AIPER Surfer S2 Robotic Solar Pool Skimmer with APP Support, 24/7 Cleaning, Dual Charging Modes, Smart Obstacle Avoidance, Ideal for Most Swimming Pool Types

The media could not be loaded. I just received this a few days ago and my initial reactions are pretty darn cool! Love the look and everything seems to be pretty decently well built from first glance.Now for the pros after a few days - Battery life has been pretty awesome, I only charged it once and cannot confirm the claimed battery life of 30+ hours because the sun has been charging it back up. What I have seen though is this device will totally run 30+ hours without sun. I would only expect this to be an issue during the winter time. I only have sun on my pool about half the day and it charges it back up to 90% everyday. The robot has done an excellent job skimming the pool and has not gotten stuck that wasn’t my fault. So kudos!Cons - okay so after about an hour of use the machine started making clicking noises. I could not find exactly where it was coming from initially, but it sounded like gears missing. Everything seemed like it was working but it was a loud enough sound it seemed something is off. It’s the weekend so the support staff will not respond until Monday, so I will update this afterwards depending on how they respond. After further watching and thinking what it could be, I finally figured it out for those of you who have the same issue. The filter box does not quite click in to place, so once you put it in correctly and after several minutes the box becomes comes out ever so slightly and the gears start to miss. This is very subtle, but you can test it while it’s making the noise just push your finger on the filter box and you’ll notice it goes in a tiny amount and then noise goes away. It comes back and you can repeat this endlessly. So I’m concerned that the noise is annoying and that the gears will eventually wear out. This is a design flaw and I know others have complained about the noise too. I will seek a replacement. Unsure if it’s the box or the whole thing that needs replacement. One last qualm, the chlorine container on the inside is to small to fit a chlorine puck likes it’s designed to do…somebody messed up in the design room on that one too. I still use it, I just cannot close the lid. Kinda annoying. If it wasn’t for the gear noise I would rate this a 4.5. It’s unknown how the longevity will be. Can update that in the future as well. Will update in a few days after a call with their support staff.(Update 3-21-25) - Aiper support reached out to me to resolve the issue and they wanted to make things right by sending me a replacement. They were very quick about it which I appreciated. After comparing the replacement model with my faulty one I was able to narrow down the exact problem causing the loud noise and I am happy to report that it was not the main unit but the basket that was faulty. The gear is the basket was loose and wobbly while the new one was firm. Keep this in mind if anyone else has that issue, you just need a basket replacement. Regardless, I am super happy that Aiper came through in the customer service department. I waited to make sure the new one ran for a solid 24 hours before updating here. My pool surface is crystal clear and the Surfer S2 is now quiet. The battery life has been phenomenal with that little solar panel on top, it never dies and during the day it charges up to 90% and stays there until the sun sets. I believe it has a setting to prevent it from charging via the solar panel past 90% to better preserve the battery aging, brilliant!In summary, after having this Surfer S2 for a few weeks now I can say that my pool has never looked better. It's one thing to have your bottom swept, but that is usually stuff that has been on the surface for a few days before sinking down. This collects all of that debris before that ever happens and in doing so it also minimizes what goes into your pool skimmer if you have one. No more jumping into the pool only to be greeted by bugs and random floaters all around you, no more skimming the pool with a net before having friends over...if this device holds up longevity wise then you can bet every pool owner in the world will eventually get one of these, it just makes sense!!! My rating is 4.5 stars. If they make the chlorine tablet holder larger, it would easily be a 5 star!

I had this robot for a week, so these are my initial impressions. Prior to purchase, I considered the S2, Betta SE plus and the Dolphin Skimmi. I know owners of the Betta who are very happy with it, but to me, the design is ugly, the materials and finish feel cheaper than the other two, and it seems like they jacked up the price much higher than it was before. The Dolphin, at the time of writing, is on sale, so the price difference between the units is a little more than $100. The Dolphin does have a lot more in app customization options and more and better sensors than the S2, I didn’t think that neither the design nor the materials are worse or better than the S2. The filter and the basket size on the S2 are superior. It is the first year for the Skimmi, and the reliability is unknown. Dolphin customer support, from numerous personal experiences, is bad. So with S2 I went. Set up was a breeze. The app has limited functionality, but works without issues. We have a relatively large, but basic shape pool. The S2 swims around slowly never getting stuck on the skimmers or the ladder. It does beach itself on the stairs and takes a while to work itself off of them, but in the end it does. I tried to remove the basket while the robot was still in the pool (as is possible with the Skimmi) but a lot of debris came out, won’t be doing that again. Overall, me and the S2 are still in our honeymoon phase, and I am happy with the purchase. YMMW, but for me it is better than the Betta and the Skimmi doesn’t justify the price premium.

So I sold my Beta SE skimmer and bought this new Surfer S2 (I'm on my 2nd unit because the first S2's's right propeller motor failed in less than 120hrs of run time, but at least it was before Amazon's 30 day return period was over). I also have the Aiper Scuba S1 as well which is awesome.While this Surfer S2 works very, very well when dry, as soon as it sprinkles even a little rain, I get warning messages on my phone that "one of the sensors may be blocked" and the unit just spins in tight circles forcing me to take it out of the pool. This happened to my first unit that died and now with my second unit as well and it's very frustrating.I emailed Aiper telling them my issue in hopes that they can issue a firmware update to somehow fix this as it is a pretty big issue, but I only received a reply from their AI bot which was no help at all.I will update this review when and if there is something to update.UPDATE:After the interaction with the AI bot (and before this review went live) a real person from Aiper reached out to me and we chatted back and forth over a few day span and they asked me to do several things like check the firmware, give them my order number, current shipping address and the unit's serial number which I did and in the end, they said that the unit should not be used in the rain.They also said that the algorithm is that the unit should 'self correct' itself from the spinning attitude back to normal function once it stops raining and the water dries from the sensor lenses. I have yet to give this a try as I have always removed the unit once I see the spinning but will leave it in the pool during the next rain session and see what happens.UPDATE 2: (Performance Review)The performance of this unit in the dry is simply amazing. It runs 24/7 and the lowest I've ever seen the battery is 51% and that was right before sunrise.The surface cleaning is simply on another level and the debris guard system works as advertised and nothing escapes while the unit stops, turns around and backs up. The wall edge cleaning works as described as well and from what I can tell, it will hug the wall of the pool for a complete lap about once every 3hrs.The surface of my water looks almost "polished" and it is awesome! It's nice going to bed on a windy night knowing that the little robot is on the job and whatever blows in will be picked up before my alarm goes off.The online app is pretty sparse, but it's fine and tells you how many total hours the unit has been in the pool, as well as how many hours and minutes the current clean cycle has been running. It shows air temp, battery level and unit info like firmware, serial number and ip address.Dry weather: Perfection!Rain: Not so muchUPDATE3:Aiper's customer service has reached out to me several times and has confirmed that with the help of my feedback they are working on a new firmware update that will vastly improve rainy weather performance and that update should be pushed out sometime in April 2025.I have changed my rating from 3 stars to 5 stars due to the dry weather performance, plus the incredible customer support that I have received and the quick attention to fixing the issue.UPDATE4:Aiper released a firmware update v2.0.0 that added the ability to 1) schedule cleaning times from the app, 2) turn the unit on or off from the app, 3) improve rainy weather performance.... and I can verify that the rainy day performance is 100% fixed from firmware version v1.0.0! Great job Aiper!