Clear S Review

Clear S Review: All the power of the Clear UV, minus the light.

Meet the Clear S. It's the robot for pool owners who want every ounce of the Clear UV's cleaning power without the ultraviolet light — and a slightly lighter price tag to go with it. And let me tell you up front: even without that headline UV feature, this is one seriously capable pool robot.

Hey there, and welcome back to the Pool Nerd. I'm Justin, your resident pool aficionado. If you've seen my Clear UV review, you already know I was blown away by that machine — it's one of the most impressive cleaners I've tested in 40+ robots. So a lot of you wrote in asking the obvious question: what about the Clear S? Is it worth getting the cheaper one, or should you spring for the UV? Let's get real and break it down.

Here's the short version, and then I'll walk you through the whole thing. The Clear S is the exact same robot as the Clear UV — same motors, same filtration, same app, same build — with one difference: no UV-C lamp on the bottom. That's it. Everything that made me love the way the Clear UV cleans is present here. So if the UV light isn't a must-have for you, the Clear S is a fantastic robot, and you don't lose a thing on the cleaning side. Let's dive in.

What Is the Clear S?

The Clear S is a high-powered, commercial-grade corded robotic pool cleaner that handles your floor, walls, and waterline. It runs on the same platform as the Clear UV — quad motors, 1-micron filtration, a polished smartphone app, a weekly timer, smart navigation, and aggressive scrubbing. The single thing it leaves out is the UV-C disinfection lamp.

Now, I want to be transparent about how I review things, because that's the whole point of this channel. The Clear UV is the model that's been living in my test pool for weeks, and the Clear S is mechanically identical to it minus the light. Same shell, same internals, same software. So while the UV unit is the one I've logged the most hours on, every observation I made about how this platform cleans, climbs, filters, and automates carries straight over to the Clear S. When the only difference between two robots is one component, the cleaning performance doesn't change — and the cleaning is where this platform earns its keep.

And the cleaning is genuinely excellent. The basket fills to the brim, the suction is among the strongest I've felt in a residential robot, and the water comes out noticeably clearer. That's true whether the UV is on the unit or not.

Pool Coverage: Floor, Walls, Waterline, and the Swivel

I say this in every review and I'll say it again: a robot that only cleans the floor isn't worth your money. The waterline is the dirtiest part of any pool — that's where the oils, bacteria, and algae like to gather — and if your cleaner skips it, you're still scrubbing by hand.

The Clear S cleans the floor, the walls, AND the waterline, just like its UV sibling. On this platform I watched it climb walls with real confidence and grip the tile line instead of sliding back down halfway up. It works the pool in a deliberate pattern, and yes — it'll pause, reverse, and re-attempt a wall now and then. That's normal navigation, not a problem, and in my experience it gets more efficient after the first couple of cycles.

You also get the same tangle-free cable with a swivel up top and a 59-foot reach, rated for pools up to 50 feet long. In all my time with this platform, I haven't fought a tangled cable once. If you've owned a robot with a junk cable, you know that alone is worth a lot. Lay it out flat, work out the twists once, and it manages itself.

The UltraBin

The Clear S uses the same top-loading UltraBin filter basket, and I'm a big fan of top-loaders for one simple reason — maintenance takes about ten seconds. Unplug the power supply, pop the top cover, and lift the basket straight up and out. No flipping the robot over, no wrestling it onto its back.

The basket is big, and on this platform it fills to the brim on nearly every run, which tells you the suction is strong and the filtration is actually holding onto what it captures. Rinse it with a hose when it's full or when suction drops. My standing tip: rinse it more often than you think you need to, even when it doesn't look full. Fine debris like silt, pollen, and dust clogs the media and chokes your suction long before the basket looks packed. A quick rinse keeps it pulling at full strength.

UltraFilters and 1-Micron Filtration

Inside the UltraBin you get Clear's proprietary UltraFilter panels. The robot ships with two full sets — one installed, one spare — with four panels per set that slide into the basket frame in order.

