So this just happened....

[kul]

How long did your Kreepy last?
I can understand the appeal of the lower cost parts on the suction vacuum, which is also what I have for my pool. However, I sometimes wish I had a robot so that I didn’t have to run my pump. It’s a small thing, but maybe worth thinking about. The manual vacuuming is such a chore, but also more thorough. Gosh.

 

[JoyfulNoise]

How long did your Kreepy last?
I can understand the appeal of the lower cost parts on the suction vacuum, which is also what I have for my pool. However, I sometimes wish I had a robot so that I didn’t have to run my pump. It’s a small thing, but maybe worth thinking about. The manual vacuuming is such a chore, but also more thorough. Gosh.

My KK Sandshark was only about 4 years old when I “traded up” for a robot. There really wasn’t anything wrong with it; it probably needed some “new (rubber) shoes” but that’s about it. It definitely did not clean as well as the robot but that’s to be expected. It would be nice to be able to automate the valve that controls the intake between my skimmer and the suction wall port that I have but I’m currently using the extra valve relay on my ET-8 to control my spa spillover/make-up return. I could always just leave both suction sources open and simply add a schedule to kick up the speed of the pump which then makes the sandshark move properly but having a automated valve is more elegant in my opinion. So that’s a slight downside to the suction cleaner in that I can’t automate it as easily. On the plus side, sand sharks are stupid-simple to fix and they have so few moving parts that they really can take a lot of abuse before they break. They also don’t climb walls very well so I’d be back to having to brush regularly to keep the tile/walls clean. There’s certainly a lot more power draw when using a suction cleaner and I think one of my earlier posts in this thread compared the power needed by my pump versus the power needed by the robot. Electrical rates are relatively cheap here so there’s not a huge savings relative to other areas of the country.

I think I’ll wait for my tax return this year and see what I get. That may make it easier to pull the lever one way or the other …

1st World Problems

 

[setsailsoon]

Matt,

This is of course all about personal preference. If it were me I'd go for an S200 or look-alike. That's what I'll be doing for the next pool. Right now we're waiting on concrete. Used to order and have it in 3 days or less. Now it's 3 weeks... that's another thread though. Looks like there are several sites that offer the Nautilus at around $600 vs $900 for the S200. The only big difference seems to be water line cleaning. That would be a tough choice and probably depends on $ available for me. I hope to be making that choice later this year with my new pool but looks like supply chain may move that to next year.

Good luck, and I hope your next bot gives you a couple more years at least!

Chris

 

[JoyfulNoise]

Welp, no joy this morning it seems. Robot keeps throwing out of water errors. I’m calling him dead and I guess I will be shopping for a pool cleaner sooner than I had hoped

 

[Saturn94]

Welp, no joy this morning it seems. Robot keeps throwing out of water errors. I’m calling him dead and I guess I will be shopping for a pool cleaner sooner than I had hoped

Threads like this motivate me to keep my Polaris 280; 10 years old and still performing well with a minimum investment in replacement parts.

 

[wireform]

I still like the polaris line of robots since it seems that parts are more available. I've done repairs on the 9300, 9400 and 9500 series which are very similar. Motor blocks are available although expensive and plastic drive parts are available all over the web.

 

[Selenap]

After going round and round and round between Dolphin and Aiper, I chose Aiper. The corded version. So far it’s picked up things I didn’t imagine, like grit. It actually climbs the wall. Mine can’t be programmed for a daily schedule though and it has a 3 hour maximum runtime. Juan gives me joy. I hope yours does too.

 

[JoyfulNoise]

After going round and round and round between Dolphin and Aiper, I chose Aiper. The corded version. So far it’s picked up things I didn’t imagine, like grit. It actually climbs the wall. Mine can’t be programmed for a daily schedule though and it has a 3 hour maximum runtime. Juan gives me joy. I hope yours does too.

I’ve been looking at Aiper’s offerings. Honestly, if they have good customer service I think they’ll end beating Dolphin because Maytronics is so stuck in siding with their distribution channel rather than the individual owner. They don’t want people price shopping or getting their stuff through e-commerce and I think it’s eventually going to do them in unless they change with the market.

 

[Katodude]

I think you have rose colored memory on your suction side cleaner. It probably did not clean the whole pool. Got stuck in weird places. Remember why you bought a robot in the first place.

 

[kul]

I just wish the robots weren’t so pricey. It’s pretty outrageous, but it’s slim pickings so I guess that’s just how it is.

 

[JoyfulNoise]

I think you have rose colored memory on your suction side cleaner. It probably did not clean the whole pool. Got stuck in weird places. Remember why you bought a robot in the first place.

