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Testing Out The Aiper Surfer S1 Solar Robotic Pool Skimmer
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Apr 30, 2025
In this video, I test out the Aiper Surfer S1 Solar Robotic Pool Skimmer. Check it out here: https://geni.us/ZQj3e8 DISCLAIMER: This video and description contains affiliate links, which means that if you click on one of the product links, I’ll receive a small commission. This helps support the channel and allows us to continue to make videos like this. Thank you for the support!
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0:00
Aper sent me their Surfer S1 robotic pool skimmer
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So in this video, I want to test this out to see how well it works. So inside the box, the first thing I see is going to be this contact card
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We're also going to have this envelope, which has all the instructions. And then there's this little box, which is going to have a charger
0:14
And then finally, the Surfer S1. And this thing is going to be massive
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So I'm pretty excited to start using the Aper S1. But first, let me show you around it
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So taking a look up top, this is going to be the ginormous solar panel
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which does charge automatically. otherwise you can charge it via the port in the back and this does have to be lifted up or lifted
0:33
out and then plugged back in and this is rubber so it can be kind of tight and then we have the
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power button followed by the start button now this cap over here can be moved out and we just
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have to press this button and then just move it out and the cool thing is once i move it
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this handle is automatically going to lift up so let me show you that again this is really cool so this is so we can get access to this basket and then right here is
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where all the dirt all the grime all the particles from the pool are going to be here's the opening
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and here's the propeller that propels everything inside and to get access to this we just have to
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pull this out and then like that and then this is going to be cleaned out but for now let me put
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this back in here and then if you want you can hold the handle and slide it down otherwise it's
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just sliding this will automatically push the handle downwards and it'll lock into place now
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taking a look over here we're gonna have a few sensors all over this this some feet now at the
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back side here's where all the electronics are so i'm not going to mess with any of that followed by
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both of the propellers and there's also going to be a sensor because in the app it can actually tell
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us what the water temperature is so that's pretty cool for monitoring my pool. But before putting it
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in the pool we do have to go over the app. So first things first create an account which I
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already did and at the bottom here it's going to be home. We're going to press the plus button
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and then it's going to search for the devices. So right now I do have to power on the Surfer S1
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on the back side. And there now I powered it on. And here we could see Surfer S1 automatically was
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found so I can press it and then Bluetooth pairing and it's successful. So now I can put my Wi-Fi here
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so let me just put the password and now it's connecting to the Wi-Fi just give it a few seconds
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All right so right here it says connection failed so I'm going to bring this inside a little bit
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closer to the router so we can try again. All right so I double checked and turns out I put
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the password wrong so let's try this again and right now I heard a beep so that's good news and
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And there, it's fully connected. And now I can press done. And then I can name the device, but in this case I'll just leave it as Surfer S1
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So done. And there, that's it for the app. So let me click onto it And it currently in standby mode which means nothing happening At the upper right corner we can see what the temperature is It says 27 degrees Celsius Let see if I can click onto it Nope It at 52 battery life
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Wi-Fi is connected, Bluetooth is connected. And let's see what this light does. So no, I can't click anything over here
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Okay, this is manual mode. So that means I can drive it. But nothing's going to happen because this isn't in the water
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If I press play. Yeah, I'm not going to press that. I have to put it in the water
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So for now, let me go into settings and see what I could change here. So it says zero minutes total cleaning time
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Unit switch. This is what I want to switch to. So Fahrenheit instead. And there now we can see it's 80 degrees Fahrenheit
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And that's about all I can do on the app. Now going back, we can go on to support
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And then here we can see what other devices it has. So there's a bunch of other ones that I don't own
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More help. We have account inquiry, app assistance. verify maintenance, process of warranty, and live chat, and then finally me and this goes over more
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of my personal account details. So now let's head outside and actually put this to the test. So
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before putting the Surfer S1 in the water you know make sure it's clear so there's no animals there's
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no people in the pool in this case yep it's fine and here we can see what the water looks like so
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there are a bit of particles all over I think that's a bug there's some leaves over there
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and then i think on the left side i saw a little bit more dirt yeah like right around here so
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there's little itty bitty bits of things of bugs and of leaves so that'll pick it up pretty well
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thankfully the pool doesn't look too dirty but let's see how good of a job it does now
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so now i can grab the aper by the handle then just place it right here gently
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and let's watch it do its thing so here it is yep it's currently on standby so i do have to
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manually start it so I'll press the play button and then I heard the beep and
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then there it is so now it's working and here's what the speed of it looks like
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so it looks like it's just rotating all around just orienting itself and here you
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can see the little animation on the app Let's see what happens if it bumps into it, no it doesn't bump into it and that's because
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of the sensors so yeah the backside will bump into it actually
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And there, oh there's the bug, yeah I picked up the bug, yep it's not there anymore
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Now in the meantime, here you can see the app again. So it says cleaning time, one minute
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And the temperature is at 80 degrees Fahrenheit. So let's see if that changes over the course of these next few minutes
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And now if I want, I can pause it or stop it here. But what I want to do is manually control it
