“The best-in-class Beatbot AquaSense Pro outperforms traditional pool-cleaning options.”
- Attractive design
- Easy to set up
- Great at cleaning the pool
- Lots of cleaning options
- Phone notifications
- Necessarily heavy
- Needs to be recharged between cleanings for large pools
If you own a swimming pool, you know that they are hardly maintenance-free. In fact, I always joke that you shouldn’t own a pool and a boat because both are notorious for breaking down, and there are only so many headaches a person should have to deal with at once.
If you’ve ever owned a pool, you know that your equipment is on borrowed time, so when my pool cleaner had run its course after five trusty years of hard work, it was time to try a new one — and I had to, of course, try the one with all the bells and whistles.
Beatbot says the AquaSense Pro is the most advanced pool cleaner out there, and it certainly has the specifications and features to back it up (not to mention that it’s probably one of the most attractive cleaners on the market). I was intrigued and wanted to give it a try.
Design, specs and configurations
Pool cleaners have really evolved over the past five years, with the advent of room-mapping technologies, so there are now a lot more options to choose from. The AquaSense Pro can clean the pool surface and the sides of the pool, but it can also clarify your pool water with the optional clarifying kit, as well as act as a pool skimmer (which seems pretty odd to me).
For it’s pool-mapping and pathfinding technology, the AquaSense Pro is powered by a quad-core Cortex A7 1.8GHz CPU from ARM and and impressive 10,400mAh battery. The company touts a 5,500 gallons per hour (GPH) of suction power, but to be honest, without any industry standards or benchmarks to refer to, who knows why this number is important – the question to ask is whether your pool is clean or not.
From a design perspective, I do have to say that the Beatbot AquaSense cleaners are certainly among the more attractive on the market – even my wife commented on how it looks better than what we had before. There are too many differences between the regular AquaSense and the Pro version to list here, but Beatbot has a helpful comparison.
If you have a larger pool and use it a lot, then you might want to consider the Pro since the battery life and cleaning features might be a game-changer for you. Otherwise, I’d pocket the $700 or so and go with the regular version. On the other hand, if you’re a techie and simply love to play with all sorts of special features, then the Pro could be a lot of fun for you.
Easy setup, worry-free operation
Setup is pretty simple, and I like that Beatbot includes detailed instructions to help you get things up and running. Like most smart home or connected devices these days, you must first turn on the unit’s own Wi-Fi network, connect to it via your phone, and then tell it how to connect to your home’s network. Simple enough. Once I was connected to the AquaSense Pro, I noticed that there was a firmware update available. I updated the unit and set about giving it a try. Simply set the AquaSense Pro on the ground, select the cleaning mode, then drop it into the pool, and the AquaSense Pro gets started in about 10 seconds and goes about its job.
I used the AquaSense Pro for a little over two months, and in that time, I did not experience any severe issues where the unit would brick or stop responding. Things you want to keep an eye on include whether it can navigate steps, or if it will get hung up on any external vents, etc. I’m happy to report that nothing like that has happened. Sure, it might spend more time than you’d like navigating the area around the steps, but I never received an “SOS” via the app stating that the Beatbot was stuck and needed manual help. For the most part, I had it set on floor mode, where it just cleaned the floor, for the sake of saving time. When I did try out the walls and the skimming, it worked as advertised, but it takes a very long time to do so, so be aware of that.
| Beatbot AquaSense Pro | Beatbot AquaSense | Polaris Freedom | |
| Price | $2,199 | $1,299 | $1,399 |
| Cleaning coverage | Surface, walls, floor, waterline | Walls, floor, waterline | Walls, floor. waterline |
| Recommended pool size | 3,229 square feet | 2,260 square feet | 3,000 square feet |
| Connectivity | Wi-Fi | Wi-Fi | Wi-Fi/Aqualink |
| Gallons per hour | 5,500 | 5,500 | N/A |
| Weight | 24.3 pounds (11kg) | 20.5 pounds (9.3kg) | 19.8 pounds (9kg) |
| Water depth | 9.84 feet | 9.84 feet | N/A |
| Warranty period | 2 years | 2 years | 2 years |
| Battery life | 5 hours | 3 hours | 4 hours |
| Battery size | 10,400 mAH | 6,700 mAH | 9,600 mAH |
| Where to buy |
About 90% of the time, the Beatbot would float to the surface when finished cleaning, which made retrieval easy. A couple times, it didn’t, and I was forced to use the included hook to pull it off the pool floor. My guess is that the battery just ran out and the Beatbot Pro was not able to power the fan that keeps it afloat.
It is not able to do two full cleanings without recharging, and must be charged each time.
When it is finished cleaning, you get a notification on your phone to come remove it from the pool and clean the filter out. And it floats to the surface so you can easily remove it from the pool (if you wait too long, it will return back to the surface of the pool and you must use the hook to fish it out).
Sometimes the Beatbot got out of range of the Wi-Fi network while cleaning the pool and I was not able to connect to it. In that event, you will need to check on it to see if it’s finished the job.
What I do like is that the app will tell you the time it took to do the job and if there were any challenges along the way. There are also plenty of firmware updates, and you’re made aware of that each is trying to fix, which I liked.
Adequate battery life
I was able to get my entire pool floor cleaned in the simple floor mode in about an hour and 40 minutes. About 39% of the battery life remained, which meant I would need to charge it if I wanted to clean the entire pool again in the same mode. If I changed the setting to clean the walls and the surface, the AquaSense Pro used up about 85%-plus of battery life.
When charging the AquaSense Pro, I would wait until the unit was mostly dry, then simply put it into its docking station, which is incredibly simple to use. I didn’t try charging the unit with considerable water on it for fear it might cause an issue.
Beatbot offers a two-year warranty on the AquaSense Pro, as well as a 30-day money back guarantee. It also offers a coupon for $300 off on the company website. Beatbot doesn’t try to hide its contact information or customer support details. In fact, it actively sends messages to you promoting its customer care and making sure you’re happy.
Not perfect, but gets the job done
As a pool owner for more than seven years now, I know that pool equipment rarely performs the way you think it should. I’ve had a couple Pentair pool cleaners that were corded and connected to the pool pump system, and I’ve also used the SmoRobot wireless pool cleaner that technically competes with the Beatbot. The SmoRobot cleaner died after four months and support was poor.
The Beatbot system works better than any connected cleaner that you might get from a traditional pool company, and it has performed better and been more reliably than the SmoRobot cleaner. Now, do you need to pay two grand for the AquaSense Pro? Probably not, unless you are OCD about having a spotless pool and love trying new technologies. I think the regular AquaSense will do just fine, and it can save you some extra dough. For me, I think the AquaSense Pro does what it is supposed to for the most part; it’s not perfect, of course – no pool cleaner is – but it gets the job done and is low hassle. That scores major points for me.
