Price at Review

$59.99 (discount codes were available on Amazon during this review)

Smorobot C1

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Smorobot is a new brand to us, but the manufacturer has seven different robotic pool cleaners already under its belt, including this one, the Smorobot Tank C1. As the name implies, this robot is intended to be a workhorse in the pool, promising a 150-minute runtime and maximum coverage of 2,500 square feet.

The robot measures roughly 12 x 17 x 15 (HxWxL) inches in size and weighs 18 pounds. It’s powered by a 7800mAh battery, which is on the small side for a robot of this size; but in my testing, it was invariably able to exceed its specified running time of 150 minutes, usually by about half an hour.

The robot’s unusual form factor makes for an eye-catching design: An angled front panel with a wide handle dominates the device. In the rear, debris is collected in a quite large filter basket that is accessed via a hatch. Two wide treads power the device, while two spinning brushes in front of the robot sweep leaves and dirt toward the suction unit as it moves along. My test unit was white with blue trim; a white and gray model is also available.

The Smorobot Tank C1 is much more effective at capturing grit and sand than it is with leaves.

Specifications

The device’s top power switch allows you to choose between two cleaning modes, either floors only (F) or walls and floors (S). The unit is powered by a two-prong charger port that must be covered with a waterproof screwcap while it’s submerged. The box includes a simple A/C plug, as well as a retrieval hook for removing the robot.

The front panel is distinguished by the long line of status leds that runs the length of the device. The center lights indicate the battery level, gradually going dark as it drains down to nothing. They then illuminate in reverse once the device is plugged in. The lights on the side indicate what the robot is up to: red lights indicate that something is stuck and white lights indicate it is moving or turning in one direction or another. These indicators are not very useful, however, because they are hard to see while the robot is submerged. There’s a better way to determine if the robot is stuck than to look into the water and try to see some red LEDs.

I tested the Tank C1 in my pool on multiple days and found that while it worked well enough overall, it wasn’t in my top tier of pool robots. After dropping the robot into the water, it slowly sinks to the bottom and then, well, it just sits there for a couple of minutes. Smorobot says this is by design, but throughout my testing, I was surprised by how much of its running time was occupied by idling, seemingly trying to gear itself up for its next big move.

It’s perhaps because of this considerable lag time that the Tank C1 didn’t do the best job at cleaning in my test runs, gathering up about 90 percent of the material in my synthetic leaves test, and clearly missing a few areas in my standard testing with organic leaves. A 90 percent collection rate isn’t awful, but for this price, I had hoped for better results.

More notably, the Tank C1 also struggled with walls—corners in particular—during my evaluation. While it was often able to climb walls to scrub the waterline, I also witnessed it failing to make it up the wall on multiple occasions, stopping midway before returning back to the floor, where it would sit for a while before either trying again or turning and moving elsewhere.

There wasn’t much rhyme or reason for this, as subsequent climbing attempts would be just as likely to succeed as they were to fail. Corners were also a big problem for the Tank C1, including one outside corner in my pool that saw the device stuck on the ridge for a solid 10 minutes. It’s also notable that the device is not designed to clean steps, which, like most pool owners, I have plenty of.

When finished, the Smorobot Tank C1 is designed to park near a wall for retrieval with the included hook. I would characterize this performance as not exactly adjacent to the wall but, at least close enough to reach it with the hook on a pole.

Cleanup is reasonably straightforward once you figure out how to get the hatch over the filter basket open. (You must press down on a certain spot marked on top of the chassis to allow the adjacent latch to release.) Opening the hinged cover of the filter basket underneath is even more difficult, and I found that the cover was on so tight that I had to resort to using a screwdriver to pry it open. Things didn’t get much better on repeated tests, and ultimately, I feared I would break something by doing this if I was using the robot on a regular basis.

Looking inside the filter basket, I could tell the unit was much more effective at capturing grit and sand than it was with leaves; as with many top-tier robots, the basket was laden with debris that I wasn’t even aware was in the pool before I dropped it into the water. The hinged lid is a little awkward to open; otherwise, it cleans up easily with a hose.

Should you purchase a Smorobot Tank C1 robot pool cleaner?

Pool cleaner does not come with a smartphone app. Smorobot does have one, but currently it only works with its Valor bots. The manufacturer has said that the Tank C1 app is still being developed, and since the Tank has Bluetooth capability, app support may not be too far away.

This review is part TechHive’s comprehensive coverage of the best robotic pools cleaners.

With a $600 asking price, the Smorobot Tank C1 (Amazon offered a $200 off coupon at the time of this writing), it is in the lower price range for midrange pool robotics. This seems to be a reasonable price for a robot that has virtually no frills. It’s a good robot, but it doesn’t reach greatness.

I think that even a robot with no frills would need to perform better than this in order to be recommended.

Smorobot Tank C1 (19459097) – Best Price Today!

Christopher NullContributor, PCWorld.