Smart Pool Robots

Pool season is back and so is the annual question: why does keeping water clean still feel so manual? We sit down with Patrick from Beatbot to talk about what changes when a robotic pool cleaner stops being a “dumb” tethered machine and becomes a cordless AI pool robot that can map your pool, plan an efficient route, and adapt when it hits real-world obstacles like ladders and tight corners.

We dig into what modern smart pool cleaning actually looks like: cleaning the floor, climbing walls up to the waterline, scrubbing that ring that never goes away, and skimming the surface for floating debris. Patrick also explains how app control and scheduling fit into everyday pool maintenance, plus why sensors matter more than buzzwords when you just want consistent results and fewer headaches. If you’ve been comparing options for a robotic pool vacuum, this conversation helps you separate must-have features from marketing.

Then we look forward. Beatbot’s newest direction includes a dock that can flush debris out of the robot’s filter basket into a larger base, aiming to eliminate one of the most annoying parts of pool ownership. We also talk about the longer-term future of smart home integration, weather-aware cleaning, solar-friendly charging timing, and how pool service pros can use robots to work more efficiently while they focus on water testing and chemicals. Subscribe, share this with a pool owner, and leave a review with the feature you most want in the next generation of pool robots.

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:01

Hey everybody, it's that time of the year. It's pool season. I know I'll be opening up my pool here in Boston in a few short weeks. And um really intrigued to chat with a company that's innovating in this space at Beatbot with a smart pool robot. Patrick, how are you?

SPEAKER_00 0:19

I'm great. How are you?

SPEAKER_01 0:21

I'm doing great, thanks. Spring is almost here in the Northeast, not quite, but really excited for pool season, and which was why I was excited to have this chat. Um, how do you describe BeatBot and the product? And um tell me about you and the team.

SPEAKER_00 0:38

Sure. So uh BeatBot, we're a robotic pool cleaning company that focuses on trying to make pool care more fun and less painful for pool owners. And as a pool owner yourself, I'm sure you can relate. And so the company, you know, we've been around for a little over three years. Uh, we're constantly innovating. We've put AI in our robots to make them even perform better. And then for as for myself, I'm the managing director for North America, and I spent a lot of time selling robots into pool stores.

SPEAKER_01 1:08

Fantastic. So tell us about the origin of Beatbot. How did it uh come to market? And what was the big idea of pool robots? I have one, it's several years old, not very smart, definitely no AI, but tell us about your um big idea.

Cordless AI Cleaning And App Control

SPEAKER_00 1:26

Sure. So our founder started the company a little over three years ago, and he has over 10 years' experience in the robotics industry. Uh, they were working on you know the pool or the the home vacuums, the robotic home vacuums around and clean stuff. And they looked at the pool market and they said, no one's innovated in this market in for 30 years. We can do better. And so our team of uh on the engineering side, most of our company's 70% robotic engineers, and then we have the people and the salespeople on the other side. So it's really a just kind of a what can we do that's a new and innovative that no one really thought of before?

SPEAKER_01 2:06

Well, it's always a great way to proceed with a innovative new product. So my robot is tethered, it's uh it gets the job done, but in a pretty dumb way. You know, it's it's uh clearly not AI, IoT, smart enabled. It's uh, but it, you know, it's it kind of slowly but surely gets the pull done. But what's new and interesting about your approach?

SPEAKER_00 2:31

Yeah, so our robots are all cordless. Um, so our top-of-the-line robot can do the floor, the walls up to the water line, including the water line, and then skim the surface. And then additionally, you can put a clarification cartridge in the robot, and then you can toggle it on the app. Do you want it to put clarification in and make your pool water cleaner or clearer? Or do you want nope, it's clear. I didn't have a party this weekend, don't need it. You can turn it off. And so the whole idea is our robots, no matter which one it is from the smart line, they will go in, they map your pool out. So they'll get the shape of the pool, they'll figure out the most efficient way to clean it, and then they'll start on the floor and it'll go across. And then for the top of the line one with the AI camera on it, it will actually seek out debris it missed. So it will try to pick up that debris that it didn't, it that it kind of went over and maybe it moved to the side, it will seek it out. Then once that's done, it moves to the wall, it does an end pattern on the wall, cleans all that up, and then heads to the surface. And then the surface, it's just gonna skim like uh any of the other skimmers on the market, but it again it has all those sensors and technology, so it can go try to seek out areas that that might be worse. And all of this is controlled on the app. And then the final thing I'll say about that is you can toggle it to make it do whatever you want. So if you only want it to skim, it'll skim up to like 11 hours. If you only want it to do the floor and you want it to do the floor every other day, you can set it to that. Then once it's done, you just pull it out, stick it on the charger, magnetic charging points, so it can be completely wet, and you're good to go.

