It is a dream of many people to have a clear swimming pool, but it is a tedious job to maintain the cleanliness of the swimming pool. From the earliest manual scrubbing to today's intelligent robot automatic cleaning, swimming pool cleaning technology has undergone earth shaking changes. Today, we will explore the evolution of swimming pool cleaning robots to see how they can free our hands step by step and make swimming pool maintenance easy and efficient.
1. Primitive era: manual cleaning (before the middle of the 20th century)
Before the advent of automated equipment, swimming pool cleaning was totally dependent on manpower:
- Long handle brush+net bag: manually scrub the tank wall and bottom, and pick up fallen leaves and sundries
- Sewage suction pump: connected to the filtration system through water pipe, manual sewage suction
- Chemical regulation: relying on manual detection of water quality and putting chlorine tablets or acid-base regulators
Pain point:
- Time consuming and labor consuming, it takes several hours to clean
- Cleaning effect depends on experience, and it is easy to miss dead corners
- Inaccurate water quality management, easy to breed algae or bacteria
2. Semi automation era: the first generation of cleaning robot (1980s-2000s)
With the development of electric technology, the first generation of swimming pool cleaning robots were born. They are mainly divided into two categories:
(1) Pressure side Cleaners
- Rely on the water pressure drive of the swimming pool pump
- Clean the bottom and wall of the pool through random movement+brush
- It needs to be connected with an external dirt bag or filtration system
(2) Suction side Cleaners
- Connect the water inlet of the swimming pool and move by suction
- With roller brush and filter screen, it can absorb fine impurities
- But it is easy to get stuck in the corner and rely on the main pump of the swimming pool
Progress:
✅ Reduce manual intervention and automatically clean the pool bottom
❌ Still rely on the original water pump of the swimming pool, with limited efficiency
❌ Random path, incomplete cleaning
3. Intelligent revolution: navigation+self driving robot (2010s present)
After 2010, with the progress of sensors and algorithms, the swimming pool cleaning robot entered the era of intelligent navigation.
Key technical breakthroughs:
- Gyroscope+path algorithm: instead of random random collision, plan "bow shaped" to cover the whole pool efficiently
- Anti winding impeller design: avoid being stuck by hair or leaves
- Lithium battery+self drive: no longer rely on the swimming pool water pump, independent operation
- APP remote control: cleaning plan can be set and cleaning records can be viewed
Advantages:
✅ The cleaning efficiency is improved by more than 50%, and there is no dead corner coverage
✅ Can climb the wall to clean, or even clean the waterline
✅ Some models support automatic recharge
4. Future trend: fully automatic+AI water quality management (2025+)
At present, the swimming pool cleaning robot is still evolving and may have the following functions in the future:
- AI visual recognition: automatically identify the type of stains (algae, sediment, grease) and adjust the cleaning mode
- Solar energy charging: reduce the dependence on plug-in, more environmentally friendly
- Water quality monitoring+automatic dosing: integrated sensor, real-time adjustment of PH value and chlorine content
- Multi machine cooperation: multiple robots can be deployed for cleaning in large swimming pools
Conclusion: From labor to intelligence, swimming pool cleaning has entered the "unmanned" era
Review the development of swimming pool cleaning robot:
Before 1980 s → relying on manpower, tired and inefficient
1980-2010 → semi-automatic, but relying on the original system of the swimming pool
2010-2024 → Intelligent navigation, hands free
2025+→ AI+fully automatic, even self managing water quality