Original - The Automatic Pool Surface Cleaner - Clarifier Pool Skimmer - Suction Skimmer for Pools

This is a good product. We have a large in ground hot tub that doesn’t include a built in skimmer. This product is the only reasonable way we’ve found to skim the surface. We just connect it to the vacuum pipe and let it do its thing. Those who say it is loud or sucks air just aren’t using it right. As long as you balance the suction, it works perfectly.

The idea is good, bit it is made with cheap low quality parts. for starters, the hose gets brittle within a few months. I think it is made out of nylon which doesn't do good under a lot of direct sunlight (try leaving a grocery store plastic bag in the sun and see how long it takes for it to start de coloring) . The floats break off eventually. The company tries to nickle and dime you buying low quality replacement parts. I contacted customer service one time and was ignored, so I started 3d printing my own floats. A friend of mine gave some hose that works perfect with it, and with the parts I built I have kept it running for a while. I still use it because It does a pretty good job at keeping my pool's surface clean, but the only part I still use is the acrylic base. Everything else I've made my own, otherwise by now I would've spent three times its original cost in replacement parts.

Its a very simple and basic product but works so well. In combination with my barracuda vacuum my pool has never been cleaner. Other than heavy winds or right after mowing the yard I don't need to skim the pool by hand anymore! It is so nice to be able to just jump in for a few minutes after work rather than spend 10-15 min skimming first. Update 5yrs later June 2020 After 5 yrs I finally need to replace this item. The plastic T broke and the hose gave out, I’ve trimmed the hose multiple times over the last 5 yrs due to tears in the hose. I also had problems like others with the blue triangle things coming off, nothing a little superglue won’t solve. IMO nothing in fl sitting in water and direct sunlight for 12+hrs a day is going to last much more than a year without issues, it just is what it is. I still think this item is worth the money as it works pretty well for me but it is not going to last forever and will need some fixes to keep it going. I would like to see a replacement hose and the plastic T available for purchase separately. FYI my local pinch a penny sells this item for $70!

First - the good news. Once you get the adjustments right (trial and error, and probably different for every pool, cleaner, and pump combination), this item does a good job of keeping the little annoying plant and insect debris off of the surface of your pool. The key is to keep air out of the hose line and to properly position your ballasts. Adding the second one (included) really did the trick for me, and each morning I just go out and use my net/brush pole to submerge any portion of the hose that is floating to purge the air in the line before the pump kicks on. With a good pool cleaner and one of these, you can really keep tour pool clean with very modest effort, especially if your pool doesn’t have a ton of tree leaves/twigs falling into the pool or is enclosed with a screen. Just take the cleaner, this skimmer, and the hoses out and you will be swimming in clear, clean water. No surface flotsam and jetsam to push toward the slimmer or splash over the side. The downside(s) - this is seriously overpriced. I think $100 is a lot for a couple pieces of plastic and some flex tubing of marginal quality. I know the manufacturer and the sellers/retailers need to make money, but at this price point I’d like better quality tubing or better instructions or web support. In addition, I’m pretty sure the Florida sun and heat will shorten the life of this item. I may see if I can find the same diameter flex tubing/hose of better quality. Or I may just bite the bullet and buy a new one every 12-24 months. Obviously a $100 cleaner attachment is not going to break the bank if you can afford a $50k pool set up, I just don’t like paying $100 for $10 worth of plastic. But unless I go into the plastic extrusion/molding business, I’m at the mercy of the folks who make/sell this rascal.

