Mammotion Spino E1 Review: A Budget Pool Bot That Comes Up Short

The robot uses Bluetooth to communicate with your phone and 2.4-GHz Wi-Fi to connect directly to your home network for over-the-air updates (but not real-time management). Onboarding requires connecting to a temporary network on the device and connecting it to your home network, a quick process that didn’t cause me any trouble during setup. Firmware updates will probably be available, but note that you’ll need to check the device information menu for them. Mamotion didn’t actively push or suggest any updates during my testing, and these over-the-air updates often require multiple attempts to successfully install.

The app is certainly limited, allowing you to select between the standard four operating modes and make a few small additional adjustments, including configuring the robot’s maximum speed and opting out of some beta features. These include a “Turbo Cleaning” mode that increases suction power at the expense of battery life, and an option to fine-tune the way the unit cleans steps and platforms. (Why this feature isn’t always on is a mystery.)

leaves behind

Photograph: Chris Null

Throughout my test runs, I saw fairly consistent performance results. The Spino E1 offers acceptable cleaning capabilities, although it is far from ideal. With synthetic leaves, the unit achieved an average cleaning rate of only 80 percent, leaving a significant amount of material uncollected. This material was not isolated to just corners and stairs; It was scattered around the pond. I also noticed that the unit cleared stairs and platforms well, but it struggled heavily with obstacles, especially at the waterline.

I saw similar results with organic debris, and the E1 particularly struggled with smaller particles like dirt. At one point, the best I can describe the pool was as if some debris had been scattered around on the pool floor instead of being contained in a debris basket. This is all unusual and does not indicate that the unit is having coverage issues, but rather that the device may be low on power.

The good news: The turbo cleaning mode available through the app was clearly more effective and didn’t impact battery life at all. The bad news is that this option, which is still in beta, will have to be manually activated in the app before each run of the robot. Hopefully, Mamotion will make Turbo mode the default soon.

When finished, the Spino E1 climbs onto the pool wall and waits near the waterline for collection – at least momentarily. The problem is that the robot doesn’t send a notification through the Mamotion app to alert you when the cleaning cycle is complete, and since the robot has to run its propulsion jets to swim, you only have a limited amount of time (about 10 minutes) before the battery drains and the robot sinks. A hook is included in the box to aid in pole-based retrieval in this event.