iGarden’s claims of providing 10 hours of running time in floor-only mode were accurate in my testing; however, I achieved only about seven hours of operation in the more power-intensive full coverage mode. That’s still plenty of juice for two or three full cleanings before a recharge is needed. Officially, iGarden specs the robot to clean pools of up to 1,274 square feet in size.

I was less enamored with the cleanup process after operations were complete, and not just because the robot must be retrieved with a pole instead of coming to the surface when done. The filter basket is plenty large, but it can only be accessed through a relatively small hatch. It’s tough to get all the debris out through this hatch by hosing it down, particularly since the shape of the basket includes a kind of shelf on the inside, where debris is both hard to reach and hard to see. A more open basket design or a larger hatch would be a huge help come cleanup time.

Photograph: Chris Null

The basic box is designed with a fine-mesh filter on all sides, but this can be enhanced with a reusable second filter, included in the box, that snaps onto the outside of the basket. This filter has a finer mesh count than the filter on the basket itself, but despite that, most users probably won’t need it. I didn’t find it made much of a difference in my tests, but those facing problems with lots of fine-grained dirt and sand may find it helpful.

A Massive Price Cut

At $1,599, iGarden has aggressively priced this robot, knocking $1,000 off the price of last year’s K Pro 150 while keeping performance more or less the same. That makes this a much more enticing buy than the K series, and while it’s still a bit on the high side, it’s now roughly in line with a number of other top-shelf robots on the market. If you don’t mind getting a little wet when it comes time to retrieve and clean out the robot, it should be a very strong candidate for the job as your robotic pool guy.