Blue Pearl Robot - anyone know anything about them?

[rak70]

Hey cleancloths I just did the same thing. My brand new Dolphin Diagnostic would not climb the walls properly and would only cover a limited area of the pool, often getting stuck making the same passes over and over again. Tried dealing with customer service at SmartPool and got a bunch of excuses and at one time was treated rudely. Dolphin went back today as defective and the Blue Pearl should be here on Wednesday....

[CarlD]

I'm in the same boat, but my Dynamic is 2 years old. It actually WENT to Smart Pools but magically it was healed when they tested it and it was returned to me, still with the same problems.

It SEEMS to work when I turn off wall-climbing--but I'm done with it and the Blue Diamond Remote is ordered.

The Blue Pearl is the economic model of the Blue Diamond line. I'm hoping the whole line is solid.

[jimwnola]

Still waiting for soemone with a Blue Pearl to report.

[cleancloths]

Well my Pearl should be delivered today or tomorrow, so within a few days I will report back on its initial results.

[jimwnola]

Good, I'll keep checking. In a perfect world, I would like to hear comments on:

1) Pool rover Plus/Aquajet-- do other people have a problem with getting full coverage of pool? (I had problems with oval pool which caused repetitive cycle over same area if you extended cyle oover 8 seconds to try to cover whole pool.)

2) A review of the Orion. Maybe a less ambitious model than Dolphin style might work better.

[cleancloths]

Well my Blue Pearl came about an hour ago. FedEx dropped it at the front door, rang the bell, and then just left it without waiting for anyone to sign for it.

Opened it up and my first impression is that it is made cheaper than the Dolphin. What I mean by this is that the plastic is less rugged, but it also costs less so you would expect that. But the proof will be how it works. I don't care if I have to be more careful not to abuse it if it really is a fully automatic cleaner.

I placed it in the pool and away it went. While it may be the bottom end of their line, it sure goes much faster than the Dolphin Dynamic which lists for almost double its price. It appears to travel at about one foot per second!

I saw it get close to but not go over a leaf and figured it would get it next time, but I was wrong. The leaf got caught in its wake and trailed behind the unit by about 4 inches for maybe five to eight feet and then when the unit hit the slope going up from the deep end the leaf got sucked into the back of the unit. I was impressed. The water flow through the unit looks much stronger than from the Dolphin. There is noticeable turbulence on the surface of the pool above where the units is running, much more so that with the Dolphin.

I watched it climb a few walls, climb the steps once and pass over the maindrain without getting stuck. One negative thing (well maybe) that I noticed is that when it stays at the water line for a while when it goes all the way down it appears to tumble a little, but it quickly gets its bearings and moves on. I also watched as it was going straight and then in the middle of the pool made a 120 degree turn just for the hell of it. I like that, no more just going over the same straight path.

Will let you know later in the day how well it actually cleans the pool.

[CarlD]

Sounds like a good unit right off the bat! Dolphins are heavy--but that doesn't make them better.

[saraha]

My Aquabot is broken. I think it could be repaired if I shipped it in but this is its 8th season and I'm not sure it's worth the trouble of shipping it to a repair place. Figure it will cost me a couple hundred by to get it shipped, fixed, and return shipped. Not sure it's worth that to fix an 8-year-old $800 machine.

Anyway, I'm in the market for another robot. Tempted just to get another low-end Aquabot but am looking at the Blue Pearl based on the recommendations here. I see that the brush-head thing looks to be the obvious difference and it's replacement cost is $115 on pooldr. What is that made of? It looks like the stuff pool noodles are made of, am I right? What is the advantage of that over the rubber brush that is on the aquabot? I'm not sure that would clean as well as the rubber brushes. Seems like it would wear faster and not hold up as well to extended exposure to chlorine as the rubber brushes. I have had to replace the rubber brushes on my aquabot once, they get dried out and crack or split in time.

What is your experience so far?

PS. Look, it says I joined Dec 1969! Wow! Talk about an early internet user! I'm quite the innovator!