Ahead of sitting down to actually craft this review, I resigned myself to the fact that it’s going to be impossible to not sound like a total snob when talking about the pros and cons of a product that cleans my in-ground pool. I can hear all the “boo-hoos” while sharing my feedback on the cleaning abilities of the Beatbot AquaSense 2 Pro, all the “crying shames” about how challenging pool maintenance can be. I should probably set this review to the tune of the world’s tiniest violins, honestly.
With the ego in check, let’s just get into it.
For all the pool owners out there, you get it when I talk about how much of a tug-o-war pool cleaning and maintenance can be over the course of a single season. Balancing pH levels for a former C-level chemistry student isn’t the most fun summer-time activity. And then, of course, there’s the regular cleanup, scooping out leaves, skimming the surface, the list goes on.
So, when the opportunity presented itself to take some of those tasks off of my personal plate and hand them over to an AI-powered robot who’s sole responsibility is to keep my pool clean, I sprinted off of the high dive at the opportunity to take the thing for a spin.
For this review, Beatbot supplied what they called their most popular model, the AquaSense 2 Pro. The 5-in-1 comprehensive cleaning machine carries a 13,400 mAh battery that allows the bot to continuously clean for upwards of 11 hours between charges, depending on a bunch of different settings and modes. It’s absolutely packed with different features and bells and whistles that we’ll get into below. But first and foremost it’s designed to make maintenance a much simpler task on the pool owner.
First Impressions
Up front, the box is HEAVY. The AquaSense 2 Pro itself is a little over 25 pounds. Add in the charging base, accessories, and bulky protective packaging, and we’re talking over 30 pounds in a rather large box. The promise of what’s inside, though, provided enough excited adrenaline for me to Superman-carry the thing over my head to the pool in the backyard.
I took my time carefully removing all the pieces from the box in order to capture every moment for the review, but the setup of the robot was extremely simple. In fact, the oversized Quick Start card that first greets you upon opening the box shows that there are really only three steps necessary to get the thing up and running:
- Set up the charging base.
- Connect the AquaSense 2 Pro to the Beatbot app (and go through that quick registration and setup process)
- Pick your cleaning mode, and drop the robot in the water.
As a techy kid at heart, I found the most joy in going through the app, seeing all the available features, picking the name (we went with StottBot), and getting ready to use the robot for the first time. But you could truthfully speed things up even more by just skipping the app setup altogether. The buttons on the top of the bot give you all the control you really need. You can easily turn the robot on, select one of the four available cleaning modes—Standard, which cleans the pool floor and walls; Floor, which will do just the floor; Pro Mode, which does the floor, walls, and skims the surface; or Custom Mode, which allows you to create your own cleaning method (the app is kind of necessary for that one)—plop it in the water, and watch it do its thing.
The charging base is a very convenient accessory that serves to keep the AquaSense 2 Pro at the ready for its next clean. But it also serves as a convenient storage unit. Ours is placed in the nearby patio for safekeeping.
AI Can Take This Job
I have a small confession to make to the Beatbot team. I was told, prior to the review, that these AI-powered pool vacuums are really intended for pool maintenance, not the heavy lifting that is required of a vacuum during pool opening at the start of a season. I understand the warning. You don’t want your robot to be reviewed based on how well (or not well) it scoops up the dirt, grime, and dead algae after a long and dormant winter. Makes sense,
I didn’t listen.
I wanted to see what the thing was capable of. Granted, I did take the time to scoop out the massive pile of leaves that had settled in the deep end (easy peasy). But I left the rest up to the StottBot to navigate.
So, for that initial cleaning, I selected Pro Mode so the robot would hit the floor, walls, waterline, and skim the surface. Prior to any cleaning run, the AquaSense 2 Pro (or any of their robots) need a 5-second calibration that occurs simply by placing it on the ground on its tank-like tracks. After that’s done, you lift it by the handle, place it in the water, and let it go. The robot will then float on the surface, scan its surroundings, and get to work.
What you can sort of make out in that sped-up look at its first cleaning, the robot maps the pool, determines the best path, and starts to zigzag across the floor. From there, it attacks the walls, creating an N shaped pattern similar to if you were vacuuming a rug, and finally starts skimming the surface.
