Aiper Scuba S1 Review

[mike.stocker]

Anyone have experience with the basic Beatbot Aquasense model? If the Aiper is never going to get the WiFi module or charging stand, the Beatbot seems like a good alternative potentially. Comes with a charging stand and supposedly parks itself at the surface after it’s done cleaning which is the main reason I wanted the WiFi device for the Aiper, to call the unit back to the surface. Couldn’t find many posts about the Aquasense’s performance. Currently on sale for $1099 with a 3-year warranty.

 

[Jeremy R]

Took delivery of a Scuba S1 Pro over the weekend.

This is my first robot pool cleaner. I've had a couple of suction cleaners and I really don't like them too much. I have a pool cage so my biggest battle is hair from my dogs who shed a pretty good amount. I have a Betta 2 that I've had since early 2023 that takes care of most of the dog hair when it's charged. Other than that it's just light dirt and some shingle granules that make it through the screen when the wind blows hard. With that said I really wanted to be able to clean as much of the tile line as possible to cut down on brushing.

I'm mostly interested in the Eco mode to give a good sweep of the floor every couple of days, but I've run it through a couple of the other modes to see how it does. My pool is a pretty standard bean shape with a rounded swim out in the deep end and a sun shelf with rounded steps in the shallow end. More on those shapes later.

Floor only mode went off without a hitch. Very happy with that one. My main drain is flush with the plaster so nothing to snag on there.

Waterline mode seemed to go well also. It went around the pool, negotiated the sun shelf and steps where it seemed to be able to figure out that there was nothing to see there and kept going so that it got all the way around the pool a couple of times. Nice.

Here it is cleaning the waterline.



Auto mode or Walls only is where the trouble lies for me, although it seems like it's due to the shape of my swimout and steps. In this video you can see how it climbs up but then gets redirected a bit by the curve and then comes down in a different place than where it went up. Then it moves over to make the next pass and again gets redirected over and over. This same thing happened on my steps yesterday. When it was running in walls only mode it would just repeat this until the battery dies. In Auto mode it will repeat it until it's time allotment for walls runs out and then it starts working on the floor.



Overall I think it's going to work for me and be much better than the suction cleaner. I can easily see myself keeping this in Eco mode and then running a waterline cycle once a week or so. Since this is my first robot I don't have anything to compare it to and it's not exactly easy to see how other robots would handle these same areas.

 

[Katodude]

Let me also be very clear about my review of the S1.

This is an excellent basic cleaner. No bells and whistles and in fact it is not even my only cleaner. (When I want something super clean I use the M500 with pleated filters, however, not very often these days). I like it because of its simplicity and ease of use. I also dont expect it to live forever.

It goes in the pool easy. It comes out of the pool easy. I dont even clean it every time. It picks up a good amount of sand and pretty much all the leaves. I run it almost exclusively in floor mode only.

I also like the cordless for both aesthetics and it can run at the same time as my Betta.

This is a low end robot for me. If you want something higher end I would recommend the EVO, where there is an extensive. Thread.

I currently have no opinion on any of the higher priced cordless robots.

 

[Jeremy R]

Let me also be very clear about my review of the S1.

This is an excellent basic cleaner. No bells and whistles and in fact it is not even my only cleaner. (When I want something super clean I use the M500 with pleated filters, however, not very often these days). I like it because of its simplicity and ease of use. I also dont expect it to live forever.

It goes in the pool easy. It comes out of the pool easy. I dont even clean it every time. It picks up a good amount of sand and pretty much all the leaves. I run it almost exclusively in floor mode only.

I also like the cordless for both aesthetics and it can run at the same time as my Betta.

This is a low end robot for me. If you want something higher end I would recommend the EVO, where there is an extensive. Thread.

I currently have no opinion on any of the higher priced cordless robots.

Honestly I think that the ability to run in tandem with the Betta or its competitors is the biggest draw, at least for me.

 

[mike.stocker]

Let me also be very clear about my review of the S1.

This is an excellent basic cleaner. No bells and whistles and in fact it is not even my only cleaner. (When I want something super clean I use the M500 with pleated filters, however, not very often these days). I like it because of its simplicity and ease of use. I also dont expect it to live forever.

It goes in the pool easy. It comes out of the pool easy. I dont even clean it every time. It picks up a good amount of sand and pretty much all the leaves. I run it almost exclusively in floor mode only.

I also like the cordless for both aesthetics and it can run at the same time as my Betta.

This is a low end robot for me. If you want something higher end I would recommend the EVO, where there is an extensive. Thread.

I currently have no opinion on any of the higher priced cordless robots.

Do you mean the Aqua Products EVO robots? Also, do you just manually clean your walls and waterline?

 

[piezon]

I’ve had a similar experience as you. Got my s1 pro delivered yesterday. Charged it and put it in floor mode only. I have a rectangular pool as well and it got stuck in the corner of the shallow end (3 ft) for 1.5 hours until I retrieved it and set it to auto mode. It was then able to clean the entire pool including the deep end (9 ft) but the results were less than ideal. I am hoping that this first run, the robot was still trying to learn my pool and will give it another try tomorrow. Ultimately I would like to use it in floor mode only. If I see no improvement in the coming week, I am planning to return it.

