The Lowdown
I’m impressed by the Aiper Seagull 1500 Cordless Robotic Pool Cleaner. It arrives fully assembled; it is easy to set up, and once placed into the pool, it does its job without me needing to interact with the device until it is finished cleaning. Most importantly, it really works.
Overall
Pros
- Easy to set up and use
- Preprogrammed to cover the entire pool bottom and walls
- Easy to clean and recharge
- Works quite well at keeping pool bottom clean
Cons
- After use, the cleaner must be pulled from the water, allowed to dry, and recharged
- It’s a fairly significant investment
When we bought our home, we became the proud owners of a backyard pool. A pool service comes weekly, and we manually skim the pool before we swim, yet it constantly has leaves, branches, and bugs on the bottom. The Aiper Seagull 1500 Cordless Robotic Pool Cleaner has changed all that; I just wish we’d had it sooner!
My mother has had a pool for years. To keep it clean, she purchased a Polaris; it connected directly to the pool’s mechanical systems via a long, flexible hose and constantly moved about the bottom of the pool, sucking up the debris that had fallen to the bottom.
I never loved having the hose snaking about all the time, but getting a Polaris was never an option for us since our pool isn’t compatible.
Some months ago, we looked at the $369.99 Aiper Seagull 1000 Cordless Robotic Pool Cleaner. It looked like a good option until we realized it has a smaller motor and can only work with pools with flat bottoms.
Then I was offered the chance to review the Aiper Seagull 1500 Cordless Robotic Pool Cleaner. The Seagull 1500 works in pools of up to 1614 square feet; it’s a larger, more capable, and more powerful cordless robotic pool cleaner.
Inside the box, you get the Seagull 1500, some paperwork, a charging cable, several buoyancy inserts, and a hook for grabbing the device from the pool.
Using the Seagull 1500 is simple, thanks to the fact that it is entirely wireless and is preprogrammed to run a specific cleaning protocol.
The Aiper Seagull 1500 Cordless Robotic Pool Cleaner features a 4-wheel drive system made up of four thick, heavy-duty wheels. Underneath, two heavy-duty scrubbing brushes are powered by three strong motors.
Gyroscope technology built into the Seagull 1500 means it can automatically detect the pool size when it begins a cleaning routine. This technology means the Seagull can deliver “complete cleaning of the pool floor with 15° angle adjustment after each pass.”
Thanks to the powerful motors and the 4-wheel drive system, the Seagull 1500 can climb pool walls and clean them along with the bottom. Yes, the Seagull 1200 can climb walls; this is the type of thing you have to see to believe!
The Seagull 1500 even has a self-parking technology. When the internal 8600mAh battery runs down after about 90 minutes, the device makes its way to a wall and stops so you can retrieve it. (More on this and why it is a functional, but not ideal, solution in a bit.)
After unboxing the Aiper Seagull 1500 Cordless Robotic Pool Cleaner, getting familiar with it, and reading the manual, I was ready to try it for the first time. I have to admit that I was a bit skeptical.
I charged the Seagull 1500 to ensure the battery was full; that way, I knew I would get the full 90 minutes of cleaning the company claims it can offer.
I opened the door holding the debris basket and ensured it was properly seated in its compartment.
Per the instructions, I brought the Seagull 1500 out to the pool, turned it on, and dipped the front end into the water. I let it drop slowly into the water to give any inside air a chance to escape, and it slowly sank to the bottom of the pool.
“There goes over $800 of electronics.” I thought.
After a few seconds, however, the Aiper Seagull 1500 Cordless Robotic Pool Cleaner came to life and began moving across the pool. I watched as it followed its preprogrammed routine; it crossed the pool to map out its length and then turned 90 degrees and mapped out the width of the pool.
That was when it really began to amaze me.
It approached one of the walls and then began climbing up. When it broke the surface, it stayed there for a few seconds to skim and collect some of the surface debris. Then, just as I began to think it might be stuck on the surface, the motor paused, and the Seagull 1500 slowly sank to the bottom of the pool. The motors then re-engaged, and it crossed the other side of the pool and began climbing that wall.
This process continued for fifteen minutes until the second stage of its programming kicked in.
