Many first-time swimming pool owners are caught off guard by the amount of upkeep a pool requires. In addition to regular mechanical maintenance, you need to clean your pool at least once a week.
You need to skim leaves and debris from the water. You need to brush sediment from the walls and vacuum the floor to prevent the growth of algae. That’s a lot of hard, tedious labor.
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The Best Robot Pool Cleaners That Do All the Hard Work for You
The good news is that robot pool cleaners can make quick work out of this once dreaded task. But then there are dozens of robot pool cleaners in the market right now. That means choosing which one is right for your pool can be tricky.
Below is our short list of the best robot pool cleaners in the market right now.
The Best Overall: Dolphin Nautilus CC Plus
Our first pick is the Dolphin Nautilus CC Plus. This little machine will clean 50-foot pools or smaller, regardless of the shape. And trust us, it starts to impress as soon as you unbox it.
Robotic devices usually require an assembly and setup process. That’s not the case with the Nautilus CC Plus. You order a robot cleaner; you get a fully assembled robot cleaner right out of the box!
The robot’s outer frame is made out of high-quality plastic. You’ll see the round brushes for scrubbing at the bottom. Inside the robot is a hidden buoy that allows it to float and clean pool walls.
The robot does its job exceedingly well, cleaning our testing pool as thoroughly as we would’ve cleaned it ourselves. We noticed right away that the Nautilus CC Plus doesn’t go around randomly sweeping whatever it finds, too.
That’s because of Dolphin’s CleverClean technology. This patented system allows the robot to scan the pool and determine an efficient path. The robot follows this course until it cleans the entire pool.
The Nautilus CC Plus also features an ingenious filtration system. Most robot cleaners filter water by expelling jets from the bottom. The Nautilus CC Plus’ filtration system works in the opposite way.
The water passes through the bottom of the robot and is pushed out of the top. That way, less debris is expelled from it.
The robot’s built-in timer allows three options. The robot can clean your pool once daily, once every two days, or twice in seven days. Choosing an option is simply a matter of pushing a few buttons.
The Nautilus CC Plus’ power supply is not waterproof, though, so it doesn’t go into the water with the device. But the 60-foot power cord is enough to allow the robot to clean a 50-foot pool. An anti-tangle feature lets it swivel freely despite the cord.
All in all, the Dolphin Nautilus CC Plus is a great product and a wise investment. We would have liked to have seen some smart add-ons, such as a mobile application and a remote controller.
Other than that, though, this little robot is hard to match. Robot pool cleaners hardly come better.
AIPER Smart Cordless Automatic Pool Cleaner
Perhaps the most marketable feature of the AIPER Smart Automatic Pool Cleaner is that it’s a cordless robot. It doesn’t rely on cumbersome, unsightly power cords to move on its tracks and activate its scrubbers.
Instead, it comes with a battery that provides as much as 50 minutes of continuous cleaning time for each charge. This battery requires only three-to-five hours of charging. The batteries on most other robot pool cleaners require eight hours of charging.
Setting up the robot is a simple matter of screwing on the plastic handle to the top of the machine. To start cleaning, just flip the robot over, turn it on, and gently drop it into your pool.
The AIPER smart pool cleaner performs a basic cleaning of your pool floor. It can’t climb walls like the Nautilus CC Plus. That said, it’s able to clean pool floors fast, scrubbing some 538 square feet in just under an hour.
The robot’s cleaning action is simple. Two PVA roller brushes scrub the surface of your pool’s lining. The brushes are excellent for cleaning smooth surfaces like vinyl.
The AIPER filtration system delivers a powerful inward vortex rated at 50 GPM. The suction is more than enough to force up loosened material from your pool’s lining.
Be warned, however, that concrete and other abrasive surfaces will likely wear the brushes down, possibly even damage them.
That said, something we think is underrated about this AIPER pool-cleaning robot is its low-battery awareness.
Before it runs out of battery, it uses its remaining power to find a wall and sit still. This makes it easier for you to fish it out for recharging.
Our final verdict? While the AIPER Smart Pool Cleaner’s limited capabilities are something to consider, so, too, is its low price point. Taken on its own, you can use it to keep debris under control in your pool.
Considering its price, we think this robot does enough to ensure regular cleaning sessions in between pool maintenance visits.
