After a Storm Hit, the Beatbot AquaSense 2 Ultra Proved It’s the Ultimate Pool Savior

I’m Nathanael Greene, a pool professional with over 15 years of experience designing, building, and maintaining pools, now sharing my expertise as a blog writer for Beatbot. My love for pools started with childhood summers cannonballing into my granddad’s backyard oasis in Georgia, and it’s grown into a career of mastering aquatic challenges. 

Living in Tampa, Florida, storm season is a yearly gauntlet, and on March 5, 2025—just weeks after the Beatbot AquaSense 2 Series launched at CES in February—I faced a backyard test. A freak spring squall, not quite a hurricane but fierce enough, trashed my 20,000-gallon in-ground pool. As a Beatbot tester, I’d snagged the  AquaSense 2 Ultra , and this was its moment. Here’s why it’s my top pick, how it stacks up against its AquaSense siblings, and why it might be your pool’s new MVP.

My pool—vinyl-lined, kidney-shaped, with a 7-foot deep end—sits under live oaks in my Tampa backyard. That last-month storm wasn’t Hurricane Ian-level, but it packed a punch: 50-mph gusts ripped leaves and twigs from the trees, peppering the surface like confetti, while a snapped palm frond I nicknamed “The Trident” speared into the shallow end. The water turned a murky soup, and my old pump whined in protest when I tried it. “Too much debris—net it first,” my pool guy texted. I’d been testing the AquaSense 2 Ultra since its February 2025 release, and with the storm hitting six weeks later, it was time to see if this $3,450 robot could handle a real mess.

The AquaSense 2 Ultra is Beatbot’s crown jewel, unveiled at CES 2025 with fanfare. It’s loaded with HybridSense™ AI Pool Mapping—an AI camera, infrared, and 27 ultrasonic sensors sketching a 3D map of your pool like a sci-fi scanner. I dropped it in on March 6, tapped Pro mode on the Beatbot app (5G/2.4G WiFi), and watched it hum to life. Its 13,400mAh battery—beefier than the 10,400mAh in the AquaSense 2 Pro—promised 8.5 hours of surface skimming or 5 hours of full-pool grit. With 11 motors pumping 5500 GPH suction, it hit all five zones: floor (twig graveyard), walls (gritty streaks), waterline (leaf smears), surface (oak chaos), and water clarity via its ClearWater Clarification System, dropping chitosan to clump the murk.

It sized up my kidney shape in minutes, dodging “The Trident” (post-manual removal) and scaling walls with dual-side brushes and a 265mm roller. After a 3-hour run, the 3.7-liter basket brimmed with debris—more than the 2.5-liter AquaSense 2 Pro could’ve swallowed. By March 7, after a second pass, the pool gleamed—surface clear, walls spotless, water crisp. The base AquaSense 2 ($1,499) skips surface and clarification for a 3-in-1 job, while the 2 Pro ($2,499) offers 5-in-1 but lacks the Ultra’s AI finesse. For this storm salvage, the Ultra’s edge shone bright.

At 24 pounds, the Ultra’s a beast—yanking it out after cleaning was a chore, especially on my wet deck post-storm. Smart Surface Parking floated it to the edge, but my back still griped (the 22-pound AquaSense 2 is kinder). WiFi’s 2.4GHz-only stuttered in my Tampa signal swamp—once, it dropped mid-run on March 6, forcing a manual reboot since it’s cordless (a quirk the 2 and 2 Pro share too). I’d warned my wife, a newbie to robots, to charge it fully after unboxing in February—she didn’t, and it died early on her first try. A 4.5-hour charge fixed it. That basket? Post-squall, it was a leaf brick—rinse it fast, or it’s a mess to unclog.

The AquaSense 2 Series, fresh from February 2025, gives three tiers. I’ve tested them all since launch. The AquaSense 2 (10,000mAh, 4-hour runtime) is the budget star—perfect for tame pools, no surface drama needed. The AquaSense 2 Pro ups it with 5-in-1 cleaning and a bigger battery, but its 20 sensors and smaller basket lag behind the Ultra’s storm-ready muscle. The Ultra’s AI—adaptive paths for my pool’s curves, debris-spotting smarts, and Multi-Platform mode (added via OTA update by March)—plus that clarifier, make it the champ. The 2 Pro could’ve managed my squall, but the Ultra’s power and precision cleaned faster and deeper.

By March 8, my pool was swim-ready—no service call, no net duty—the AquaSense 2 Ultra nailed it. At $3,450, it’s steep—twice the AquaSense 2’s $1,499 and $950 over the 2 Pro’s $2,499. But for Tampa’s wild weather, or any debris-heavy pool, it’s worth it. The 24-pound heft and WiFi hiccups exist, but Smart Surface Parking and app updates smooth the ride. For tighter budgets, the AquaSense 2 or 2 Pro shine for lighter loads. For me, post-storm, the Ultra’s a lifeline—kid-safe (my boys splashed by dusk), hurricane-tough, and a Beatbot masterpiece. Childhood me would’ve been awestruck; adult me just dives in grinning.