Beatbot AquaSense 2 Ultra review: A robotic pool cleaner like no other

Price When Reviewed

$3,550.00

Best Prices Today: Beatbot AquaSense 2 Ultra

$2,799

The feature-rich Beatbot AquaSense Pro has been a top seller in the robotic pool cleaner space since its launch, but Beatbot hasn’t been resting on its laurels. The all-new Beatbot AquaSense 2 Ultra reviewed here is, to put it simply, more, and in every dimension.

Is this even more expensive follow-up too much of a good thing? It all depends on how much you’re willing to shell out to escape the tedium of cleaning your pool yourself.

Specifications

The AquaSense 2 Ultra borrows most of its design cues from the AquaSense Pro I reviewed in October 2024 (which is still available for purchase). It’s a cetacean-inspired design, with fat wheels, treads, and two spinning brushes in between. The Ultra is also much larger and has a new, black color scheme.

Weighing 29 pounds, it is also decidedly heavier than the 24-pound Pro, especially when you take it straight out of the pool, when the water-filled bot can hit 45 pounds. It’s bigger, too, in pretty much every way which (spoiler) makes maneuvering it in and out of the pool and onto its charging dock difficult.

Christopher Null/Foundry

All that heft comes in service of some serious firepower (waterpower?), including a boasted 27 sensors that include ultrasonic, infrared, and AI-powered video to map the pool and actively hunt for debris. It’s the first pool robot that, following a standard full-floor sweep, scans for remaining leaves with a camera the way you or I would with our eyes and a net. Beatbot says the machine can recognize 12 types of leaves by tree type, with more to come via over-the-air firmware updates.

A 13,400mAh battery powers the unit to up to 6 hours of running time on the pool floor and 10 hours on its surface. A contact-based charging dock similar to the one that shipped with the Pro is included, so you don’t need to physically connect a cable to top up that battery.

Lastly, the Ultra has a dual-band (2.4- and 5GHz) Wi-Fi adapter onboard, so you can control it with Beatbot’s mobile app. But that’s possible only while the robot is on top of the water or out of the pool, as Wi-Fi signals don’t travel far through water.

Installation and setup

Christopher Null/Foundry

While most robotic pool cleaners require very little setup beyond an initial charging, the Beatbot Ultra has a little work for the user to do. The charging stand sets up easily, with two legs that snap into place. The more onerous work is setting up the two side brushes. These are small horizontal wheels with rubber brushes positioned in the upper front corners of the robot. They’re used primarily when it’s operating as a surface skimmer and as bumpers for when the robot hits the wall of the pool.

These wheels are bare out of the box, so it’s up to the user to wrap the two rubber brush strips around them. This is achieved by stretching each strip around the wheel and affixing two loops on either end of the strip to a protrusion on the wheel. This takes a little trial and error and some patience, but I got it done in a matter of minutes.

Christopher Null/Foundry

You’ll also find a retrieval hook in the box (which you shouldn’t need) and a cover for the robot, which is handy for storage. This is the first time I’ve seen this as part of any robotic pool cleaner bundle.

The app sets up quickly over Wi-Fi, being a matter of two button presses on the robot and walking through some basic configuration steps in the app.

Using the Beatbot AquaSense 2 Ultra

Much like the AquaSense Pro, the Ultra can be configured via buttons on the device, via the mobile app, or both. The onboard controls are more basic, with four buttons for cleaning floor-only; floor and walls; floor, walls, and surface; or a custom mode configured in the app. To start the robot, just power it on, pick your mode, set it flat on the pool deck for a few seconds, and then place it into the pool. It will spin to scan the pool from the surface to get its bearings and then sink to the bottom to start its work.

Christopher Null/Foundry

The Ultra’s specific operation depends on the mode you set, but if you’re running the most comprehensive option, the robot will do a full sweep of the floor, clean the walls, and skim the surface. After a full sweep of the floor, the robot’s AI debris detection gets to work. This uses the front-mounted camera to literally look around the pool for leaves it might have missed. And it really does that, scooting around randomly until it catches a glimpse of debris on camera, then it adjusts its course to roll over it, stop, then roll back and forward again to make sure it got it.