And here's the kicker that genuinely impressed me on this platform: the filtration precision is rated down to 1 micron. For perspective, a human hair is around 70 microns. Most standard robot cartridges grab the big stuff and let the fine particulate slip right back into your water. Filtering to 1 micron means the Clear S pulls out the pollen, silt, and algae spores that make water look hazy. In my experience, that level of fine filtration is the single biggest difference between water that looks "clean" and water that's actually crystal clear. It's the same reason I'm such a stickler about fine-filter media on the Dolphin lineup.

Plan on replacing the UltraFilter panels every 3 to 6 months depending on your pool, and handle them with care — fine filters are more delicate than coarse mesh by their nature.

Quad Motors, Scrubbing, and Smart Navigation

The Clear S runs on the same four-motor setup as the UV model — two pump motors for suction and two drive motors for movement. That quad-motor design is a big part of why this platform pulls so hard, and it lines up with that brim-full basket every time.

It attacks your surfaces from four points of contact: a fast active scrubbing brush up front, a rear brush following behind, and two aggressive textured drive tracks that scour the surface as the robot moves. The result is a noticeably brighter pool after a single cycle, especially along the waterline where buildup hides.

Running the show is the C9 microprocessor paired with a gyroscope and accelerometer — the same class of navigation hardware I look for in premium robots. That's what lets the unit understand its orientation and work the pool methodically instead of bouncing around at random. In my time with this platform, coverage was consistently strong, with no neglected zones left behind after a cycle. That's more than I can say for a lot of the cordless units I review that rely on bump-and-turn guesswork.

The Smartphone App and Weekly Timer

The app is where a lot of newer brands fall flat, and where this platform shines. It's polished, and it works while the robot is in the water — which is exactly when you need it. App control that drops the second the robot submerges is useless, and that's a problem I run into constantly with cordless units.

Setup is painless: download the Clear app, enable Bluetooth and Wi-Fi, select your model, and connect. From the home screen you get your cleaning modes, a start button, your power supply connection status, and a live water temperature readout. There's also a Remote Control feature with a virtual joystick so you can steer the robot straight to a problem spot — drive right over to that pile of debris in the corner after a storm. You'll need to create an account for remote control, but it's worth it.

And the feature I harp on the most: the weekly timer. Leave the Clear S in the pool, set a recurring schedule in the app, pick your mode, and save. From then on it cleans on its own — no dropping it in, no pressing start, no babysitting. This is true set-it-and-forget-it automation, and it's the single biggest reason I push people toward corded robots over cordless. A cordless robot can't do this; you have to recharge, retrieve, and reset it after every cycle. The Clear S just handles it. The only regular maintenance is rinsing the filter.

Cleaning Modes and Focus Cleaning

You get the full set of modes, run from the power supply buttons or dialed in through the app:

• Regular Mode — a 2-hour full-pool clean. Your everyday go-to.
• Ultra Mode — a 3-hour deep clean for when things have gotten away from you.
• Fast Mode — a 1-hour quick cycle for a fast touch-up.
• Floor Mode — a 2-hour cycle that focuses only on the pool floor.
• Waterline Mode — a 2-hour cycle that focuses on the walls and waterline.
• Custom Mode — configured in the app for your pool's shape.

The focus cleaning is what I like here. If your floor's spotless but you've got a grime ring building at the tile line, you don't waste two hours cleaning the whole pool — you run Waterline mode and point the robot's full effort right at it. That kind of targeted control is something most budget robots simply don't offer.

Clear S vs. Clear UV: Should You Upgrade for the Light?

This is the question everyone's really asking, so let's tackle it head-on. The only difference between these two robots is the UV-C lamp. So the real question isn't "which robot cleans better" — they clean identically — it's "is the UV light worth the upgrade for you?"

Here's what the UV adds. The Clear UV mounts a UV-C lamp on its underside that turns on while it cleans, bombarding the pool surface with germicidal ultraviolet light. It's the same proven technology used in Olympic pools and commercial aquatic centers to mitigate organic growth — bacteria, algae, and the like. As a longtime fan of UV in pools (we run a SpectraLight UV system on our own test pool), I think it's the most genuinely innovative feature I've seen on a residential robot in a long time. It works as a bonus layer of sanitation riding along with your cleaning cycle.

