When we received the Seagull Pro from Aiper, we couldn’t wait to put it to the test. We had a great discussion with the company earlier this year at CES 2023 where we got to see the robot hard at work, but confined to a small controlled acrylic space filled with water. Now, we finally get to see how it performs in a real-world environment.
After reading the manual for best use, we realized that the pool we chose to test it in was not actually ideal for the Seagull Pro. The manual, specifically states that Seagull Pro is most efficient in a square flat pool with no steps. The test pool is kidney-shaped, goes from 3 to 7 ft deep, and has steps (while curving a little in the middle). So we knew the performance might be less than ideal. Keeping that in mind, we still wanted to see what it could do.
The Seagull Pro has 3 settings which are controlled easily from a dial on top of the robot. These 3 settings are 1) Pool sides only, 2) Pool floor only, and 3) Both sides and floor. We started on the sides-only setting to see what would happen.
You simply turn the dial to the setting you want and slowly drop it in the pool with the front facing up. It sinks to the floor and gets to work in only a few seconds.
The Seagull Pro starts at the bottom close to the wall, and then rolls up the wall to the surface of the water. It pumps water from underneath and through the top at a fairly fast rate. You actually can see the water movement on the surface even when it’s at the bottom of the pool.
The power actually seems similar to the pool’s own filter jets, which is quite impressive. This power keeps the Seagull Pro flat against the wall as it works its way up to the surface, which takes about 30 to 45 seconds depending on the depth. It then works itself down to be flat on the bottom again, scrubbing the entire time.
It then turns at about 45 degrees and moves back to the wall and heads back up, overlapping the previous path by about a few inches. It continues this process around the pool in a clockwise rotation. When it finally reached the steps in the test pool, it did get caught and kept going up the same spot (again, we expected something like this to happen based on the manual’s description of an ideal pool).
The whole trip around our 30 x 10 sq ft pool took about an hour. At full charge, the Seagull Pro has about a 3 hour battery life, which is exactly what the manual stated. When the battery is low it will get itself close to the wall and shut down. It can then be retrieved with a provided hook on the end of any standard pool pole. Charging the battery to full takes about 90 minutes, which again is exactly what is stated in the manual.
However, since the wall cleaning only took one hour, it had plenty of charge remaining for a floor test. Since the test pool does have a difference in depths at each end and it isn’t square as recommended, we weren’t sure what to expect.
Unfortunately, the floor cleaning setting did not work as well as the sides-only setting. The roundish shape of the pool and depth changes did confuse the Seagull Pro and it basically just kept going in a small circle at certain points and didn’t get around the full pool.
We did try a few different areas of the pool, and where the pool was flatter, the Seagull Pro did work better. But, once it got to a change in depth, it turned around.
Although the floor test didn’t go as well because of the shape of the pool. The Seagull Pro did a great job picking up debris and dirt in the areas it covered. The amount of dirt and large debris that was picked up was surprising (as you can see from these images). It even picked up palms that had fallen into the pool from the surrounding palm trees.
The dirt and debris gets trapped in a filter box inside the Seagull Pro which is easily removed and cleaned out with a hose. In no time, it is ready to slide back in for when it is needed next.
One area we didn’t get to test was removing algae from the side of the pool. Since the test pool was sufficiently chlorinated and the cooler weather keeps the algae from developing, we won’t be able to test this until later in the summer. If we find anything interesting here, we will make sure to come back and update.
Like anything with moving parts, there are accessories to keep an eye on that may need replacing over time. The underside has 4 rubber scrubbers which extend between the wheels. There is a section in the manual showing how to replace these. The test pool is concrete and we assume the rougher texture could wear them out faster than in other types of pools. Although we won’t know for sure until its been in service long enough.
The Aiper Seagull Pro will be launching this month (March 20th) with a retail price of $899 and will be available via Aiper’s website. It should make its way to Amazon soon after that depending on availability or how quick supply chain spreads.
Our Conclusion
The Seagull Pro from Aiper is a great way to passively clean your pool. However, the shape of the pool does seem to be an important factor. Ideally the best performance will come from a flat square pool with no steps which is even advised by Aiper. So this is something to consider before buying.
However, even though our test pool of choice wasn’t the ideal shape, the performance of the Seagull Pro was still very effective. For anyone who owns a pool, the algae on the sides of the pool can be the most work to keep clean. While we technically didn’t get to see the algae removal yet, with the suction power and rubber scrubbing belts on the underside, we are optimistic that it will get the job done.
We will keep updating you on the ongoing performance and wear and tear of the Seagull Pro. And we should have much more time to do this now that pool cleaning is left up to Aiper’s Seagull Pro.
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Are you a manufacturer or distributor that would like us to test something out for review? Contact us and we can let you know where to send the product and we will try it out.
1 Comment
Awesome! I’ll be having a pool dug in a few months so I might just have to consider this.