The good news is that the Ultra is an exceptional cleaner. The unit specifies battery life of 4.5 hours, although as noted above, I easily got 6 hours with it in the water, and my pool was completely free of debris after just 3 hours (I evaluated it with both organic and synthetic test material). I also tested its AI detection mode by adding additional test leaves after the 3-hour mark, scattering them around the pool to see if the robot could find them. Of the 10 additional test leaves I added, the robot picked up all but one before its battery died—and I witnessed it just miss picking that leaf up when it veered a bit too far to one side of it.

Christopher Null/Foundry

While the robot is excellent on the floor, it is not overly effective on the surface, as was the case with the AquaSense Pro. The robot’s design and its narrow profile (compared to standalone skimmers) means floating debris was often pushed out of the way by the bow wave of water in front of the robot rather than being sucked into its mouth.

The new side brushes on this model are supposed to help prevent debris from escaping to the sides, but they weren’t effective at overcoming the power of the wave the bot pushed in front of it. In fact, my testing of the skimmer feature showed that it only captured about 40 percent of the test debris, with the rest being left behind or sinking to the bottom of the pool. That was about the same result I got with the AquaSense Pro.

The app lets you fine-tune just about everything about how the Ultra runs, specifying 0, 1, or 2 cleanings each of floor, walls, and surface (20 possible combinations in all), or you can pick from a quick AI-only mode (a search-and-destroy as described above), a MultiZone Mode designed for pools with multiple large stepped areas, or an eco mode that cleans the floor every two days. Each of these are configurable in the app, and then selectable by pressing the custom mode button on the robot’s control panel.

Christopher Null/Foundry

Every mode offers the option to dispense a water clarifier during the cleaning process, but I don’t use this type of solution in my pool and did not test it; clarifier solution is not included with the device.

Upon completion of a run, the Ultra returns to the surface and docks against the wall of the pool, where it will float for about 15 minutes. If you don’t retrieve it within that window, the robot will then float freely while remaining on the surface of the pool for easier retrieval. (The Park button on the app will call it back to the wall, provided there’s sufficient battery power.) This waterline retrieval option is one of the best features of both the Ultra and the Pro.

Christopher Null/Foundry

Debris is stored in a two-piece basket similar to the one on the Pro. It’s relatively easy to clean, though having to clean two different chambers adds a small amount of hassle to the process. The bigger issue is the robot’s nearly 30-pound weight, which is considerably more when it’s full of water. This, combined with its gargantuan size, means it’s difficult to maneuver into and out of the pool, and I found it virtually impossible to avoid getting my lower body wet while retrieving it.

After each run, the Beatbot app pushes a mobile notification and then logs the area cleaned and the length of the run. Floor-cleaning runs also include a map of the pool that’s generated as part of the log. The map isn’t all that useful (and it is in a different orientation each time) but it does at least give you some idea of the robot’s level of intelligence. For what it’s worth, the map it generated mostly looks like my actual pool.

Christopher Null/Foundry

Lastly, an on-demand remote control is included in the app, though this can only be used when the robot is on the surface, where it’s in Wi-Fi range. You might find this effective when there are a few wayward leaves you want to pick up and the robot is already skimming; but given this robot’s limited debris-skimming abilities, I found it easier to wait for the leaves to sink or to just grab a net instead.

Should you buy the Beatbot AquaSense 2 Ultra?

With an MSRP of $3,550 ($2,779 at Amazon at the time of this review), the Beatbot AquaSense 2 Ultra is easily the most expensive pool robot I’ve tested. Fortunately, Beatbot’s impressive three-year whole-unit replacement warranty takes some of the risk out of a purchase. But to be honest, it’s probably more robot than most pools need. It’s definitely more than I need, and I have a fairly large pool to clean.

And while it’s easy to fixate on that pricey bottom line, don’t underestimate this machine’s significant weight and bulk. Owners of more petite pools might find the Ultra just too large to wrestle with—even though it will do an outstanding job of keeping the pool sparkling clean.

This review is part of TechHive’s in-depth coverage of the best robotic pool cleaners.