I decided to keep the S-1 and use it in floor only mode most of the time. My pool is also rectangular (20x40) and goes from 3.5’ to 8.5’ with a huge hopper in the deep end which the S-1 wasn’t designed for, per customer service. It took 2 days of acting strange before it started to learn my pool. Since 95% of the dirt goes to the bottom anyway, I’ll be keeping it in floor only mode 6 days a week and wall only in the 7th day. Since I also bought the Betta SE Plus, which I’m running just about every day, I only expect to need the S-1 twice a week as there’s very little debris sinking to the bottom.
And no hoses or cables to deter the Betta from doing its thing.

 

[Katodude]

Pffft. I run it just about every day. There is a alway a few leaves that escape the Betta. Just as easy to throw in the S1 as get a net.

I just take a hose to the waterline, actually more about just underneath the coping. Thats where all the nasties live.

 

[piezon]

Nice write-up, thanks for the feedback. This is a bummer to hear, I’ll be testing my pro this week. Will be returning as well if I have a similar experience and look for a local dealer/service provider for Dolphin. Love the idea of a cordless model but if I’m going to have to remove it anyways to charge, then a corded model doesn’t seem so bad. Only pain there would be having to remove my Betta while the vacuum is working and vice versa, otherwise I’d probably leave them both in and run the vacuum on a daily schedule. I have lots of trees on my property so debris maintenance is a daily task. If anyone has some tips for running a Betta and corded robot simultaneously, please let me know. Most of the posts I’ve seen about that suggest there’s no real way to avoid them fighting with each other.

 

[piezon]

Pffft. I run it just about every day. There is a alway a few leaves that escape the Betta. Just as easy to throw in the S1 as get a net.

I just take a hose to the waterline, actually more about just underneath the coping. Thats where all the nasties live.

OK, maybe every other day, lol

 

[mike.stocker]

Dropped my pro in the water earlier this evening. Attached is a photo of what the pool looked like at the beginning. We’ll see how it looks in the morning but first impressions aren’t great. Auto mode definitely does not work well. It struggled hard with the slopes in my deep end. At one point, it got stuck on the slope where the shallow end starts to slope down to the deep end, for a good half hour at least. It took a long time for it to make it out of the corners as well. Ultimately it missed large swaths of the wall and waterline, maybe cleaned 25% of it.

When it switched to floor mode, it struggled at first and then did okay for a bit, doing an s-pattern the length of my pool however eventually also got stuck in the area where the shallow starts to slope down. Anytime that would happen, it would float and get turned around and then seemingly didn’t know what to do for a while. A ton of battery was wasted in these instances. I bet maybe 50% of the battery was ultimately used for actual cleaning.

As for the cleaning performance, it seemed like it would just stir up debris a good portion of the time. I have a lot of fine silt or what I think is pollen and anytime it would go over a spot like that, you would immediately see what seemed to be dirty water shooting out of the top jets. As someone else noted, the fine filter isn’t as wide as the main filter so it seems a lot of the finer stuff just passes around it and gets pushed back out of the top.

Will play with it some more tomorrow but probably going to send mine back and try something else. It’s tough though as this is my first vacuum robot so I have nothing to compare it to. Maybe it performed average for a robot like this, I’m not sure.

 

[Katodude]

Throw some Polyfill into the basket. Its not a long term solution but might give you an indication.

 

[Biskitz]

As for the cleaning performance, it seemed like it would just stir up debris a good portion of the time. I have a lot of fine silt or what I think is pollen and anytime it would go over a spot like that, you would immediately see what seemed to be dirty water shooting out of the top jets. As someone else noted, the fine filter isn’t as wide as the main filter so it seems a lot of the finer stuff just passes around it and gets pushed back out of the top.

Yes that was me and my experience, too.

Let me also be very clear about my review of the S1.

This is an excellent basic cleaner. No bells and whistles and in fact it is not even my only cleaner. (When I want something super clean I use the M500 with pleated filters, however, not very often these days). I like it because of its simplicity and ease of use. I also dont expect it to live forever.

It goes in the pool easy. It comes out of the pool easy. I dont even clean it every time. It picks up a good amount of sand and pretty much all the leaves. I run it almost exclusively in floor mode only.

I also like the cordless for both aesthetics and it can run at the same time as my Betta.

This is a low end robot for me. If you want something higher end I would recommend the EVO, where there is an extensive. Thread.

I currently have no opinion on any of the higher priced cordless robots.

I hope you don't think I was trying to derail your review or thread. I said in my post that I do think the standard S1 is actually pretty good for the price. However, it seems like pretty much everything extra about the Pro has little to no added value, despite being top dollar. I want to save some people the heartache like I endured if they had the impression that the Pro would be a nice step-up from the S1 and get the Pro instead.

 

[mike.stocker]

I want to save some people the heartache like I endured if they had the impression that the Pro would be a nice step-up from the S1 and get the Pro instead.

