Hands-on review: Beatbot AquaSense Pro Wi-Fi robot pool cleaner
Until recently I've never owned a proper swimming pool. But enough dabbling with large fast-set pools means I know that maintaining them is quite involved. Sure, chemical levels can be fine-tuned via a water sample at your local pool shop, but you must still clean the thing.
Enter Beatbot and the Aquasense Pro robot pool cleaner. New kid on the block, Beatbot has only just expanded into the Australian market, ready for the summer pool season.
The (large) box included the Aquasense Pro robot, a charger, and a hook for fishing it out should it wander too far from the shore when finished. There was also a comprehensive user manual and a quick start guide to get me going.
It's worth noting just how stylish the Aquasense Pro design is. This might sound silly, but you will have this thing charging, likely on show within your outside living space, so it's a bonus that the robot looks good. Most pool robots seem a bit put-together and come in that pre-sun-faded light blue colour more suited to hiding in your pool equipment box than sitting proudly on your decking. The Aquasense Pro looks like a high-tech submersible rather than a pool accessory.
Setting the robot up is easy. After downloading the Beatbot app and scanning the barcode on the Aquasense Pro device, I followed the instructions and connected the robot to my network. This allowed me to access the Aquasense Pro remotely via my mobile device. The robot is incompatible with 5 GHz Wi-Fi networks, instead requiring a 2.4 GHz Wi-Fi network connection.
Once I'd set it up and placed it in the charger, the app advised me that the robot required a firmware update, the first of which needed to be triggered manually. Future updates can be set to be carried out automatically.
And that's it, with a full charge the Beatbot Aquasense Pro was ready to clean. All I needed to do to get started was make sure that it was switched on. After switching on I just had to wait, placing the robot on a flat surface for a few seconds to calibrate, and then I placed it in the pool.
The robot has four easily selectable cleaning modes: quick, standard, pro and eco which can be selected with the buttons on the front panel or in the app. There's also a custom setting that can only be accessed via the Beatbot app.
With the Aquasense Pro floating in the pool, after a short time water started flowing from the outlet at the top. As it submerged, the robot slowly turned, scanning the pool. The robot has turbines that allow it to not only propel itself across the surface but also stick to the pool walls to clean up to the waterline.
I had selected pro mode as the dirty pool needed a thorough clean of the floor, walls, waterline and surface. Quick mode cleans just the pool floor, whereas standard mode cleans the floor, wall and waterline.
All of these modes give each area one clean. The custom mode allows you to select which areas you want cleaned, floor, walls or surface and how many times you want them cleaned. So, if your floor is grubby, but everything else is OK, you can get the robot to clean the floor twice and everything else once. There's also a multizone mode that's in beta if you have large areas of steps or multiple levels in your pool.
For regular cleaning, Eco mode has the robot submerge, and every couple of days, it cleans the bottom of your pool. After each clean, it sits on the bottom waiting for the next cleaning cycle. It was weird to see the Beatbot just resting there, its lights occasionally illuminating. But sure enough, at an unspecified time, it would give the bottom a clean.
The robot loses its Wi-Fi signal as soon as cleaning begins, so there's no real-time update of what it is doing. This only becomes a problem if the unit seems lifeless on the bottom of the pool, especially if you are using the Eco mode. When finished, the app will tell you it's done and to clean out the filter basket. You can also check the robot's cleaning time, area size, and a map where the robot cleaned, by checking out the cleaning history using the app.
The only maintenance required is to empty and wash out the filter basket. The filter basket is a two-piece bucket, giving you two layers of filtering that can be separated for cleaning. The basket just lifts out from a covered area on the top of the unit.
The Beatbot robot can cope with quite a bit of debris. For some reason, the local birds have taken quite a shine to my pool. As well as socialising by the poolside, they have a habit of dropping worms in the otherwise clear water. Thankfully a swift deployment of the Beatbot Aquasense Pro had the little robot sucking up any errant worms before swimmers squidge them underfoot.
For the review, I was also supplied with two bottles of clarifying agent. These are optional extras, each bottle lasting a month before you need to discard it. To install you just remove the cap and foil seal and click it into place in the clarifier compartment. When cleaning the pool floor, the Aquasense Pro will discharge the agent into your pool.
As well as having the Beatbot just clean the pool, which it did without fault, I also tested it to see if I could confuse the device. Depositing the robot floating above the pool's step I thought I was on to a winner and the robot would fall on its back. Ready with the hook to fish it out, I watched the Beatbot submerge and come to a precarious rest on the edge of the step.
Rather than blindly toppling over, the device powered up, launching itself from the ledge, cutting through the water whilst angling itself to attach to the wall. As if aware of my cunning ploy, the robot climbed the pool wall, defiantly breaking the surface before descending to get on with its regular pool cleaning duties.
The Beatbot Aquasense Pro makes a big difference to your pool with regular use. I'm not sure if it is the optional clarifier, but my pool went from murky to sparkling. I wasn't expecting such a good result. I thought that the only benefit of the robot would be that at least I didn't need to clean the pool myself. In reality, the ever-vigilant Aquasense Pro did a far better job of cleaning the pool than I could.
Stylish and efficient, the Beatbot Aquasense Pro is a next-generation pool-cleaning robot. The Wi-Fi-connected device allows you to monitor your pool's cleaning cycle effortlessly, keeping the water crystal clear and the pool structure clean. It saves messing with hoses and vacuums, allowing you more time to enjoy your pool.
