ll use. I’m wide open with regard to manufacturer, model and price. I do like the fact that the Polaris has a caddy but thats not a deal breaker.
Our pool is large, probably 40K gallons. It’s 50 ft x 15 ft at the wides point. The shallow end is 3-4 ft and the deep end is 8 ft. It has one small bench and a tanning ledge. The Polaris didn’t go onto the tanning ledge which is fine. It also has a large vanishing edge tank that I would drop the Polaris into periodically, so whatever I get needs to be nimble enough to navigate the VE tank (probably 4 ft wide by 25 ft long). I assume most are. Like I said, the Polaris did a good job. If I had any gripes they would be bin capacity and speed. Due to the size of the pool I would often have to empty the bin and send it on another pass. Two passes was probably 4 to 5 hours. We do not cover our pool in the winter so it has its work cut out for it during those months.
Given that the 9450 was a fairly basic machine, are there must-have features that I should consider? Maybe knowing this will help me wind down my choices. Is mobile app important? If you have a specific brand/model that is working well for you in a similar pool, please share. I’m not too worried about price, but if a $900 cleaner will work as well as a $1,500 cleaner than I will certainly go with the value decision. If the high-end unit is truly better then thats fine too.
Priorities: gets the pool clean with no fuss, reliable, reasonable speed, reasonable capacity, parts/service availability.
Thank you in advance.
Dave
