Hey there, and welcome back to the Pool Nerd. I’m Justin, your resident pool aficionado. Today I am looking at the Aiper Seagull 600, a popular Aiper pool robot that has popped up online recently, to see if it has earned its position. I tested it for several weeks, and right off the bat, I would like to say it is one of the worst pool robots I’ve ever tested, and I’m not alone in feeling this way.
It seems great on the surface. It is cheap and cordless, but don’t let that fool you. It doesn’t live up to the build quality and power of other robotic pool cleaners on the market. But more on that later.
Cleaning Ability
So let’s just get into its cleaning ability. The gimmick that seems great on the surface and makes it so popular is its cordless design. This seems great because pool robot cords, especially the ones that lack an anti-tangle swivel, can be a hassle to wind up and keep corralled.
There’s a reason these cords are still the standard though because without them, your robot can’t get the power it needs to really clean the pool. This becomes really obvious quickly after putting the Aiper into the pool.
The Aiper 600 zooms around quickly, which makes it seem powerful, but speed does not equal power. In fact, it’s usually the opposite. Take my review of the Dolphin Escape as an example. It takes a steady and calculated route to its cleaning. I noticed the Chinese-made Aiper barely had anything in its filter when I pulled it out of the water, and that means that not only could it barely pick anything up, but it couldn’t even hold much. This is because the Aiper has a purely flat filter that barely holds any debris. Comparatively, the Escape solves this problem by having a large filter basket to hold leaves and small particles that cloud pool water.
Maybe it excels in its cleaning coverage? Nope. It just wandered aimlessly and even slammed into walls. You’re supposed to rotate its wheels to fit your pool, but that didn’t seem to do anything to help its coverage. In other words, this robot is only barely a cleaner. It can’t efficiently navigate your pool, and it barely picks anything up as it wanders.
Additional Features
So what else does the Aiper come with? Pretty much nothing. It has no scheduling option and only one cycle length. The bot does come with a hook attachment so that you can grab the robot from the side of the pool when it's done. That is if it stops at the wall. In my testing, it often stopped in the middle of the pool. And I wasn’t alone. One review summed it up nicely when it said, “It would run a little then just stop and not against the edge like it says. It stopped in the middle of the pool, and luckily, we had a pole long enough to reach it.” It’s more of a hassle than a time saver.
Speaking of online reviews, I’ve only had the Aiper 600 for a short while, but even in this time, I noticed it’s beginning to lose its charge and needs even longer to get a full charge. Many reviewers that bought this as their pool robot have left reviews saying that this only gets worse with time, and right around the time the warranty stops. One reviewer on Amazon says: “I bought it in March, I have used it maybe 7-8 times, by mid-April the battery was done.” That’s about $40 per use. And its warranty is supposed to be a year, but I've read a lot of people have issues with warranty claims.
Final Verdict
So, what’s my verdict on this pool robot?
You guessed it: It’s Pool Nerd disapproved.
There’s really nothing good about this robot. It can’t clean your pool, and it won’t last more than a few months, so it's nearly pointless as a cleaner and as an investment. You’ll spend more time and money repairing it and being frustrated than if you’d chosen a better cleaner in the first place. We highly recommend looking at a Dolphin Escape or Dolphin Cayman. These units both have a 2-year warranty that’s backed by Maytronics, and their performance is way better than anything the Aiper 600 does.
If you want to keep nerding out over your pool, check out the rest of our website to keep learning how to make pool maintenance way easier. View my comparison page and see all the differences between the many robotic pool cleaners out there. Until then, enjoy that pool and check back soon for more pool maintenance tips and insight.
Related Reading
- All Aiper Pool Cleaner Reviews — Every Aiper review in one place
- Compare Every Aiper Model — Side-by-side breakdown of all Aiper pool cleaners
- Best Robotic Pool Cleaners — Our top picks after testing 30+ robots
- Compare Dolphin Pool Cleaners — See how Dolphin models stack up
- Corded vs Cordless Pool Robots — Why corded cleaners outperform cordless
- All Robotic Pool Cleaner Reviews — Every robot we’ve tested