But here's the honest part. That robot UV is a supplement, not a replacement for your sanitizer. It's a surface-level disinfection layer that runs while the robot cleans — it is not a whole-pool inline system like the SpectraLight UV we run 24/7. You still maintain your chlorine and run your chemistry by ORP like I always preach, with or without it. So the UV upgrade isn't going to let you stop sanitizing your pool. What it gives you is an extra layer of organic-growth control working alongside your existing routine.

So who should upgrade to the Clear UV? If you're the kind of pool owner who loves dialing in a low-chemical, ORP-managed pool, who geeks out over water clarity, and who wants the most innovative robot on the market, the UV light is a feature you'll genuinely enjoy and use. In my opinion, it's worth it for that crowd.

And who's perfectly happy with the Clear S? If you mainly want a powerful, reliable, automated cleaner — and you've already got your sanitation dialed in or you simply don't feel the need for an extra disinfection layer — the Clear S gives you 100% of the cleaning performance for less money. You lose nothing in suction, filtration, navigation, app features, or automation. Not one thing.

Let's get real: both of these are solid robots. There's no "bad" choice here. The Clear UV is the move if the innovation excites you and you want the bonus sanitation. The Clear S is the smart-value move if you just want a beast of a cleaner without paying for a feature you won't use. Pick the one that fits how you run your pool.

The One Honest Knock

Same note I gave on the UV model: this is a heavy unit. At 27.6 pounds without the cable, the Clear S is a bigger, beefier robot than most on my list, and you feel it when you lift it out. The good news is the pick-up mode does the heavy lifting — it drives the robot to the waterline so you're just grabbing the handle, and if you hold it above the surface for a few seconds, the water drains out and it lightens up. And never lift this robot by the cable. Always use the handle. Pulling the cable can damage the internal wires, and that's not covered under warranty.

A couple of quick spec notes worth knowing: the cleaner is rated IP68 (fully submersible) while the power supply is IP54, so keep it at least 10 feet from the pool and out of direct sun. It runs on standard household power, handles working depths from 2.5 to 16.4 feet, operates between 50 and 95°F, and is rated for pH 7.0 to 7.8, free chlorine up to 4 ppm, and salt up to 5,000 ppm — so it's fully saltwater compatible. And don't run it right after adding flocculants or clarifiers; that fine sediment can clog the filtration, so let the water clear first.

Final Verdict: Pool Nerd Approved

So what's my final verdict on the Clear S?

It's Pool Nerd Approved.

The Clear S takes everything that made the Clear UV one of the most impressive robots I've tested — the quad motors, the brim-filling suction, the 1-micron UltraFilters, the smart navigation, the app that actually works underwater, and the weekly timer that delivers true automation — and delivers all of it for less. The only thing you give up is the UV light, and as I explained, that light is a bonus layer, not the engine that makes this thing clean so well.

Same as with the UV model, full transparency: I'm not crowning either Clear robot my #1 overall just yet. That has nothing to do with performance and everything to do with longevity. Reliability over months and years is a huge part of how I rate a cleaner, and these are still earning that long-term track record the way my top corded Dolphins have. I'll keep updating as I run them through the seasons.

But make no mistake — if you want a powerful, automated, genuinely excellent pool robot and the UV light isn't a dealbreaker for you, the Clear S is an outstanding choice and an easy recommendation. Both of these robots are winners. The Clear S just lets you keep a little more money in your pocket. Pool Nerd Approved.

If you want to keep nerding out over your pool, head over to my deals page at ThePoolNerd.com/deals, where I post the best deals on robotic pool cleaners and other pool equipment.

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Related Reading

• Clear UV Review — The same robot with the built-in UV-C lamp
• Best Robotic Pool Cleaners — Our top picks after testing 40+ robots
• All Robotic Pool Cleaner Reviews — Every robot we've tested
• Corded vs Cordless Robotic Pool Cleaners — Why corded automation wins
• Clear S — Official Site — Specs, pricing, and ordering direct from Clear
• Clear UV — Official Site — The UV-C version of this robot