It finished the first pass of the poll with 25-ish percent of battery life remaining and only stopped once and altered me that I needed to empty the filter basket. The company states that a full charge can happen in about 4.5 hours. And I was really pleased with what it was able to accomplish. After a second run (not recorded), the pool walls and floor were practically spotless.
Something the AquaSense 2 Pro does leave to be desired is its work on the surface of the water. There is a really cool feature built into the app that lets you drive the bot while it’s skimming the surface—basically like playing real life Mario Kart while skimming your pool. But the whole point of an AI-powered robot is to set it and forget it. There are certainly challenges with the pool filter running and the water moving in a whirlpool-eqsue fashion as the robot tries to clean the surface. Debris is going to be moving at all times, so a single pass of the surface won’t necessarily clear out everything. Added onto that, you can tell from my backyard, it’s surrounded by trees that constantly have petals falling off them. Keeping up with that is hard enough for me, let alone a robot. I don’t fault it entirely for the skimming challenges, but I do kind of wish the AI would do a little better job of targeting that floating debris.
The Deep Dive
Aside from wanting to put the bot through its paces, another reason I was excited to test a product from Beatbot was the fact that our pool is a unique shape, almost like a pizza slice or the cutout of a baseball stadium. It’s the furthest thing from a perfect square or circle, which should, in theory, make it even more of a challenge for the thing. Beatbot, though, packed the AquaSense 2 Pro with a ton of features that allow it to efficiently and effectively clean just about any pool, including this one.
The CleverNav Smart Navigation System that the robot utilizes allows it to map the entire pool area and, when asked, target those messy spots that need a deeper clean. The nine motors enable it to move in an efficient pattern while not losing track of the mapped area and stay suctioned to the wall during its steep climb to the surface. And the 5500 GPH (gallons per hour) suction power combined with the spinning rubber arms ensure it sweeps and removes just about anything from every surface within the pool. The filter basket has a capacity of 3.7L, plenty of space to leave it alone for several cleans (though, my OCD had me dumping and cleaning it every single time).
Needless to say, as you can see from that timelapse video above, the AuquaSense 2 Pro did its job and then some.
From a pool owner’s standpoint, I am absolutely thrilled with how this product has simplified my pool care routine. The included clarifier cartridge, which is good for four uses (and doesn’t have to be active with each clean), keeps the water blue while the robot has kept the floors free of debris for the better part of the past month and a half.
Through the app, I could keep track of what stage the robot was in, how far along it was in the cleaning process, and be alerted to go retrieve the StottBot when the cycle was complete. Removing the waterlogged bot from the pool was as much of a workout as moving the delivery box proved to be, but it quickly drained all the water as I was lifting it out of the pool to place on flat on the deck.
Cleaning the filter basket was a breeze as well. A little flap opens up, and you simply grab the handle and lift to remove the basket. From there, dump your debris and replace it. You can (and should) hose off the basket after every clean, but at least occasionally in order to keep the filter screen clear.
There are, too, a number of benefits that I wasn’t anticipating until actually putting the product through its paces. Chief among them was the reduced strain on my pool filter and pool pump. A typical hose-based pool vacuum requires the power of the pool filter to run. That means debris gets sucked up through the vacuum and then runs through the pool lines back to the pump. Beatbot doesn’t use a single hose or cable, instead catching all of the debris in that filter basket. It means less backwashing or running the filter on waste and losing water from the pool just to clear the lines, and less diatomaceous earth used to run back through the filter after each backwash.
That’s a lot of pool speak, but it’s effectively saving water and money while also reducing the amount of wear and potential clogging of the pool lines.
So then, can all of that come to a head and justify the $2,899 price tag that the AquaSense 2 Pro carries? In a word: Yes. If you are a pool owner and have ever logged how much time you spend either using a pole vac or fiddling with the weights on that Kreepy vacuum so it can hit every spot—only to have to push it around yourself to try and get that one pesky spot—it’s amazing to just get that time back.
It might be a lot to lug this 25-pound beast to and from the pool, but seeing how it handled that initial clean and how it’s done with each successive run through the pool has been a major relief to me as a pool owner. I’m spending far less time this season pushing a vacuum through the pool, clearing out lines, and scrubbing the walls and using additional pool chemicals than I have in any of the previous 10 years we’ve lived here.
More time splashing around with the kids and less time maintaining the pool is priceless in my book.