Definitely agree, the Pro doesn’t seem worth the extra money. The extra features either don’t seem to work as advertised or will never be available, such as the HydroComm accessory and the ability to call the unit back to the surface with their app. I’m not confident the solar charging or charging stand will ever be available either. Some of that stuff they really need to stop advertising. Don’t think they’ve advertised the charging station but the other features and accessories I mentioned, they certainly have. I’m going to return mine, not sure what I’m going to try out next. May reach out to Marina Pool Spa and Patio for advice specific to my pool configuration.

 

[Biskitz]

I’m going to return mine, not sure what I’m going to try out next. May reach out to Marina Pool Spa and Patio for advice specific to my pool configuration.

Although I admit I'm a bit burned by Aiper's business model, I can't lie that I'm considering the standard S1 as a replacement. With all the discounts I can get it's only $460-ish before taxes. That's less than half the cost of my Pro... Kato along with many other people have reported plenty of good things, and among the comparisons I've seen with price competing bots, Aiper seems to be the best designed, with a good warranty and decent customer support. I say that because although it was pretty preposterous that the first person who responded to me about my issues just neglected to acknowledge a feature of their product, I was able to escalate the issue and got someone else the next day who knows better and apologized. I've yet to get back with them yet as I need to take some videos for evidence but it's a good sign.

For cordless I was considering the Seauto Seal with nice app controls and sonar mapping, but from what I've seen, despite that, the navigation doesn't seem to make a lot of sense on anything short of an almost perfect rectangle pool. Not to mention it's ability to pick up large debris is not so good, warranty is only a year and the whole company is based in China.

If I got a corded model, I'd probably go with the Aqua Products EVO 604 like many others have already.

 

[Bvill16]

If the walls on your deep end turn into concave “walls/floors” all the way down to the flat bottom, then watch to see if the same thing that happened to me occurs with your pool when in wall mode. In the shallow end, it goes up the wall, then back down to the flat floor, backs up about 2’, makes a quarter turn and then another before starting back up the wall again. Works great BUT, when it gets down the incline a bit and goes up & down the wall, it’s not ending up on a flat 90 degree bottom like in the shallow end so, when it backs up that 2’ in order to make the turns to go back up the next section of the wall, it stops on a concave wall/floor and gravity takes over. The S-1 basically just slides down the curved section to the bottom and then can’t figure out what to do next. Ends up with most of the walls in the deep end going untouched. Bummer.
So, I’m experiencing about 95% or more floor cleaning but less than 50% wall cleaning.
Let me know if you have the same issues. Thnx.

Im having a very similar issue with the Scuba N1. It seems to get 'confused' when it hits the sloped walls in the deep end and just continues to loop on itself in the same pattern. Also, on my slope from shallow to deep when going down the decline, it seems to not stay grounded and then flips. Not what I was hoping for, and thinking of moving to the Aquasense.

 

[Bvill16]

I decided to keep the S-1 and use it in floor only mode most of the time. My pool is also rectangular (20x40) and goes from 3.5’ to 8.5’ with a huge hopper in the deep end which the S-1 wasn’t designed for, per customer service. It took 2 days of acting strange before it started to learn my pool. Since 95% of the dirt goes to the bottom anyway, I’ll be keeping it in floor only mode 6 days a week and wall only in the 7th day. Since I also bought the Betta SE Plus, which I’m running just about every day, I only expect to need the S-1 twice a week as there’s very little debris sinking to the bottom.
And no hoses or cables to deter the Betta from doing its thing.

Are we sure that the Aiper has the ability to learn the pool? I am not seeing those same results and have an almost identical pool.

 

[Katodude]

I am 98.684564% certain it has no ability to learn a pool, or retain that.

 

[piezon]

I am 98.684564% certain it has no ability to learn a pool, or retain that.

I hear you. But, I went out the other day and just put it in the pool before I left. Had some dirt on the bottom but not much. When I came home after about 4 hours, the floors were clean and the S-1 was just sitting by the wall waiting to be retrieved. Since there was dirt spots in both the deep and shallow ends when I left, and it got them all, I’m assuming it figured out how to get up and down the incline. My 30 days are up and I’m not missing putting the suction cleaner with 45’ of hose in and out so fingers crossed that the S-1, in combination with the Betta SE Plus will keep my involvement to a minimum. .

 

[HermanTX]

Anyone have experience with the basic Beatbot Aquasense model? If the Aiper is never going to get the WiFi module or charging stand, the Beatbot seems like a good alternative potentially. Comes with a charging stand and supposedly parks itself at the surface after it’s done cleaning which is the main reason I wanted the WiFi device for the Aiper, to call the unit back to the surface. Couldn’t find many posts about the Aquasense’s performance. Currently on sale for $1099 with a 3-year warranty.

This is the active thread on the Aquasense.
Thread 'New pool cleaner for Katodude to review'
New pool cleaner for Katodude to review
Are you sure about $1099??? I see it as $2200 less $330 discount.

 

[Katodude]

There is a non pro version that is about $1100