iRobot Verro

Well blow me away and slap me with a wet fish. There I could have spent $650 on a brand spanking new TV, a scraping of gold, almost a barrel of oil, but instead I please my live in mermaid with a new pool cleaner.

$650 I hear you say? Don't you mean $700? $800 or more? Neh, I mean $650, free shipping and no sales tax (thanks Newegg, but sorry Texas roads looks like a new tax will have to be introduced).

Okay, who wants to search for this and then read the drivel I'm writing?

Summary:

Cost $650 - if I pay that much for a pool cleaner then 'what recession?'

Date purchased (IE delivered) : March 13th 2008
time unpacked 6.30pm
time in the water 6.38pm (I'm a slow reader of the quick start instructions)
time owned ... 3 hours (oh well, no 'wow' factor here then!)

In reverse order...

Cons: price. That is a serious chunk of change. Unless you are a NY Governor.
Cons: dipping your hands in cold water to get the thing water logged so it will sink to the floor. That will be fun in deep winter (which is about January 23rd 9.30pm - 8.17am the next day here in Texas).
Cons: Did I mention you have an electric current running into your pool? Anybody you'd like to get rid off? "hey bob, wanna come for a swim? yeah, I know I hate your guts, but ... hey, bygones? See you at 2? No, don't bring anything, not even a towel. What, yes Howard will be there. Sure he's the coroner, but he's okay ... at times. Necessary times. ".
Cons: It doesn't get in all the corners (and we have quite a few corners).
Cons: pulling the cable to get it back to Terra Firma. Quite scary, but it is quite light so a light fairy like IRD will be suitable for that (in joke of a welsh sheep shagger).
Cons: I think the handle feels quite flimsy. I think with chlorine and sunshine (in the pool if we run it during the day) that will be the first to break or ....
Cons: the 2 plastic holders for the bag will be likely to snap. I can envisage the designers dilemma - put in a screw system which would drive people nuts - or a plastic holder which will break and render a $650 investment unusable and mean a repair charge .... hold on, I live in Texas, have watched the 'Red Green' show and I have duct tape!! I'll keep it handy.
Cons: Service: can our local pool supply shop rip us off as much for the Verro as for Polaris?
Cons: bag replacement : $50 - ohhh! 15% off if you fill in the registration card for them to sell on to the telemarketers!
Cons doesn't jump over the pool, into the hot tub and clean that with a gleaming smile on its face before cooking a wholesome meal for two.

Pros: It's not a Polaris. However, I will be honest, I intend to sell our Polaris and booster pump to cover some of this cost. Polaris = the Honda of pool parts ( I get equally annoyed by being cut up on the highway by a Honda, PT cruiser or Polaris).
Pro: You can sell your existing Polaris!
Pros: No pipe leading from that hole in the pool to the polaris which the mermaid keeps leaving out of the pool when she swims and so half our pool water drains out overnight.
Pros: It is quiet, almost spooky. We can hear the neighbors dogs bark.
Pros: Instead of using the polaris 2-3 hours a day and more in Fall/Autumn i think this will be used for 2-3 hours a WEEK and then extra time in the Fall/Autumn and after rain storms (which leave a lot of dust in the poll .. tut tut). Hopefully that will lead to less wear and tear and a longer life (yeah, whatever, see Cons).
Pros: Quiet, auto reverse after 30 ... 40 ... 50 seconds (you can set it according to your pool dimensions)

Some what's it going to be? Thumbs up or thumbs down for our new Skirro - err, Verro?

Read on...



Initial observations: quiet, unfussy, but its wide design doesn't get in the corners. More to sweep. However, it climbs up the walls and gives 'em a good 'what's for ' scrubbing. That's cool = saves my back doing it manually (we had algae for the first time last year. Who invited it we do not know, but it was most unwelcome).

Back to my drivel.

Did I mention it is quiet!

Did I mention corners?

Pool History and Design:
Nice pool, great pool, shame about the un-volleyball friendly design (our plants and resident lizards benefit from that aspect), curved steps and hot tub visible from the street -yes, one of two street lights shines directly into the back yard. Otherwise the Canadians did okay.

The pool has a decent/great setup, good pump system with DE filtration, has an inbuilt chlorination system, but we use the floating duck approach, a separate pump to massage those aching :o) muscles in the hot tub and, finally, and definitely last the replaced subject of today's piece of technology - the Polaris 380 and booster pump.

