iGarden Pool Cleaner Okay Professional 150 assessment: Nearly an excessive amount of of a very good factor

Finest Costs At the moment: iGarden Pool Cleaner Okay Professional 150

“Set it and neglect it” is one thing of a shifting goal on the planet of robotic pool cleaners. Whereas a number of fashions have distinctive battery life—a bit greater than six hours being about the perfect I’ve seen—many die after simply a few hours within the water, requiring quick retrieval and recharging.

Even a six-hour runtime gained’t get you very far. That’s simply three two-hour scrubbings—not even per week of operating time for those who clear each different day.

The iGarden Okay Professional 150 modifications all that, and the underwater battery race is formally on: With a operating time that simply stretches past 10 hours, you’ll not discover one other robotic with this type of lifespan available on the market. And only a few with a price ticket this excessive. (I’m you, Beatbot AquaSense 2 Extremely).

Specs

The battery is the centerpiece right here: The Okay Professional 150 accommodates a large 14,100mAh (14.1Ah) cell that dwarfs the rest you’ll discover available on the market. Even iGarden’s long-lived K60, which we lately reviewed, tops out at 7,500mAh (which is sweet for six.5 hours of operation).

Christopher Null/Foundry

Whereas the Okay Professional 150’s bodily design is similar because the K60—with giant wheels, skinny treads, and a race car-inspired industrial design—it’s the brand new paint job that may actually flip heads. It instantly drew consideration from guests who noticed it both in or out of the pool throughout my testing. The intense purple coloration scheme is in contrast to the rest within the enterprise, which is dominated by blue or black coloration schemes If nothing else, it will likely be attention-grabbing to see if different producers begin experimenting with extra thrilling colours going ahead.

At 24 kilos, the Okay Professional 150 isn’t overly huge or heavy, and it options the identical touchscreen management panel because the K60. It additionally works in the identical vogue with the iGarden Robotics app whereas it’s inside Bluetooth vary (i.e. solely when it’s not within the pool). Charging is courtesy of a small energy brick that attaches to a front-mounted charging port (extra on this later), and retrieval should be finished with a hook (included) and pole.

The Okay Professional 150’s particles basket is giant however, as with the K60, awkwardly formed. This makes cleanup extra tedious than with different robots, although solely barely extra so.

Set up and setup

Christopher Null/Foundry

Apart from unboxing, preliminary charging (which might take as much as 9 hours), and a easy onboarding with the iGarden app, there’s nothing a lot to arrange. You’ll must learn the guide completely, nonetheless: As with the K60, the Okay Professional 150’s management panel is arcane and much from intuitive, and also you’ll need to have these directions useful to your preliminary runs (after which in all probability for a while after).

Be aware that as obtuse because the management panel is, the app interface isn’t actually any higher, and for the reason that app doesn’t provide any actual extras (even the battery meter may be very primary, providing simply three broad ranges of remaining cost: low, medium, and excessive) there’s not a lot to be gained from utilizing it.

Utilizing the iGarden Pool Cleaner Okay Professional 150

Christopher Null/Foundry

The Okay Professional 150 has such an enormous battery that I actually wanted to plan nicely to check it correctly, in order that I used to be awake for each the beginning and end of every run. For my first check, I charged the robotic in a single day and dropped it into the pool within the morning, placing it on its highest-coverage mode that cleans ground, partitions, and waterline (my commonplace working mode).

The bot ran for a full 10 hours—even longer than the 8.5 hours iGarden claims for this mode. iGarden specifies a 15-hour “most” operating time, however that is just for floor-only runs, which use much less energy. After I examined the robotic in floor-only mode, I virtually bought there, reaching an uninterrupted operating time simply shy of 14 hours.

The robotic is, in fact, probably not designed for use in such a method, as a result of it’s efficient at cleansing the pool far more rapidly than operating for half the day. (It’s additionally a a lot better general cleaner than the K60 was in my exams.) I subsequent got down to discover how lengthy it took for the Okay Professional 150 to successfully clear the pool. With an artificial leaf check, the robotic picked up 90 % of the testing particles inside 90 minutes, 98 % inside 3 hours, and it absolutely cleaned the pool after about 6 hours (together with some powerful particles caught within the nook that I didn’t assume it might ever get). The hours past that have been simply gravy.

Christopher Null/Foundry

As a substitute of operating the robotic till the battery dies every time, the smarter transfer is to make use of the “AI Timer” characteristic, although that is maybe essentially the most frivolous utilization of the time period “AI” I’ve encountered. A greater identify for this characteristic would merely be “Timer,” because it merely allows you to specify computerized, repeating runs each 24-, 48-, or 72 hours after your preliminary operating cycle. With this characteristic activated, you need to be capable of get 5 2-hour cleansing runs out of the robotic. With 48-hour repeat runs, that’s a strong 10 days of operation earlier than you have to recharge it (assuming the filter basket doesn’t get full earlier than then).

Whereas the management panel is busy, the one different perform of observe on it’s the Turbo Mode characteristic, which mainly simply units the robotic to maneuver quicker within the water, which is able to doubtlessly velocity up the cleansing cycle. The distinction in velocity isn’t large, however utilizing Turbo Mode will take an enormous chew out of battery life, wherever from 10- to 40 %, relying on the cleansing mode used. Most customers ought to in all probability persist with Normal.

Christopher Null/Foundry

My solely different actual criticism with the Okay Professional 150 is expounded to its misguided energy port. Similar to with the K60, the fats rubber plug over the port didn’t preserve water from stepping into it, and after each run I’d discover a vital quantity of fluid trapped inside. As with the K60, I finally stopped attempting to dry out the port after every run and simply charged it with the water remaining inside, with no ailing results famous.

And at last, it’s price noting that the Okay Professional 150 has no waterline retrieval mechanism: It should all the time be fetched with the included hook.

Do you have to purchase the iGarden Pool Cleaner Okay Professional 150?

You knew there could be a catch with this assessment, and it’s an enormous one. The iGarden Okay Professional 150 carries a listing value of a cool $3,000. Even after the 25-percent off coupon presently out there on iGarden’s web site, that is nonetheless a $2250 pool robotic, which is outlandishly costly and even pricier than my extra full-featured favorites just like the Polaris Freedom Plus and Beatbot Aquasense Professional.

That makes for an especially tough calculus that revolves primarily round comfort. Having the ability to drop the robotic into the pool on Monday morning and never take into consideration cleansing it once more till two Fridays later is a game-changer, and there are occasions when my pool is certainly that soiled attributable to wind and rain. More often than not, nonetheless, I’m pleased to drop in a robotic on demand and retrieve it when the job is full—particularly if it’s ready for me on the waterline on the finish. For me, the large battery within the Okay Professional 150 is overkill, however your mileage might nicely fluctuate.

This assessment is a part of TechHive’s in-depth protection of the finest robotic pool cleaners.