Intex Automatic Pool Cleaner for Above Ground Pools

Customer Reviews

• S.

  Very disappointed with this device

  I have a full Intex saltwater pool - 24' round softside, with Intex sand filter and Intex salt chlorine generator. The apparent advantages of this cleaner seem obvious, no power required, no external booster pump, inexpensive. Hower, its functionality leaves much to be desired.First, a little background on how this thing works. It's pretty simple, the cleaner sits on four swiveling wheels with rubber "tires". Included in the package is an adapter that replaces the outlet jet on the side of your pool (it screws on the inside of the pool; you don't have to disconnect any hoses). That adapter then connects to the hoses, which in turn connect to the cleaner. The hoses are a combination of short and longer, alternating with a float and a rotator, and making one hose long enough to reach all points in the pool. The floats keep the hoses on the surface, the rotators allow the cleaner to move around the pool without tangling the hose. The end of the final hose (which is longer than the others) connects into the cleaner, held in place with a stainless steel hose clamp. The cylindrical tubes on either side of the cleaner are passive, and I'm not sure what they are supposed to accomplishThe cleaner is propelled by two jets, one on each end. Inside there is a device that receives the water from the hose, and forces water through the jets, alternating direction every 30 seconds or so. There's a space between the output of the device and the jet, and the water exiting the jets creates suction, which draws debris through a slot in the bottom, and then into a screened compartment, which then needs to be cleaned out. Because the wheels all swivel, movement of the cleaner is more or less random, although constricted by the weight and position of the hose on the surface. One thing you need to be aware of is that you definitely need to observe the minimum GPH ratings of your filter as noted in this item's description (and on the box and instructions). When I first connected this, the cleaner would start moving for a while, and then stop at random. I eventually determined it was because my filter needed to be backwashed, so the pressure was lower than normal. If you have one of those small filters where the pump is in the bottom of the filter cartridge holder, that won't be sufficient to run this.Now, the first problem: the rotators have a tendency to bind up (they also leak a little, but since the water is going back into the pool, this isn't a big deal). Now, I don't know if it's because mine is a saltwater system, but there are no warnings against using this in a saltwater pool. When the rotators start binding, the hose can twist back on itself and restrict the cleaner's movement. The second problem is that the water shooting out of the jets has a tendency to blow the debris out of the way. Now, normally this shouldn't be a problem, since the propelling jet is in the back and the cleaner is moving forward, but when it reverses, particularly when it's against the pool's wall, the debris that it should have picked up on its return motion has now been moved elsewhere. The third problem is that the suction in the cleaner is not very high, and unless the debris is directly underneath the slot (which is less than half the width of the cleaner), it will not pick it up. And the last problem is that due to the method of propulsion and the heavy hose, it tends to mostly ignore the sides of the pool.The result of all this is that you have a pool with a clean middle but lots of dirt around the edge. I ran this cleaner for at least a week, 8 hours a day, and after all that time, the sides were still dirty. And I'm only talking about things like leaves and pine needles that have absorbed water and sunk to the bottom. Luckily I haven't had an algae issue, so no real scrubbing was required. Another issue is that removing the cleaner from the pool is a bit of work (and you need to remove it before you use the pool). You first have to disconnect the hose from the filter outlet, but don't remove it from the pool, since water will start siphoning out if you do that. Then pull on the hose until you get the cleaner at the edge where you're standing. Pull up on the hose until the cleaner is just below the surface, but don't pull it out of the water by the hose, since that can damage it. Grab the cleaner with two hands and lift it out of the water. Hold it until the water drains out (I would tip it to left and right to get everything out), then put it down on the ground. While you're putting it down, ensure that all the water from the hose drains back into the pool, otherwise, again, you can start siphoning water out. Slowly continue to pull the hose out of the water as it drains until it's all out.In the end I ended up returning this. I probably could have dealt with the difficulty in pulling the cleaner out, but the fact that it didn't successfully clean the entire pool made the entire episode an exercise in futility.

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• R. M.

  Robotic pool vacuum

  This vacuum works great with one draw back. The replaceable brushes won't stay in place, they keep falling out.Oops I strike the last comment; I was applying them wrong..

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• N.

  Best thing we have ever bought for our pool

  Hands-down, best thing I’ve ever bought for clean pool. People that don’t like it, either or not using it correctly or not running their pool pump long enough.

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• j. g.

  Love this product (but some small things to be aware of)

  Love, love, love our pool-bot. The engineering and design of this product is genius in its simplicity. There are a couple of small things that could be a little better.- I believe the pool we are using this in is larger than recommended but it seems to work fine. We manually move it to the far end once or twice a week. Our pool is about 15' x 30' above ground.- It does an AMAZING job of keeping our pool clean. OUR POOL HAS NEVER LOOKED BETTER :) :) :)- It works great when the filter is fully functional but if I don't keep up with cleaning the filter and the pressure drops pool-bot slows down and tends to be limited in the area it covers (as would be expected, entirely not an issue).- The adapter that came with this did not fit our filter. We needed to get and adapter to get it hooked up.- The only real issue is that we have a bunch of divots in the bottom of our pool from leaks that have been patched over the years. Pool-bot runs on 4 wheels and if one of the wheels falls into the divot it gets stuck and needs to be manually pushed out.Pool-bot is actually super entertaining and scoots around our pool like a champ.

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• S. P.

  Pretty good

  I like this product, I just wish the bristles on the bottom didn't come off so easy. It has good suction and keeps the pool clean. It will however get stuck on the side of the pool and just stay there for a long time if you don't watch it. I'm glad i have this one though as it is the only pool vacuum we had this past summer. Defiantly worth buying!

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