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So let me press this. Yeah, so let's see how well this works. So let me move it to the right. It's moving
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Now let me move it forward Oh actually no this is forward Yeah it moving forward towards me so here I have the joycon coming towards me and it going to me now let me try to adjust the angle so let me turn
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oh yeah it's really cool yeah this is like like a toy at this point kind of like a like an rc boat except with with this
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So okay, I'll stop playing with it. I'll go back And I'll just let it do its thing and i'll come back and see how the pool looks like
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So it's pretty cool watching the footage back of the skimmer do its thing
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And this thing put some work in and unfortunately as you can see sometimes the skimmer did get stuck in between the stairs
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So I just had to push it with a little pole and then another time I thought it got stuck in the corner
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But after some moving around it was able to shimmy its way out
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Now, even though it does have some sensors in the front, it can only sense what's in front of it
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So if it does get stuck kind of like this in between the railings, the sensors are only on the right and on the left side
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There's nothing in the center, so it can't really tell that it's stuck. So it just thinks it's going straight
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Otherwise, when it does sense something such as the walls, it'll do like a random turn and it'll kind of just keep adjusting its turning pattern
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So I left it alone for about two hours afterwards. And then here's what happened
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So it's the two hour mark and the Surfer S1 is still going. Unfortunately, it got caught over here
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And so you do have to push it occasionally. But of course, the best thing is, you know, if you didn't have these stairs
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more so these railings because it can get caught in the center. Because if it just had these stairs, it would bump into it and then it would realize, you know, can't keep going
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So that's pretty unfortunate. So I do have to check in on this just to make sure that doesn't happen again like before
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All right, so it's the next day and the Surfer S1 has been going for six hours and 20 minutes
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and when I checked that night this was just a shut off somewhere over there and now since it's
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daytime it was able to go ahead and jump with the sun and currently it's right over here
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So now yeah the pool's looking pretty clean on top not so much at the bottom I still have to
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clean the bottom up but that's another robot's job and here it is. So to stop this I can either
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just bring it close to me with the phone but in this case since it's right here I can pull it right
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out here let me just turn it a little bit right here with the handle and then just pull it up
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and I'll let some of the water just drain and then from here we could see that it did catch
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some stuff and you can see some particles some leaves just to grime all over I can lay this right
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here and then shut this off to press the power button or just hold the power button
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And there, now it's completely off. So let's check inside. So again, just push this button, and I can pull it out
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All right now the moment of truth Let see how much stuff this actually got All right here the little clip
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And there it is. So look at that. I think that's like, oh wow, that's like a wing from a bug
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We've got a few leaves. We've got another bug over here. Actually, there's a bunch of bugs here
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And then same thing goes for the top of this. Oh yeah, that's a pretty big bug. Yeah, just a bunch
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of bugs all over. And so of course if you do have a much bigger pool then this will be really
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convenient. But this definitely saved the job instead of me having to use just the pool and
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manually scooping it. This did pretty well. So now time to clean all this up. So cleaning this up is
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pretty easy. You can either bring this to the sink or just outside with a hose. This will be much
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easier to get everything out. and now let's try the jet and yeah I think that's pretty good so here you can have a look at it
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it's a lot cleaner than before so there's no remnants of bugs whatsoever and same thing goes
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for the cap so let me go back up and put this in the surfer s1 and then once again this is pretty
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easy. Just place this right in here and then it's going to be pushed in place. And there now it's
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ready for next time's use. So overall I'm pretty happy with the Surfer S1. It makes cleaning the
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top a lot easier instead of having to use this leaf skimmer. I don't have to worry about it. I
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just set it and forget it. And it was pretty cool just leaving it here all night and knowing that by
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the morning it's going to go again because it's going to be charged with the sun. And this thing
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went for like six hours and it can still keep going because in the end it's just going to power
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down when once it has no battery and then it'll power back up after it charges so you can kind of
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leave this here for a while until you want to empty the bin out. Now using the app was pretty easy and
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right now it's currently disconnected and that's because I turned it off but yeah there's not much
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to do in the app. You can start, you could stop it, you can manually move it around which is kind of
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cool because then you can use that as like an RC car or RC skimmer and then you can also see what
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the temperature of the pool was, which before I shut this off, I believe it was around 81. And then
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up top here, you can see some more notifications if the Wi-Fi is off, Bluetooth, and then this bar
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I'm not sure what that light is there. So this would be good if you have a larger pool, whether it be in ground or above ground, and you don't want to clean the top with that leaf skimmer
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it just makes life so much easier with this robot. Now, the only downside about this is that it will
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collide into things and get stuck. And in this case, it's going to be the stairs. And the only
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The issue was because the railing space was perfect for this to collide and when it did
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the sensors weren't able to detect it because it couldn't see it, so I did have to push
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it along yesterday. Thankfully for today, it didn't get stuck and it was working perfectly fine
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But yeah, if you're looking for a way to clean the top of your pool really easy with a robot
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definitely check this Aper Surfer S1 out
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