It’s that time of year: pool robot reviews. Because no-one really enjoys the chore of cleaning a swimming pool. I was really looking forward to trying out the AquaSense Pro that Beatbot sent for a review because this is the first one I’ve tried that says it does it all. Not just cleaning the pool floor and walls, but the AquaSense Pro also floats on the surface and scoops up the leaves and other assorted floating debris that I currently have to skim out by hand with a net. As if that’s not enough, this 5-in-1 also offers the option to dispense pool cleaning chemicals for water clarification.
The specs of this pool robot are truly impressive. It boats nine motors, a dual-roller brush system at the front and back with 5500 GPH of suction power, an extra-large filter basket offering up to 150 μm ultra-fine dual filtration, Wi-Fi connectivity (with an accompanying app) and a 10,400 mAh Lithium Ion battery offering up to 9.5 hours of operation on a charge. Its quad-core Cortex-A7 processor and 20 smart sensors support AI-driven mapping, navigation and obstacle avoidance.
On top of all that, the AquaSense Pro is a sleek-looking piece of equipment with an attractive metallic blue shell. It won a 2024 iF Design Award. It looks every bit the cutting-edge of cordless, robotic pool cleaning technology. And at $2,199 it’s also priced to reflect that position. However, after testing the AquaSense Pro daily (sometimes several times a day) for the past week, I have some thoughts.
The Good
Let’s start with the visual appearance, because this pool robot is a looker. It’s metallic blue shell is smooth, free of flaws and features Japanese IMR coating technology. Trim and the drive treads are a contrasting matte black, with off-white rotating scrub brushes. It looks and feels well put together, solid and exudes premium product. No charge port plug to remember to secure before dropping it in the pool, this robot slides into an included charge dock.
As a bottom cleaner, it does a perfect job every time. Its filter basket (actually two nesting baskets) offers high capacity and also ultra-fine filtration (150 μm); the robot collected any leaves on the bottom of the pool, but also the fine dirt that other robot vacuums may scatter instead of capturing.
The 10,400 mAh battery offers up to 9.5 hours of use, but that is for surface cleaning. That drops to a claimed 5 hours for bottom cleaning. In mixed use (bottom plus sides/waterline) in our pool (24 x 14-feet) it lasted around 3.5 to 4 hours on a charge and took roughly that long to recharge. In other words, battery performance is a strong suit.
After completing a cleaning cycle, the AquaSense Pro would return to the surface near a wall for easy retrieval – a hook is included but I never needed it.
I don’t mess with pool chemistry if I can avoid it, but a dispenser is available to pop into a dedicated port at the front of the robot for automatically deploying a water clarifying agent (the kit is sold separately).
The Bad
For a robot that is so loaded with processing power and sensors, the AquaSense Pro seems awfully obtuse.
It has a Quad-Core 1.8GHz processor, 20 different smart sensors (including dual ultrasonic AI sensors), smart navigation, AI-pool mapping and obstacle avoidance. It should be wiping the floor with the competition.
On the floor of the pool it did very well. However, when I included surface cleaning in the mix, the robot inevitably got stuck around our pool’s steps. It had plenty of clearance, it just wandered into the step area and could not navigate its way out, repeatedly ramming a step. Sometimes it would send a message that it was trapped, other times it stayed there treading water until I would finally cave and give it a push toward open water. After which it would just as likely drift back to the stairs and repeat the process. All it had to do is reverse and it would be clear, but it apparently is not smart enough for that. Mapping clearly applies to the bottom of the pool only.
Another time (when it was on strictly floor and wall mode) I watched it do a waterline cleaning attempt where it kept climbing about the water line until it flipped itself back into the water. The robot righted itself, but never recovered. I watched it drift helplessly around the pool for another hour until it eventually ran out of battery. No SOS through the app and no attempt to resume cleaning.
I was hoping that a firmware update which appeared in the app would help. Sadly, there was no noticeable improvement after the firmware was installed.
Outside of getting trapped, surface cleaning seemed lackluster. So far as I could tell, there seemed to be little, if anything, in the way of suction going on. The robot reminded me of a Basking Shark. As it cruised or drifted through an area, anything in the path of its wide intake would disappear. But nothing appeared to be actively pulled in and ultimately it didn’t seem as though surface cleaning was particularly effective. The waterline cleaning was another weak spot. The AquaSense Pro didn’t surface frequently during this cycle and when it did, the front rollers spun very slowly, sometimes halting altogether. It did not appear to be performing an effective “scrubbing” of the waterline.
Then there’s the app. Wi-Fi connectivity drops off when the robot is below the surface, so you can’t really count on real-time connectivity. Sometimes – but not always – when it ran into trouble on the surface, the AquaSense Pro sent out an SOS. But the app in general feels buggy. Screens draw over top of each other and after several hours of cleaning the app always seems to insist that zero square feet of pool have been cleaned.
AquaSense Pro Key Specs:
- 9-motor NonaDrive system
- 2 x 2 roller brushes
- Dual suction ports (5500 GPH)
- Dual filters 250 μm+150 μm, 3.7L filter basket capacity
- Supports floor, wall, waterline and water surface cleaning with optional water clarification
- Quad-core Cortex-A7
- 20 smart sensors including dual gyroscopes and dual ultrasonic AI sensors
- 10,400 mAh Lithium Ion, dock charging station
- Onboard button controls, also Wi-Fi connected with mobile app (plus Wi-Fi firmware updates)
- Operational depth 1.64 feet to 9.84 feet
- can be used in above ground, in-ground pools of all shapes and materials, up to 3,229 square feet
- Weighs 24.3 pounds
- MSRP $2,199
AquaSense Pro Recommendation
I have yet to try out a pool robot that beats the AquaSense Pro on looks. Its iF Design Award suggests that I’m not the only one who thinks it looks better than anything else out there. For basic, bottom-cleaning functionality it performs very well and offers excellent battery life.
If only its AI and general smarts matched the luxurious looks! Unfortunately, its inability to navigate around common obstacles like stairs or to recover from minor incidents on its own, the mediocre surface cleaning and waterline scrubbing action, plus the buggy app make it really tough to justify that premium price. I suspect that many of these issues may be addressable through firmware updates and here’s hoping Beatbot does that.
In the meantime, though, I wouldn’t be spending that kind of money on this pool robot. If you want to go for it anyway in the hope that the company eventually irons out the bugs, the website does sometimes have coupon codes (at time of writing they were offering $400 off), there is a 30-day money back guarantee and a 2-year warranty.
Disclosure: Beatbot provided an AquaSense Pro for evaluation purposes but had no input into this review.
