Photography: Chris Null

Naturally, the AstroRinse also needs a power source, so if you don’t have a standard outlet near your hose bib, you’ll need another extension cord solution here. The unit must be level to function properly and features adjustable feet and a built-in spirit level to help you achieve this.

In all, you’ll need to carefully consider where you’ll place the AstroRinse, making sure you have access to water, electricity, and drainage, and that the location isn’t too far from the pool. Since the AquaSense Unfortunately, given the availability of the three services above in my backyard, that’s exactly what I had to do.

A familiar friend in the water

The Beatbot AquaSense Setting it up is much easier than AstroRinse.

The physical setup involves installing two side brushes (these are used with the skimmer function only), but it’s a fairly quick affair. Once the brushes are attached, the robot should be placed on top of the AstroRinse cleaner so that the two devices can be paired wirelessly. (The quick start guide describes the particular button presses you need to make to complete this process; don’t miss it.) Lastly, the system must be paired with the Beatbot mobile app; You will need Bluetooth and a 2.4 GHz or 5 GHz Wi-Fi connection to complete this task. I found one small snag: after completing all this work, both devices downloaded firmware updates, which quickly broke their pairing connection. However, it was easy to reset it by simply repeating the pairing process.

After a full charge, I put the cleaner to the test in the pool on both the floor and surface and, as expected, saw no real difference in performance versus the AquaSense 2 Ultra. During soil testing with organic and synthetic debris, the device picked up an average of 97 percent of the test material, performing exceptionally well on steps and platforms. On the surface, the unit was, as expected, between average and terrible, picking up less than half of the floating debris and sinking most of the rest. The unit is too slow to collect much surface material, although its rotating side brushes help, to a small extent, drag leaves into its maw.

At the bottom of the pool, the maximum operating time is about 4¹/₂ hours, courtesy of a 13,400 mAh battery, the same as the battery in the AquaSense 2 Ultra.

ScreenshotBeatbot App via Chris Null

As with other AquaSense robots, there are a host of operating modes available in the Beatbot app, allowing you to choose from dozens of potential floor, wall, waterline, and surface cleaning combinations, each with up to two passes per zone and with various run times. A quick AI mode activates the built-in camera to allow the robot to actively search for debris rather than randomly finding it; It’s good for a quick cleanup when there isn’t much to pick up but more than you can easily pick up with a net.

Once again, there is not much difference with the behavior of the AquaSense 2 Ultra and, apart from the poor surface performance, it works extremely well.

Charging and cleaning

Let’s move on to the main event: cleaning. After each run, the AquaSense While it may take some trial and error to place the robot in the right spot, once you do, the cleaning system automatically activates within seconds.

As the rinsing system is started, the top-mounted arm is moved into place and connects to the mouth that the robot uses to skim the surface. Then, a high-pressure jet of water (which sounds pretty loud) starts shooting out of the arm into the filter basket, which is located directly below this opening. The water spray runs continuously for three minutes before the arm retracts and the system shuts down. (A quick mode, which lasts one minute, can also be selected in the app.) After that, the arm retracts and the unit is ready. Debris is captured in a net-covered basket built into the base of the cleaning station. The remaining water drains through a grate at the bottom of the unit.

Photography: Chris Null