It is, however, possible that the Seagull 1500 might lack the buoyancy to climb your pool’s walls. If that is the case, you can adjust the buoyancy by adding a few buoyancy inserts to the device’s interior.
Fortunately, the Seagull 1500 had the proper buoyancy for my pool, and it worked perfectly the first time.
The second cleaning stage is a “Floor Routine” that lasts about 35 minutes. During this cleaning phase, the Aiper Seagull 1500 Cordless Robotic Pool Cleaner begins to cross the bottom of the pool, eventually covering the entire bottom.
As the device slowly crawled across the pool’s bottom, I noticed that any debris present when it passed over was gone.
Then, after finishing the floor routine, the Seagull 1500 returned to its wall cleaning program for 15 minutes.
If enough battery charge remains after the entire program has been completed, the Aiper Seagull 1500 Cordless Robotic Pool Cleaner will begin the routine again. However, when it reaches a 15% charge, it will no longer attempt to climb the walls.
I watched as the Seagull 1500 moved slowly across the pool and was fascinated. It took a while to realize that, as it crisscrossed the pool, it was picking up a significant amount of “stuff.” I went inside my house for the last 45 minutes of that first cleaning cycle and was amazed to find a clean pool when I returned.
In other words- the Seagull 1500 really works!!! Here’s some video proof.
After cleaning, I was left with an Aiper Seagull 1500 Cordless Robotic Pool Cleaner sitting by one of the pool walls, but it was under six feet of water. That’s where one of the few downsides of this device became clear.
Before using it again, I needed to pull it out, dry it, clear the collected debris from the collection basket, and plug it in for 6-8 hours to recharge. I could have jumped into the pool and grabbed it (which is actually what I did), but Aiper offers an approach that doesn’t require getting soaked.
Inside the box is a small plastic hook that attaches to a pool skimmer pole. With it, you can easily reach into the water, hook the Aiper Seagull 1500 Cordless Robotic Pool Cleaner, and pull it out. To do so, however, you need to have an extra pool skimming pole.
Such a pole doesn’t ship in the box, but they are readily available from Amazon or your local pool supply store.
While unavoidable, the need to fish the Seagull 1500 out of the pool, let it dry before recharging, and then connect it to an outlet for several hours before it is usable once again is a pain.
But while I wish the Aiper Seagull 1500 Cordless Robotic Pool Cleaner was able to automatically dock into a charging station the way a robot vacuum would, I recognize that isn’t possible with something that needs to be submerged in water. So while it is a bit of a pain, I expect I’ll get into a routine after using the cleaning device over time.
I used the Aiper Seagull 1500 Cordless Robotic Pool Cleaner again yesterday, watching as it followed the same preprogrammed route as it had the first time.
It collected far less debris this time, which was to be expected since I had just used it the day before.
That’s led me to conclude that the best approach, in my case, is to use the Aiper Seagull 1500 Cordless Robotic Pool Cleaner every other or every third day.
I’m impressed by the Aiper Seagull 1500 Cordless Robotic Pool Cleaner. It arrives fully assembled; it is easy to set up, and once placed into the pool, it does its job without me needing to interact with the device until it is finished cleaning.
Most importantly, it really works.
My pool is usually full of debris by the time the pool company comes each week, but with the Seagull 1500, I can keep it fairly pristine between professional cleanings. My only real regret is that I wish I had discovered it sooner.
If you have a pool, you should check out Aiper’s offerings. If your pool has a flat bottom, you may get by with one of the smaller, less expensive units. But if like me, your pool is deeper at one end than the other, the Seagull 1500 is your best bet. I’m really impressed by its cleaning abilities; you will be too.
The Aiper Seagull 1500 Cordless Robotic Pool Cleaner retails for $829.99; it is available directly from the manufacturer and other retailers, including Amazon.
Source: Manufacturer supplied review sample
What I Like: Easy to set up and use; Preprogrammed to cover the entire pool bottom and walls; Easy to clean and recharge; Works quite well at keeping pool bottom clean
What Needs Improvement: After use, the cleaner must be pulled from the water, allowed to dry, and recharged; It’s a fairly significant investment