No, we do not have a pool service. The mermaid does the water balance test, I do the rest. We rarely vacuum the pool. overall, the polaris to its credit in its old age got dust and leaves in its small bag, the rest went in the skimmers. the big bag is on the other side of the fence moaning about her roses. I rarely have the long pole (oh baby!) with the net, only to catch the odd rabbit, lizard, bee or rubbish bag carelessly discarded by the neighbor over the fence.

Polaris History: what a pain. Sure it has lasted 10+ years (we have lived here 6 long years listening to those damn neighbors dogs barking). I used to like dogs until I came to Dallas, but that's for another review.

We have spent $300 on the 380 itself in replacement parts and $150 on the booster pump. wow! That's where my PS3 went to. I have spent ages pulling the pipe to drag it out of corners to try and get it going only to find it goes back to sulking in the corner again. I've spent many an afternoon away from the TV taking it apart to remove blockages. Sometimes that was good as I'm not into NASCAR, but sometimes there was a perfectly irrelevant series I did not want to miss, but I had to. I should send those Polaris guys an invoice for my time.

So, up pops the TV feature on the iRobot and hell, why not. Mastercard will pay for it and my Master Debater lawyer will contest the charge. So today - 5 days of waiting - not bad eh? - it arrives, nicely and simply packaged in these days of suddenly we care about the planet Earth. I didn't even have to sign for it - the mermaid orders a half ounce of silver clay and 'ding dong' there is the unfriendly delivery guy moaning because it took you 15 seconds to get to the door. Well pardon me for sleeping during your 'delivery time of 7am to 6pm. Delivery time cannot be guaranteed'. Sorry to have inconvenienced YOU. Why not transport the damn thing back the two thousand miles it came from?

The test pool: The polaris has been turned off for about 2 months. I'm tired of it. So we have a nice layer of dust and a few leaves (I fished most of them out - not too many this time of year - just the odd bag of rubbish the neighbors donate to us - don't they know it is girl guide cookie time not 'bag of rubbish' time of year?)

The zirro - I mean Verro - Verro Expensivo (ha! I worked the name out!)- was easy to set up and soon - I mean in minutes - because we have GFCI, extension cord and a concrete bunker for the power unit outside - it was zipping around the pool. Or was it? Wait, why isn't there the noise of the main pool pump and the polaris pool pump? Why wasn't there water squirting out at me from the Polaris (shurley a sign of affection -Ed).

Okay, geek panic sets in. Hold on, let me flick the power switch on and off about 20 times, that will surely help. Neh, why didn't I have to run round to the pool controls - I know, shame on me, we haven't paid for the wireless system yet - to turn the pump on, run back to the polaris, set it up, run back to the pump, turn it on ... oh no, still not right, back to the Polaris, drag it out of the pool, set the nozzle, the balance float etc, run back to the pump switch .... repeat for half an hour.

Can we just simply move to a condo instead? Downtown is so hip these days. And the murder rate is down 0.125%. Just slightly less than Columbia.

Actually, for warranty reasons I didn't do the thingy with the power switch at all.

Yes, there was the Torro, i mean Verro, quietly ... QUIETLY ... going about its business. The default setting for auto reverse was 30 seconds. After a few minutes of observation I set it at 50. The thing was just ... doing its job. Just going back and forth cutting path through the dirt. If pool cleaning was this fun I would do it full time. I must keep a baby book - 'My Verros First Sweeps'. Over a five minute observation time it was happy doing its purpose ... what a concept. Ford are you reading? After a check after about an hour it probably covered 75% of the pool. Hmmmmm. At the end of 2 hours not much difference visible to the eye, but watching it climb up the walls that was a huge plus. It may need the odd 'space shuttle directional thrust' to point it in the right direction to get to the rest of the pool. But its not like the Polaris was saying 'I told you so'. It had already listed itself on Ebay ... well, Craigslist, possibly just Freecycle. the Ferrari of pool cleaners was looking like a Trabant.

Overall, after the first test run, I'm impressed, kind of a 8.5/9 out of 10 impressed. The mermaid is happy. Just a worry about the flimsy plastic parts which can render this unusable .. except for duct tape.

However, time will tell. nobody builds anything that will last a lifetime (American lifetime = 5 years).

Y'all come back for future updates now! Hell, if this was day one, imagine day two! The emptying of the collection bag!