Probably true.

I think the main drawback to the suction cleaner was not being able to fully automate so it ran all the time but I probably underpowered it most of the time it ran. Unlike a pressure side cleaner where you likely have to switch on a booster pump and off it goes, the KK moved around the pool but it likely had weak suction 90% of the time. I usually kick up the pool pump RPMs when running the spillover so it was likely during those times that it cleaned the best. Since the spillover runs only 30mins twice a day, that’s really not adequate for the suction cleaner.

Robots are certainly great at cleaning. As others have said, it would be nice if they lasted longer or if repairs were less costly.

 

[Saturn94]

I’ve been looking at Aiper’s offerings. Honestly, if they have good customer service I think they’ll end beating Dolphin because Maytronics is so stuck in siding with their distribution channel rather than the individual owner. They don’t want people price shopping or getting their stuff through e-commerce and I think it’s eventually going to do them in unless they change with the market.

Those cordless Aiper models look sweet. Out of curiosity, I tried to find the replacement cost of the battery, but couldn’t find anything. I’m betting not cheap.

 

[Saturn94]

…As others have said, it would be nice if they lasted longer or if repairs were less costly.

This!

 

[JoyfulNoise]

Those cordless Aiper models look sweet. Out of curiosity, I tried to find the replacement cost of the battery, but couldn’t find anything. I’m betting not cheap.

Ask a Tesla owner (or even a Toyota hybrid owner) how much their battery system costs to replace

 

[Saturn94]

Ask a Tesla owner (or even a Toyota hybrid owner) how much their battery system costs to replace

I think I would require medication before I asked.

 

[Mdragger88]

I love my nautilus cc - it was just under $500 last year as a refurb unit from poolpartz- I purchased w/ my cc so I would have an extra year warranty as the refurbs are only a 1 yr warranty. It shipped directly from maytronics. It looked brand new. Their stock availability really fluctuates. One week- no bots - the next week - lots o bots.
I don’t mind just the 1 brush & it has the cord length, scheduler & automation mode I desired but at the lower price point. I liked the color scheme of the cayman but I missed the bus on it with my procrastination .
It doesn’t go sideways but it still cleans the waterline quite well. Not sure if 2 brushes would make all that much difference for me since i have vinyl anyway.

 

[setsailsoon]

I love my nautilus cc - it was just under $500 last year as a refurb unit from poolpartz- I purchased w/ my cc so I would have an extra 00year warranty as the refurbs are only a 1 yr warranty. It shipped directly from maytronics. It looked brand new. Their stock availability really fluctuates. One week- no bots - the next week - lots o bots.
I don’t mind just the 1 brush & it has the cord length, scheduler & automation mode I desired but at the lower price point. I liked the color scheme of the cayman but I missed the bus on it with my procrastination .
It doesn’t go sideways but it still cleans the waterline quite well. Not sure if 2 brushes would make all that much difference for me since i have vinyl anyway.

Nice to know, thanks! I really liked the sideways motion for water line cleaning but not really work $300 more!

 

[cowboycasey]

This is kind of crazzy timing.. My Active 60 just died and will not start or do anything.. No error other that cant communicate only after I tell it to start a cleaning.. Any other time it can talk to it just fine... It has only been cleaning the pool for almost 5 months.. June to Oct 2021 and 2 weeks this year..

My "the pool cleaner" took 2 days to clean my uncovered pool spotless.. The Active has been running 2 weeks (or maybe 1 or 2 days because it does not tell you when it runs) and my pool is still dirty.. Had to drop the pool cleaner in yesterday and I bet today it will be clean.. To the robots defense it only runs 2 hours and the pool cleaner runs the entire time the pump runs..

We will see exactly how long it takes to figure out what is going on..

On another note I HATE how they do updates to the robots.. They do not tell you on the phone they did an update.. You have to unplug the robot after an update.. so it does nothing till you start up the app and it says updating the robot, the last time I let it stay there "updating" and it stayed updating for 3 days... Now I just wait 10 minutes and unplug it, wait 2 minutes and plug it back in.. Is anyone else having this issue?

 

[JoyfulNoise]

I saw the Active60 on a local pool store website and wondered if anyone out there has taken the plunge. Sounds like you need a warranty service on it.

Honestly I have never liked Dolphin’s App interface or their customer service/customer engagement - it’s terrible. It seems to me to be something that they don’t put a lot of focus or effort into which is strange considering how everything is moving towards smartphone controls and people really don’t want to deal with the retail shops when there’s an issue. But that’s generally true of the pool industry as a whole - they are probably a decade or more behind in terms of their use of technology.

 

[woodyp]

Sweet!