SPEAKER_01 4:10

Wow, super smart. So I'm a bit of a tech geek, as as my uh followers know. Can you give us um you know a bit of insight into what's inside the beat bot in terms of electronics or software or devices or semiconductors or not? If it's proprietary, that's fine too.

SPEAKER_00 4:27

Well, I'm not that technical. So tell you that like the one with that we can talk about in a minute that AquaSense X has 40 sensors in it. And the others have 29. Again, we have the AI camera, we have ultrasound technology, we have all these different things. So it really can go out and and get to know its environment and know what it's looking for. And if it gets stuck on a ladder, it'll back out and then go around it. So it's you know, that's the the advantage of the smart technology versus the old corded ones that just kind of get hung up and the cord gets tangled.

Market Size And Use Cases

SPEAKER_01 5:02

I know the problem. Yes, it's an ever uh going frustration, I think. How big is this marketplace? I have no idea how many pools are there in the US? And are you looking at more typical residential opportunities? Or I imagine there are a lot of commercial opportunities too.

SPEAKER_00 5:18

Yeah, um uh you hit me with a question that I cannot remember. There are hundreds of thousands of uh I bet residential pools, and you know those vary from in-ground to above ground, and the above-ground market is like permanent above ground. Also, they have the ones that people just kind of buy for a couple hundred bucks and put in. I know for the commercial side, there's like 350,000 commercial pools inside, and like two-thirds of those are less than 25 meters. So we're talking hotel pools, we're talking community pools, things like that. For our robot, it really could do both. So the top of the line one, the Aquasense uh Ultra or the Pro, that can do, or Aquasense 2 Ultra or Pro, that can do uh junior Olympic swimming pool if you want it to. It's 3,800 square feet, which is within that parameter. So if you have one of those, you throw it in there, it'll clean it.

Sales Channels And Retail Strategy

SPEAKER_01 6:10

That's amazing. Uh, what's your go-to-market like? How do you sell this? I I see on your website you're you're taking pre-orders. Is that the typical channel, or are you selling through distributors and the like?

SPEAKER_00 6:22

So we have two different models for online. We have our website and we sell on Amazon, and we sell on Walmart.com, places like that. And then on the other side, we sell a different named product, which is we call it like the Platinum series or we are the GT series, which will match up with the online models. And those are sold via Salinas, our distributor, into the pool champ uh pool stores locally. So if you go to a pool store locally, you should be able to find some of our products in the pool store. And uh the reps will be able to, or the sales guys will be able to explain the product and how it works.

SPEAKER_01 6:58

Fantastic. So this is a great use case. Everyone sort of laughed at robotic vacuum cleaners when they first came out. Um, no one's laughing. I think pretty much everyone I know has one, and they're they're awesome. So many vendors. Uh, but they're also kind of a commodity now. It's tough to make money, I guess, in the robot vacuum space. So clearly you have uh a bigger opportunity with pools. Maybe tell us about the long-term vision or mission of the company, I imagine, with all that engineering talent. You have lots of ideas for uh personal robotics, uh physical AI, as they call it now.

The Self-Cleaning Dock And Future Vision

SPEAKER_00 7:34

Yeah, so right now we're mainly in pool robots, but we're also looking at smart home. And so, you know, I I don't want to give away any secrets, but down the road you're gonna see probably some products that are gonna be in lawn care and stuff like that. And so for I'll speak now just about pool robots robots. So if you if you pull up that slide that has the Aquasense X on it, that's our newest, greatest, latest invention, which is awesome. So it took our top of the line robot, and then we put a dock that it can sit on, and then this will clean the robot and the filter basket out completely by itself.