Dolphin Nautilus CC Robot Pool Cleaner
The Dolphin Nautilus CC Robot Pool Cleaner is a slightly less agile version of the Nautilus CC Plus. It has all the same features and is capable of doing just about everything the CC Plus can do. The only differences are that it’s reach is smaller at 33 feet and it cannot scale walls.
Even so, this robot pool cleaner will do its job without hoses or a booster pump. Like the CC Plus, you can set its weekly pool-cleaning schedule. You can have it clean your pool every day, every other day, or every third day.
The robot features the same CleverClean technology you get with the Nautilus CC Plus, too. That means this robot scans your swimming pool and uses advanced algorithms to map-out an efficient cleaning route.
The robot comes with one oversized high-speed brushroll. The brush presses against the surface of the pool lining to remove embedded dirt, grime, and algae.
The brushroll then pulls the debris in toward the suction inlet. Water passes through the robot at a rate of over 70 GPM. This ensures proper filtration and circulation throughout the cleaning cycle.
The active brushing system scrubs away even debris you don’t see. A large top loading filter basket traps and locks leaves and dirt.
The robot’s control module is connected to the unit by a long 360° swivel cord. The cord does not hamper the Nautilus CC’s movement at all.
We like that this pool cleaner uses 8-times less energy than other cleaners. We like that it cleaned the floor of our testing pool as thoroughly as we would have cleaned it.
We would have liked to have seen more smart features on this robot, though. To our surprise, we found that the Nautilus CC is not compatible with the Dolphin smartphone app via Bluetooth or Wi-Fi.
That would have been a huge game-changer. But the control module and the programmable schedule are all you’ll get with this version of the Nautilus.
Paxcess Cordless Automatic Pool Cleaner
The Paxcess Cordless Automatic Pool Cleaner comes with a combination of features that provide deep cleaning for all pool types.
Because it’s cordless, you never have to fuss with any wires. The robot draws power from a built-in, waterproof 5000 mAh rechargeable Lithium-ion battery, instead.
We liked that the robot required no setup at all. Once it’s out of the box, the only thing you’ll need to do is charge the battery. A single three-to-four-hour charge powers a 90-minute cleaning cycle.
One of the first things you’ll notice about this lightweight robot pool cleaner is how fast it moves. The Paxcess cordless pool cleaner is equipped with four small wheels which allow it to move sixteen-meters-per-minute under water.
We also liked the robot’s simple floating handle: a floating plastic grip at the end of a cable. This makes retrieving the robot from the bottom of the pool a fairly easy task. You can also guide the robot using the plastic grip, if you like.
Again, like the AIPER, the Paxcess cordless pool cleaner cannot climb the walls of your pool. This means it’s limited to cleaning the floor.
The machine’s cleaning system consists of a single bottom brush and a two-motor suction combination. The brush is sturdy and coarse enough to dislodge dirt and grime from the floor of your pool.
The debris then flows straight into one of two wide suction doors. The system uses a built-in filter tray to trap the debris before expelling the water through the open nozzle.
The Paxcess cordless pool cleaner has an advanced battery detection technology similar to that of the AIPER. The robot will stop along a wall of your swimming pool when the battery requires recharging. You just need to grab hold of the floating grip to retrieve it.
Cleaning this cordless robot is easy. You won’t need any tools. The robot’s plastic upper shell pops right off to expose the filter.
You’ll find all the debris the robot picked up beneath the easily detachable filter screen. Cleaning it out the debris is something you can do by hand. You can then rinse the filter under running water.
We liked the Paxcess Cordless Automatic Pool Cleaner as much as we liked the AIPER. In fact, we saw a lot of similarities in the performance of the two cordless machines.
That said, you’ll need to spend more money to buy the Paxcess cordless robot pool cleaner. We simply cannot see anything in Paxcess performance to justify the difference.
A Worthy Investment
When it comes to pool maintenance, hiring someone to keep your pool clean is the easiest option. But then proper swimming pool maintenance doesn’t mean you have to work harder or spend more. You just need to work smarter.
Since most pool owners can’t afford weekly maintenance services, they need some good pool cleaning tools. Robot pool cleaners are a big investment, but for most people, they’re worth it.