This device works -- helps remove most of the bugs floating on the pool surface. I have mine attached directly to the suction line using an adapter because our pool service takes care of vacuuming. We've got a screened-in pool that gets covered in gnats after every heavy rainfall in South Florida. It takes a bit of time for the Skimmer Motion to suck up the bugs, but at least I don't have to skim every day. I've only had to skim once after installing this and that was to clear the pool surface right after a heavy rain so we could swim. This device has a major flaw, though. It sucks air -- a lot of it. So much that, in my system, the air gets sucked into the vacuum line and sits there until I remove the Skimmer Motion, allowing it to bubble back into the pool. Fortunately it doesn't make it to the pump (caveat below). If I don't allow the air to be released, sometimes several times per day (and definitely at the end of the day before the pump turns off), when the pump turns off the bubbles flow back through the Skimmer Motion, causing it to flop over and dump the leaf-catcher insert, which then has to be retrieved from the bottom of the pool. The insert also serves to limit the suction venturi "tornado" effect that allows air in, but it clearly does not work very well. The caveat about the air not reaching the pump -- if I fail to release the air from the suction line and get the Skimmer Motion back in the proper position with the insert at the end of the day, when the pump comes on the next morning the Skimmer Motion is sucking mostly air, which DOES reach the pump. That can kill your pump. Turn the vacuum valve down, you say? It's barely open. Close it any more and this thing would not do anything to remove the bugs. I give it three stars because after months of use, it mostly works, but it requires LOTS of babying -- 15 to 30 minutes maybe. For the amount it costs, I would have expected the maker to have put much more thought into the design to prevent this problem, which seems to be common based on the reviews.

This thing works 100%. I live in SFLA and my pool is screened in and even so I still get a lot of debris and bugs floating on the surface of the pool. Specially in the summer after daily summer storms I have to spend 30 minutes sweeping the surface of the pool with a net to grab all the nats and noseems and small bugs that fly in and fall into the pool. After spending 10 minutes setting up and adjusting the suction on the vacuum line this thing start doing the cleanup. Within an hour 85% of the bugs and surface was clean. Left it running over night and the next morning my pool surface was 99% clean and clear of bug or debris. I installed it both ways as stated by other members. Connected and the end of my Baracuda G3 W03000 and at closer the connector where my vacuum line starts. I find it that it works better connected to the actual Baracuda as it covers more ground and it doesn't depend on the current of the water to take the debri to it. It moves all over the pool surface dragged by the vacuum on the floor. Some people complained of it being tangled but for me I have not had to touch it. The small tangle will resolve itself once it moves to a different area. Now I can finally say, lets go to the pool and just disconnect the equipment and just get in and enjoy !!!

This skimmer pulls in very little floating material. In one hour it picked up barely a small handful of floating leaves and pollen stems. 99% of the leaves and pollen stems remained floating after 1 hour. Essentially, no leaves larger than 1/4” X 3/4” were picked up. Adjusting the valves on other skimmers permanently installed in the pool did nothing to enhance the performance of this Skimmer Motion model. Very disappointed in its very weak performance.

UPDATE: these folks are on the ball. Since it obviously wasn't fitting and I have other reservations I did not contact them, but received an immediate e-mail quoting something from their blog that supposedly tells how to configure this for the Navigator. I am sorry if I am wrong, but I tried everything including the standard hose and this did not fit. Unfortunately it is on its way back for a prime-refund, or I might give it another try but I was pretty thorough the first time. Maybe the documentation needs to be IN THE BOX instead of on some blog somewhere. Much thanks for reaching out to me, though, that was impressive. ORIGINAL: This does not fit the Hayward Navigators. I know they use a Navigator look-alike on the box and in the instructions, but it does not fit. They even include a Navigator adapter, but all this does is make one side fit - the other is so loose that the hose just falls off the top. Yes, I tried every way because I just could not believe it. I was able to see this in action with the loose fit, and a little leaf fragment just floated on by. I followed the directions to dial-in the suction and the whirlpool was pretty much perfect. Whatever it is that makes some things repel one another in water (while others attract), this one repelled the little leaf fragments. This could be because the hose was not overly tight but I had a very nice whirlpool going and it should have worked. Last observation - the hose is stiff plastic that seemed to really get in the way in the shallow end. I am not sure if my observation is accurate, but I have no confidence in the "toy" plastic.