Robot pool cleaners are becoming more and more common in pools across America, providing autonomous support for their upkeep while giving back time to owners to enjoy the water – plus, they keep that water swim-ready with regular scheduling. What’s more, swimming season is upon us, with many folks starting the process of opening them now that we’re getting more and more consistent warm weather. Some of the most advanced of these pool cleaning robots on the market come from Beatbot, with premium models like the AquaSense Ultra starting up in the $3,000 range, though the brand recently released its Sora 70 Robotic Pool Cleaner to provide more accessible pricing with top-tier features. Of course, I picked one up to help my parents maintain their pool, both of them now in their elderly years, while also dealing with some physical disabilities. Head below to get a full rundown on mine and their experiences in this hands-on review.
Beatbot Sora 70: top-tier cleaning at a more affordable price
While the more premium AquaSense robots certainly sit higher on the hill of advanced features, the new Sora 70 robot still retains top-shelf specs and features for extremely more affordable pricing. Similar to the Segway Navimow X430 Robotic Lawn Mower, which we also recently reviewed with high regard, this new robot pool cleaner was first introduced to the world at CES 2026 before launching at the top of March.
Keeping to Beatbot’s usual design aesthetic, the Sora 70 brings along a multi-purpose filtration unit with 6,800 GPH suction sitting on two rolling treads and equipped with four rolling bristles (two at the front and two at the back) to tackle various needs around and deep within your pool. Unlike many of its predecessors, instead of coming in a black colorway, you’ll instead have the choice between more soothing Lavender Purple or Midnight Blue colorways here, which I much prefer.
It weighs in at 23 pounds straight out of the box, but that weight will increase after its put through some work due to collected debris and any water that has not been purged before any removal from the water. It contains an internal 10,000mAh battery that provides enough power for up to five hours of runtime on each full charge, allowing it to tackle your pool’s walls, floor, waterline, water surface, and even some steps – the latter needing to be at least 8 inches under the water.
It’s multi-use functionality are broken down into five modes (water surface, floor, pro, standard, and eco) that you can access via the in-app smart controls, which even include manual driving modes so you can steer it to specific spots you want tackled. There are onboard controls that don’t necessarily require the app, though you do have to pre-set the mode before using the buttons to either start or stop its cleaning process, or flip the switch into an automatic pro mode (covering the floor, walls, waterline, and surface). Once it finishes its designated cycle – whether you’re scheduling it for regular cleanings or tossing it in the water on a whim, it comes programmed to return to the water’s surface and park itself at the edge of your pool for more convenient removal by human hands.
Along its sides you can find four guide wheels next to the treads in its four corners, helping to keep the robot from scraping against walls as it performs certain actions. Navigation and obstacle avoidance is handled by the two ultrasonic sensors alongside an array of 18 additional sensors, which also contribute to its being able to tell that pool steps are 8 inches or deeper under the surface.
There is a 6L basket capacity for all the debris that gets collected from various levels of the pool, which is easily removed by simply popping open its top and sliding it out to empty wherever you please. Unlike the more premium robots under Beatbot’s flag, the Sora 70 doesn’t utilize wireless charging, which likely contributes to its lower price tag, with it instead sporting an “ultra-safe titanium charging plug” for quick connection when the battery runs too low. When you remove the charging connector from this plug, there is a door that shuts tightly and does a great job keeping water out – no unscrewing or popping stoppers needed! That internal battery also only needs around 4.5 hours to fully charge using the included 65W charger in the package.
Beatbot Sora 70 features at a glance:
- Complete Pool Coverage — Cleans water-surface, floor, walls, waterline, and shllow-water & platforms as low as 8 inches.
- JetPulse™ Water Surface Cleaning — Twin jets actively pull debris inward, not push away, for faster, more efficient cleaning.
- Smart Water-Surface Parking — Automatically floats to the edge—no heavy lifting from deep water.
