Polaris Vac-Sweep 65 6-130-00 Pressure Side Automatic Pool Cleaner for Above Ground Vinyl Pools

Absolutely love it. I was hesitant at first because of the amount of negative reviews, but after making my own judgement and watching a few YouTube videos, I decided to buy one. I loved the fact that it runs off the return jet instead of the skimmer. What a bonus... You don't have to worry about missing skimming capabilities on your pool. The actual bottom bag doesn't "vacuum", but instead uses 2 jets of water that propel the bag around on the floor and push debris into the bag. The continual push from the Jets never lets the debris fall out of the bag. The Jets are also great at circulating the water on the bottom of the pool, and pushing chemicals around. Whatever silt that the bag doesn't pick up is pushed into water circulation that helps the regular filter skimmer remove it from your pool. It's like having swimmers constantly in your pool, stirring up any silt to be filtered. I previously had an aquabot, and payed almost double. The aquabot is so annoying to remove from the pool, and open the top, and pull the bags, and clean them. Trust me ..... It's obnoxious. The Aquabots suction is also limited to a 2 by 2 inch square area on the bottom of the robot, and is not as wide as the entire robot. You don't even have to pull this thing out of the water. Just grab it, pull the hanging hose, disconnect the bag, turn the bag upside down, rinse, reconnect. It's much easier. My pool has never been cleaner. I feel like some of the negative reviews come from people that may not have cut the hose to the proper length, or fail to check the filters in the device. You HAVE to cut BOTH hoses to fit your pool. Too long of a hose in the pool will certainly lead to a hose winding up. If you have a sand filter, then the metal filter at the end of the hose can get sand in it, slowing the speed of the unit down. Don't ever permanently remove the metal filter. It prevents sand from getting into a secondary filter. The secondary filter is inside the pump mechanism, that you can't get to without opening the Polaris case. I hear that if sand is in this filter, it can cause the Polaris to favor one side of the pool more than another, which can lead to coiling of the hose. Also, cracked housing in the pump inside the Polaris casing, or a bad seal of O-rings on the inside Polaris pump can cause it to favor one side, and end up coiling the hose. You can't expect mechanical things to work forever and not have any technical skills to fix or figure out how to maintain stuff. Chlorine is very tough on plastics and o-rings. I'll continue using a pool vacuum like this for as long as I have a pool. It's fantastic. One other great upside to this type of system is that no matter how much stuff you collect in the bag, it keeps going. Because.... The water that is sprayed into the bag and the water that pushes the Polaris unit around is not slowed down by the Polaris filter being clogged. It only loses pressure when your main sand or D.E. filter gets clogged and loses pressure. On the aquabot robots, after their filters are clogged, it starts moving at snail pace, and almost to a nonexistent move.... Very sad. One last cause of people having issues with the hose coiling, could be after they have cut the hose for the proper pool fit, that they didn't push the connector on the hose where it sits perfectly inside one of the Ring grooves of the hose, otherwise the hose won't turn freely inside the threaded adapter, causing it to bind up and eventually coil the hose. For reference....I have a 21 foot diameter pool. I had tons of bugs and debris at the bottom of my pool, that had accumulated for several months after my Aquabot died. Within just a few hours, the Polaris had cleaned the entire bottom perfectly. Within a day and a half, and adding some blue pool clarifier, the Jets on the sweeper helped stir up any silt on the bottom, and my pool is crystal clear now. No extra vacuuming from any other device. Only one brushing, to loosen sidewall dirt... Silt on the bottom of the pool is almost non existent. Give this item a shot.

I really wanted to love the Polaris 65. Why? Because Zodiac made what I considered to be the best pressure side cleaner I have ever used - the Zippy. Now don't get me wrong - the Zippy wasn't perfect. The hoses were made of thin PVC that would start to crack and wear out, eventually needing repaired or replaced. But the cleaner itself worked marvelously, and could be used with the solar cover on. During my tenure with Zippy, I actually bought two – and the extra hoses allowed me to have one of the cleanest pools on the block for 7 years. As I bonus, I didn't have to trade free solar heat for a clean pool. When my hoses again were beyond repair, I of course went shopping for another Zippy. But I soon discovered it was not to be - Zodiac made the brilliant decision to discontinue manufacturing the Zippy (although new units can still be found on eBay occasionally for 2-3 times the normal retail price!) After some research on Zodiac’s website, and in spite of the mixed reviews, I bought the Polaris 65 as an alternative, hoping that it would be just as good as the Zippy had been.When I opened the box, right away I noticed the hose for the Polaris 65 was much improved over the Zippy’s. I was excited to get this puppy in the water – but I resisted the temptation and decided I would read the directions. Unfortunately I realized I would not be able to use the cleaner right away, as the hose would need to lay out in the sun for a few hours to a few days in order to remove any latent memory from the coils. I complied with the manufacturer's recommendation. A couple of days later, I installed the cleaner and watched it in action. Within a few minutes, the cleaner was coiled up into a tangled mess near the return port of the pool. I re-read the directions. Hoses cut per directions? Check. Pressure correctly adjusted? Check. Hose allowed to lose memory? Check and check. But hey, let's not take any chances. So into the sun on the deck it goes for a couple more days.The entire first season with the new Polaris 65 was spent fighting to get it to work. Countless calls and emails to Polaris' customer service did not render solution. Oh, they were polite enough, and after I followed every suggestion from adjusting hoses, pressure, laying out the hose (again), verifying the movement was clean, etc. etc., they even sent me new guts for the unit as a last resort (“it must be a defective pump” according to the representative). But no matter what I tried, the results were always the same - a coiled up mess and a dirty pool. Now instead of vacuuming the pool manually, I had the option to tend the "automatic" cleaner, uncoiling it every five minutes or so in order to get any cleaning out of it.Although I am no engineer, the problem seems to be the design itself, and I am not sure that there can be a solution for it. Because of the Polaris 65's random movement, it is inevitable that the float will, at some point, attempt to cross over the main hose. However, because there is a tether hose that extends perpendicular towards the bottom of the pool, the cleaner will be forced into a loop when it attempts to continue on a forward trajectory. Unless by luck the unit reverses itself “out” of the coil, the Polaris 65 continues into its dead-man’s spiral.Polaris 65, I had hoped to love thee. But alas, a suitable replacement for the dearly departed Zippy thou art not. If the team at Polaris/Zodiac would combine the more robust hoses of the Polaris 65 with the mechanism of the Zippy, they would have an amazing cleaner on their hands and a lot of happy customers. But I suspect they would also sell fewer units in the process due to the increased reliability of the hose design. Hmmm… I wonder if I am on to something?Bottom line –you can buy the Polaris 65 and spend your time uncoiling the hose and cussing, or you can spend your time vacuuming your pool by hand and spend the $200.00 on something more practical - like mojitos.

Complete garbage, if I could give it no stars I would, bought one for a second time because when it WAS working properly for a short time, it worked great, (thought maybe the first one was a lemon) but second time a failure again, the hose was cut to fit properly as well, tips on its side and dumps pool water right out of your pool, don't waste your money.

This is my third. The only cleaner I could find that can sweep gum leaves. The cleaner can be troublesome but aren’t they all.