SPEAKER_01 8:10

So wow, I didn't didn't know that either. Another pain in the uh, you know what?

SPEAKER_00 8:14

Right. So you just pull it out and then you drop it in the dock, and then it's gonna flush all the debris out, do that last step that everybody hates, which is cleaning out that filter basket. It all empties into a 22-liter base, you can see there. And then maybe once or twice or once every month or two months, depending on how much debris and what's over your pool, you just throw that bag out and put a new bag in. And so you're really that's that's like the top that we have right now. Now, the next question we always get is when is it going to get out of the water by itself and go to the dock? And so, yes, we're working on that. I think everyone, it's a race to see who can do perfect that first. But that's the ultimate technology. Imagine that it all links to your Alexa, your Google Home, or something like that. And then you tell it, or you don't even have to tell it. It looks at the weather forecast and it says, Hey, wait a minute, there's a storm coming. Maybe I'll do a quick skim of the top of the pool before the new leaves get blown in, and then it's clean before that storm comes. Or it recognizes if it's linked to solar power. Hey, it recognizes that at this time during the day we have the most solar power, so this is when I can charge versus when I should be in the water. All of these things, along with water testing and certain chemicals, we're all working on because um you again, we just want to make it easy to own a pool.

Pool Pros And Job Impact

SPEAKER_01 9:36

Well, that would be a dream. It's not easy today, I know, but it's certainly worth it. Um, I'm sure there's some wondering about the impact on jobs like the pool cleaning guys, boys, what girls, what have you. Although um uh you know you can't even find someone to to clean or manage your pool now. We have one pool guy that comes around occasionally to uh to look at stuff, but he's completely booked. I mean, you literally can't find a human to do this kind of job. I assume um uh uh that's not a uh uh uh an issue for you guys.

SPEAKER_00 10:11

Uh we'd like to say that we would support those guys. So you know it'd be one of two uh avenues we'd like to go down with them. We either would tell them, and we've told them in the past because I know quite a few of them, to buy a robot or buy two robots and then drop one in this house and drop one in that house, and while water testing and cleaning the leaves on the side of the of the deck and all that, it's running and it's cleaning it for you. So it makes them more efficient. Or on the other side, we have homeowners that have said, I just like to run it, and my pool guy comes once a week, but I get debris in there when he's not here, so I can run this robot, and then when he gets here, he can do the other stuff like the water testing and putting the chemicals in and stuff like that. So it's it's not about taking jobs, it's just about making life a little more easy for everybody.

Preorders Warranty And Wrap Up

SPEAKER_01 10:59

I love it. Yeah, I was being uh facetious there, but what a great idea. You could leave 10 robots and and run a virtual uh pool cleaning business um if you're entrepreneurial. Um, so I won't ask pricing, people can check the website, but maybe availability, lead time, any other ordering details.

SPEAKER_00 11:19

So, all except for the X. I know the X is on pre-order, and I think it's supposed to ship in May. You'd think I'd know that, and I don't. Um the other ones are all available so that you'll see some of the models that were sold last year that were really successful. We have a great warranty on all of the Aquasense 2 robots and the Sora 70 that's on the on the website now. We'll have a three-year warranty. And one of the best things about our warranty is you don't have to go to a pool store to ask them to fix it. You call our customer service or you email, they diagnose it. If it's a beatbot problem, they're gonna say, okay, send it back to us. We give you a label, send it back to us, and send another one out to you. So you're oh great. Maybe like a week without cleaner versus sometimes get backed up at repair shops for months.

SPEAKER_01 12:05

So really these things are not easy to get fixed, and you know, warranties are pretty non-existent as far as I could tell. Um, so that's a great policy. Anything else before we wrap it up and get our pools ready for the spring?

SPEAKER_00 12:22

No, I'm just gonna say, you know, this is just here to make your life easier. I know they're they're kind of expensive, but they also have a lot of technology in them and they're really tested well, and they've been received really well. So we're really proud of our product and uh hope everyone checks us out.

SPEAKER_01 12:39

Awesome. Well, congratulations, beatbot. You're really doing uh amazing work with cutting edge AI and robotics in such a you know straightforward use case. Congratulations. Thank you. Take care.