The Beatbot robotic pool cleaners have been designed for the purpose of cleaning the floor, walls, and steps of a pool. They do not clean the filters of the pool directly. Their main job is picking up dirt, debris, and algae from the surfaces of the pool and then trapping them in their filtration system separate from the main filtration system. The filtration system in Beatbot is able to filter particles as small as 2 microns, while in a common cleaning cycle it is able to filter up to 4,500 square feet of pool surface in one hour. However, it cannot scrub or clean the pool’s main filter-such as cartridge, sand, or diatomaceous earth filters-which require maintenance on their own.
For instance, a pool maintenance service in California, after deploying Beatbot for surface cleaning, still had to manually clean the primary filter of the pool every two weeks, as recommended by the filter manufacturer. The pool service found that Beatbot’s ability to remove smaller debris from the pool’s surface significantly reduced the workload on the main filtration system, leading to a 25% reduction in the time spent on overall pool maintenance.
Industry professionals, such as those at the Pool Equipment Solutions group, recommend that pool owners clean their primary filters aside from robotic cleaning. According to the National Pool & Spa Institute, a filter should be cleaned at least once a month, given the size of the pool and the usage rate, or even more often if the pool suffers from a lot of debris in the water. This will help maintain the efficiency of the filter and, with it, the general health of the water of the pool.
While Beatbot doesn’t clean the main pool filter, it works with it. By cleaning the fine debris from the pool, it takes some workload off the main filtration system of the pool, which, in turn, could translate to longer intervals when filters need cleaning. As David Roberts, a pool technician, explained, “Beatbot doesn’t replace the need for a pool filter cleaning, but it does a fantastic job at keeping the pool’s surfaces clean and lightening the load on your filter.”
Whether or not Beatbot can clean pool filters, the answer is that it cannot. As much as Beatbot contributes to a big extent in cleaning the pool surfaces, pool filters require separate care and maintenance.
For more information, check out Beatbot.