- 6,800 GPH Suction Power — Professional-grade suction removes fine sand to large debris in a single pass.
- 10,000 mAh Battery — Up to 7 hours surface or 5 hours floor cleaning on a single charge.
- 6L Debris Capacity — 6L/150µm filter handles all daily debris; optional 3µm ultra-fine filter for crystal-clear water.
- App & Offline Control — Remote navigation, one-tap retrieval, 5 modes, and customizable quick button.
As I mentioned, the Sora 70 robot comes with far less of a cost over the more advanced AquaSense robots, and can currently be found with a $1,499 MSRP at both Beatbot’s direct website, as well as through the brand’s official Amazon storefront. Since its release, we’ve been seeing regular discounts, too, so it’s highly unlikely that you’ll even pay that full price, with it often keeping down around $1,199.
Getting started with Beatbot’s Sora 70 Robotic Pool cleaner:
The unboxing and initial setup process for this robot is extremely straightforward. For starters, the robot comes nicely packaged with thick cardboard barriers around it for protection, and after a minute or two of pulling it all out and unwrapping the robot from the plastic, you’re left with the charger, a hook to attach to a pole, and a booklet.
From there, all that is required is for you to charge the robot before downloading and following the in-app setup process to connect it to its smart controls. Once this is all done in a handful of minutes (not counting any charging time), you’ll be ready to drop it into your pool and begin its regular duties.
One thing to note about its maiden voyage is that this robot is designed for maintaining clean waters, and should not be used to do your post-opening cleaning if there has been plenty of gunk built up over the winter or any months it’s been covered for prolonged timeframes.
My Sora 70 cleaning experience:
After we let the old-school Polaris run for the initial post-open cleaning, it was finally time to toss in the Sora 70 and see what it could do. Of course, there was a few days in between the initial cleaning and using the robot, and with the way trees are situated around the pool, it offered the elements plenty of time to drop tons of debris, bugs, and the like into the water.
The smart controls for this new model are not as comprehensive or with as wide of an array of options as the higher-end AquaSense robots. However, my parents (who again, are much older and not as savvy with tech as I am) found the in-app controls to be perfect for them, as they didn’t require a major bootcamp of an overwhelming amount of options.
There are four preset modes you can use for more specific purposes within the app (floor, surface, standard, or eco), as well as the full slate of cleaning under the fifth “pro mode.” You can also access the preset mode you’ve chosen or the pro mode without the app by flipping the switch located at the front of the robot, too. Once you’ve chosen your desired mode, all you have to do is drop it in and let its programming take care of the rest.
One of the other fun options within the app is the manual driving feature, allowing you to steer the robot to a destination of your choice; however, this only works while it’s skimming the surface of your pool and will be unusable once it dives deeper, as the water tends to cut off connections to the app until it surfaces once again. There are also voice controls you can use to set its modes, but they work in the same manner as the other controls, and thus, once under the water, they cannot reach the robot until it resurfaces.
Due to my mother’s hyper-obsession with keeping the water as clear as possible, we initially set the robot to run daily for the first few days before switching to every other day. The brand rates its battery to be able to handle five to seven hours max on a full charge, and after running it for a few weeks now, I’d say it pretty much falls into that range. We’ve kept it to its pro mode setting, which comprises the full suite of cleaning types – the floor, walls, waterline, water surface, and steps, which it is usually able to complete in around four hours total.
That rate is longer than you’ll get with the higher-end robots, but its not really a big deal for me or for my parents, as its not like any of us are dedicating our time to babysitting it for the full extent. What’s more, after running through all the cleaning after four hours, it still shows a pretty solid battery level that has allowed us to run it an additional one or two times should certain areas be missed.
The lower price here definitely is shown in its scaled-down performance, as some slight irregularities in our pool have caused it to miss specific areas and led us to have to occasionally run it a second time. The main culprit is some creases/ripples in the liner, which has been around for years and would cost far too much to be replaced, rather than just worked around. It’s this specific corner of the deep end that has caused the robot to occasionally miss finer debris, though with a second pass, it’s been handled.
