About a month ago, I got a Pentair Warrior to clean the pool. The pool had some leaves at that time, but I knew the worst was still to come with the Live Oaks doing their leaf-dump about now.
I put the cleaner in the pool, and it pretty much instantly clogged with leaves. I don't really feel like there were an extraordinary amount of leave at the time. But the cleaner didn't seem to be able to deal with them.

I cleared the leaves and ran it a few times but it clogged every time. That robot doesn't seem capable of cleaning up leaves.
I wonder if I didn't get a dud overall. After a day of running it a few times, I couldn't get it to run at all. From the app, I could tell it was registering a impeller error. It would just go forward a bit, stop, and throw the impeller error. So I returned it.
What's everyone recommendation on a robot that can handle leaves?
Clearly, it needs to have a wide opening to the vacuum input. The warrior had this, sort of, cloth nozzle (sphincter?) that clogged easily. I also noticed that it would carry leaves through the impeller and let them get trapped on a grate at the exhaust. There wasn't any easy way to get them out of there so it took more that just emptying the basket to get it all clear again.
The best thing I have right now is my Polaris 360. It has a big mouth and sucks up leaves pretty well. The issue with it is that it is pressure side powered and really finicky. It has a screen filter at the connection to the side of the pool that clogs with little particles before it has filled the bag. It also spends half its time doing wheelies or just thrashing on its side. I was hoping that a robot would do the leaf cleaning without the downsides of being hooked to the plumbing. So the Polaris 360 on a robot chassis would be about perfect in my book. Anyone know of such a machine?
I put the cleaner in the pool, and it pretty much instantly clogged with leaves. I don't really feel like there were an extraordinary amount of leave at the time. But the cleaner didn't seem to be able to deal with them.

I cleared the leaves and ran it a few times but it clogged every time. That robot doesn't seem capable of cleaning up leaves.
I wonder if I didn't get a dud overall. After a day of running it a few times, I couldn't get it to run at all. From the app, I could tell it was registering a impeller error. It would just go forward a bit, stop, and throw the impeller error. So I returned it.
What's everyone recommendation on a robot that can handle leaves?
Clearly, it needs to have a wide opening to the vacuum input. The warrior had this, sort of, cloth nozzle (sphincter?) that clogged easily. I also noticed that it would carry leaves through the impeller and let them get trapped on a grate at the exhaust. There wasn't any easy way to get them out of there so it took more that just emptying the basket to get it all clear again.
The best thing I have right now is my Polaris 360. It has a big mouth and sucks up leaves pretty well. The issue with it is that it is pressure side powered and really finicky. It has a screen filter at the connection to the side of the pool that clogs with little particles before it has filled the bag. It also spends half its time doing wheelies or just thrashing on its side. I was hoping that a robot would do the leaf cleaning without the downsides of being hooked to the plumbing. So the Polaris 360 on a robot chassis would be about perfect in my book. Anyone know of such a machine?