Aquabot Viva Review: AKA Blue Diamond RC/Pentair Prowler 730

Background: While one can never be 100% sure with the rebadging shell game, I am pretty confident in saying that the Aquabot Viva, Blue Diamond RC, and the Pentair Prowler 730 are all the same units with different shells. That being said, I'm sure my specific Aquabot Viva review will cover them all.

Why I got the unit: Our new sand filter just doesn't filter as well as our old DE unit did and I wanted something to filter the water better. Being the main pool vacuumer, I wanted something to do it for me.

My pool: 18 x 38 IG vinyl liner rectangular

Impressions: Does the job for the most part. Like all the robo-cleaners, it does have some quirks. For example, when using the wall cleaning mode, it will get stuck when it encounters a vertical obstruction. My pool has these odd 90 degree return jets that are just below the water line. Once my Viva hits these while on the wall, it will not back off of them. When the unit hits a corner on the bottom (apparently they don't like corners very well) it will butt it's head against the wall so to speak for 1 minute then reverse it's course. When doing so in wall climbing mode, apparently it will keep hitting the obstruction forever. I could remove the 90 degree return jets to fix this, but later on, I'd imagine it would have the same problems with the ladder. I've only tried wall climbing mode twice so this is a very unfair review of this portion that I will update.

Bottom cleaning mode is where the action is. 98% of the time, my vertical pool walls are 100% clean anyways, plus the bottom mode is the fastest one at 90 minutes. YES......these cleaners claim they clean in 60 minutes, which is technicall true, but the timer goes for 90.

The weaknesses to bottom cleaning are it's speed and filtration. The darn thing goes along at a steady clip and tends to stir up dirt not in it's direct path. If that stuff is extremely fine, you get a cloudly pool. :( Filtration is supposed to be 2 microns. WRONG The human eye can detect particles down to 5 microns and on more than one occasion, my Viva went through a big pile of clearly visible dead algae and I saw big green blur emerge from the top of the unit's "exhaust". Instant cloudly pool! While I'm sure the unit will work great on dirt, worms, bugs, sand, etc., on really fine stuff, manual vacuuming is actually better. So for day to day use, it's fine, but for trouble times like post vacation goo or pool openings, do it manually.

Filter cleaning is really, really easy. Remove, turn inside out and hose off.

As stated about other units, remote control operation requires thought as L/R/FWD/BACK operation is tough when you don't know where the "front" or "back" of the unit is since the unit looks the same from the front and back. Really not a big deal and I'm sure a piece of tape on the "real front" would solve this.

Overall impression: Seems to be wonderful for regular pool cleaning. I am deeply disappointed in the filtration though. It clearly does NOT filter down to 2 microns as advertised, as with a correctly installed and clean unit, mine threw out a green cloud, much like a snowblower out it's top mounted exhaust port.

I need to further review the wall climbing, but bottom climbing is awesome. The unit extracts itself from blockages well (it doesn't like corners), makes crazy "for no reason" turns, and cleans in a truely random fashion.

Price : $1100 is what I paid. Yep, only $1100. I bought a "slightly blemished" unit off of eBay to get this price though. Unit arrived broken, the sent a new power supply. Still broken. I sent the whole unit in. Still broken. Finally, they shipped me a 100% brand new unit. Upon seeing the brand new unit, I can CLEARLY tell the older unit was used WAY more than 1-4 times like the auction said. While it tweaks me, in the end, I did get an $1800 pool cleaner for $1100. Makes you wonder what the real price point is on these babies since I got $700 off and I'm sure they're still making a profit. :rolleyes: So the retailer both got me good and did me right at the same time.