Pretty much all of the house-shaped robotics work the same. Aquabot, Hayward, Blue Diamond, Dolphin, Dirt Devil, PoolBlaster (They now have a robotic), Swimbot. The original was invented in Israel and I understand that there was a family feud that caused spinoffs. I'm not sure which was the first or the first spin-off--I can only guess that it was Aquabot and Dolphin.

They have 2 or 3 motors. The first is simple suction--it vacuums, into a bag or filter. These filters/bags are very dense and filter about as well as a DE filter. They also suck the unit to the floor or walls at the same time. The filter or bag can be easy or difficult to clean, depending on the brand.

The other 1 or 2 motors drive the front and rear rollers. 2 motor units have split rollers that allow the left and right sides to move independently, turning more easily, and requiring 2 motors. Most of them work by sensing changes in the electrical demand, such as when it hits a wall, and processing that info in its base-station/power supply computer. That computer also randomly changes the unit's directions.
The roller act to brush the pool as well as drive the unit. If it's climbing the walls (it can be set to do that) it means you never have to brush your pool!

The handle is an interesting part of the cleaner. When the unit climbs the wall (that's where the vacuum's suction is really important), the handle floats to support the top of the unit. It is always set to an angle because, when the unit reaches the water line, it will start to move. Because it's angled, it moves sideways, crab-like, along the wall. The floating cord can get a bit tangled. Therefore, you move the handle to the opposite angle for the next cleaning, so it moves along the waterline the other way.

I've not used one without a remote, but they range from very cool, with a joystick and LCD display--Dolphin Dynamic, to simple like a simple TV remote--Blue Diamond.

1) Blue Diamond. This is what I have now with wireless remote. The BD is fast and powerful, enough so it can chew up its own floating cord if you're not careful. It can wear the liner where the bottom hits the wall and when moving along the waterline, when it hits a perpendicular wall, it can hang there too long. It also gets hung up on my ladder--but that's an-to-remove item for me. It doesn't climb my wedding cake steps.

But it's fast and effective, and the bag is VERY easy to wash out in a 5 gal bucket. It's only one layer but very finely woven. The remote is nearly useless--good mainly for turning wall-climbing on and off but difficult to "drive" because it has 4 direction buttons rather than a joystick. I did have it fail once, and the company was AMAZING about fixing it--fast, free, and easy! I had it back in days. It's been fine for years now.

2) Dolphin. I had a Dolphin Dynamic and for the first 2 years it was amazing! It takes far longer to clean the pool than the B-D, 4-8 hours so it's something you do overnight or just before going to work. It had no problem with the ladder, being a bigger and heavier unit. However, the motors are, in comparison, tiny--about the size of the old frozen OJ cans--1/3 the size of the B-D's. The bags are thick, multi-layered and VERY effective at collecting dirt--and tougher to clean than a Blue Diamond's After rinsing all the loose dirt out you have to toss it in a washing machine. But they work really effectively. The remote was pretty cool--LCD display, joystick, multiple menus of choices that make it easy to tailor the unit to your pool. The antenna for the remote is hidden in the power-supply's molded in power supply.

But, it's heavier than the B-D, and once I started having problems it never worked right again. I gather Dolphin no longer uses the same company for support so....They also have a laser-based unit, the Nautilus I've heard good things about.

3) Aquabot. I don't know much about them but I do know belts fail and are expensive--a friend had one and I was able to get him a belt.

As for other automation, I know little about it. There are Jandy ball valves designed to work with actuators, but I only see them as useful for turning solar panels on and off remotely.