Likewise, this is not an AI-supported vision robot, so it performs cleaning on an S-shaped path rather than actively identifying and seeking out dirty areas, which has also occasionally led to missed spots, though again, this is fixed with another cycle being activated. It also cannot hit the top two steps at the shallow end/entrance to the pool, as these do not sit under the 8-inch minimum, but it has kept the bottom two steps spotless so far.
One of the main things that annoys all of us with pool cleaning is skimming the surface, and given the price point being much lower on the Sora 70, I was initially questioning how well it would clean the surface and steps. To reach a lower price, you often have to cut back on certain things, but I’m very happy to say that I was immediately proven wrong to worry, as it has been performing at the waterline and water surface quite well, given the sheer amount of floating debris that ends up in the pool on a regular basis.
The way the water surface skimming works is that there are little jets on the side of the front of the robot, which confused all of us at first because we thought it was just aimlessly circling the walls. Of course, this is the point here, as it uses the jets to push debris off the walls so the robot can collect it into the inlet mouth and work its way outward from there, stuffing everything into the easy-to-remove 6L basket inside.
One thing I really appreciate here is the design that properly traps the debris once its been collected, even when removing the robot from the pool. I say this because my brother has a cheaper Aiper robot for his pool, but you have to remove it from the water in a very specific manner to keep the dirt and debris inside, or else it falls out when tipped in the wrong direction. You also have to go diving for that model, whereas the Sora 70 returns itself to the surface with buoyancy once it completes its task and parks itself near the edge of the pool. Now, when I say it “parks,” I simply mean it keeps itself floating by the edge, so if your pool pump turns on and jets activate and start moving the water, with enough time the small circulating currents will cause it to drift, but this wasn’t any serious issue that prevented us from removing it.
All-in-all, this thing has become a very welcome member of the family, and although there have been some slight gripes – mostly due to physical ailments and not necessarily the robot – my parents have been almost entirely singing praise about it to everyone who sees it.
My (and my family’s) final thoughts on the Sora 70:
So overall, this thing is doing great. It may be a much slower worker than some of Beatbot’s other robots, but it is still saving us tons of time we’d otherwise have to be dealing with the old-fashioned Polaris’ regular mistakes. Among the other pros I haven’t mentioned, for one, it runs so much quieter than the pump-powered Polaris. This is due to the fact that the pool’s pump doesn’t need to be running all the time loudly, obviously, which also has the added benefit of cutting down majorly on electricity costs (again, my mother needs things immaculate to the point that the pump would be running more often than not to keep the Polaris cleaning).
Another way it’s helped cut down on the noise around the yard is due to it not having a tail that constantly shoots above the surface while on the walls and spraying outside the pool, which always drives their three dogs wild as they try to bark, chase, and catch it.
The only main gripe about this robot has come from my mother, who unfortunately suffers from a spinal disability after a botched surgery years ago, but if you know Sicilian women, she refuses to acknowledge it as a hindrance and regularly tries to do things she physically shouldn’t. The one thing that she shouldn’t be doing is removing the robot from the pool and trying to carry it. For the rest of us – including my dad, who is in his 70’s and approaching 80 – the 23-pound weight with some added units from collected debris is no problem. So folks with disabilities or physical limitations should be smart about this.
Other than that, I am absolutely impressed that the lower price point has not limited the robot to be a glorified mechanical brick or anything like that. As I said, the scaled-down design is slower and isn’t as intelligent, but it gets the job done through and through, so you’re definitely getting your money’s worth (I mean, it is still a pricier model than many bargain-brand pool cleaners like my brother’s Aiper). If you don’t have the funds to invest in the AquaSense series robots, Beatbot’s Sora 70 is definitely worth consideration.
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