Not to beat this to death, but I will anyway. I have touched on this in a number of scattered posts, but thought I would try to approach this again from another angle, as I'm interested on feedback.

As for all robotics, I question just how sophisticated any of them really are. Ths is especially true when you start gettign into irregular shaped pools. I don't see how any could be smart of enough to figure the shape, or know which part of the pool they were dropped, etc. Where their limitations come into play, especiailly in my opinion, is their understanding of walls versus floors or steps. Although I have only owned 2 types (Aquabot and Pool Rover Plus), it sounds like most robots face similar issues, whether they are Dolphins, Aquabots, Tigersharks,etc. However, it does sound like there has been some improvement on soem of the programing, maybe.


Anyway, it seems unrealistic to expect these things to really figure your pool out if isn't a perfect square. Many have complained about robots not climbing walls, but one of my main complaints is how much time spent on walls when there remains a few big leaves by the drain. Whereas I can brush my walls downs in about 10 minutes, it is very difficut to get debris out from the bottom of the pool. Also, attempting to get all the walls and pool bottom starts getting into why they take so long to clean.

So, to me, I started thinking the best device would be to get one that simply cleaned the bottom of pool, a realistic goal, if it could just do that reliably. That is why still owning an Aquabot, I tried a pool rover plus, although theoretically a step down. Although I liked its design for maintenance, its really simple approach to steering didn't work on an oval pool, and it floated away in Katrina before ever gettign to try it on my irregular shaped pool of new house. My old beat-up Aquabot was in attic and back to using it now.

AquaVac had Aqua Queens long ago that just went on bottom of pool, but they seeemd to have gone out of favor. Their Mako Shark is similar, but seems very unpopular. Now, you have the Orion, but no one seems to own to comment. I also wonder how the Pool Rover plus (same as Aquajet) might do in my current pool.

Has anybody else contemplated just trying to get a cleaner that reliably cleans bottom of pool? Am I the only one who gets sick of watching all the time on pool walls, over simply gettng the bottom clean? If the cleaner didn't try to do the walls, wouldn't it be much less likely to get stuck on ladders or trying to climb steps? Anybody using a cleaner just for floor? Am i only one intrigued by Orion as a possible improvement, if it does what it says, rather than step down?