Maytronics Dolphin M400
VerifiedMPNs: 99991048-AUI23, 99991049-AUI23 and M40090 reviews
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Owned nine months and really happy! – My experience with this pool cleaner has been different to a number of the other reviewers, maybe the majority of those who write reviews are the unhappy ones? But I have been delighted with our M400 after 9 months of fortnightly use in a smallish concrete rectangular pool. For starters the company staff really tried very hard to help me select the right unit. Secondly the unit does all it is claimed to do — climbs the walls, moves slightly horizontally when it reaches the surface, and covers the pool comprehensively in the 2.5 hour cycle. Negatives? The cable is a little inflexible to rewind, the unit is fairly heavy when lifting out of the water, and the carrying caddy is not a perfect design. I clean the filter cartridges on the unit after each use, which maybe some people do not, and that is a quick exercise. I was originally also critical of the company for the confusing marketing approach they were using in applying different badges to what was essentially the same machine for different distributors. But the M400 I have has done all I expected and more.
- Date Purchased:
Do not buy if your pool is curved in shape or has curved sides! – What a mistake for the price! My old Creepy-Crawler got around to every corner of my pool, but unfortunately for me this M400 Dolphin gets stuck as soon as it hit the curves. Wheels are spinning and nothing moving!! I took it back to the retailer and complained it was getting stuck. I commented it had the wrong brushes - (they were the foam Wonder brushes(?), instead of the PVC brushes). They said no, I had the right brushes for a fiberglass pool but I had the wrong angle on the handle float. Hogwash - I adjusted it and made no difference. Now, every time I use this M400 I have to keep an eye out so when it gets stuck I have to move it to get it going again. Admittedly, the areas it does clean, it does a good job, but I always use the Ultra-fine filter cartridges instead of the net filters. I just wished it would clean the whole pool and without my intervention to get it going. The advertising for the Dolphin is that you sit back, relax and never have to worry about the pool cleaner. Yeah right!!
I am really sorry that this product is over-priced, over-hyped and over-here...in my pool.
- Date Purchased:
Maytronics - avoid – Garbage product. Multiple faults, has been back under warranty twice in the first 2 years of ownership. Faulty cable, faulty control box, ball bearings appearing in the bottom of the pool after components have fallen apart, WIFI doesn’t work, Support hard to communicate with of get direct answers. Seems to be a common thread if you read these… Read more
reviews. Robot works well when it is functional, but overall it is the Jeep of the robot world - lots of promise but ultimately a rubbish, unreliable and costly lemon.
Thank you for taking the time to share your… Read more (+1 reply)
Do not buy maytronics m400 – The cable gland is poor and leaks water, cutting connection to motor. The water travels inside the cable and destroys the motor as well. Support is terrible. I have had 3 cable failures now. Machine is back in the shop with long delays expected. The unit also does not climb the walls as it should. Terrible , expensive machine I wish I never bought. Show details
Hi Fieldy, I’m sorry to hear about the issues you've… Read more
I hate mine. It spends half its life stuck on my pool steps not moving. I have a long pool with steps at one end. Every time I look outside it’s there stuck on a step. If you have steps I don’t recommend the M400 at all. The pool power cord is forever tangled and as soon as you unplug it and untangle the cord it just tangles again. My steps have dirt and sand blown in and I will have to buy a manual pool cleaner to clean them. Show details
Hi Nick, Thankyou for your enquiry. We understand how… Read more
Reviews with attachments
Very good, but disappointing user manual – EDIT, please read all the way through for an updated happy ending. I originally bought a Zodiac CX35 online and was so excited to use it for the first time. Found I was happy enough until it broke within 7 days.. got an error code and it refused to move. Sent it back for a refund. This time around I wanted to do a little more research before… Read more · 1
buying something and all roads pointed toward the Dolphin because it was tough, dependable, had finer filters and was nav intelligent apparently. First thing I noted was that it has two filter canisters not just one! Where no one ever actually mentioned online whatsoever so that was a complete surprise. Also has two types of changeable filters, one I'm guessing 100 micron and a finer type. Very cool. The Zodiac only had a 200 micron (or pay an additional $80 for 100 micron) where silt would blow through back into suspension clouding up the pool. The other thing I noticed was the Zodiac impeller was actually right in the middle of the filter basket, suspect to damage ... whereas the Dolphins is independent and won't be damaged by debris spinning through filtration. (Dolphin impeller after all filtration has been completed, Zodiac right in the centre of the filters)
It's definitely built tougher, which is good and seems to do a decent job of navigating the pool. I do notice it climbs the walls in the same three or four spots and can't quite make it up the steeper starting corner slopes where none of the rollers or tracks make forward contact but no robotic cleaners would. (fwiw I have a fibreglass pool and bought the WB model with foam rollers). It doesn't seem to get to the waterline much after the first few minutes, as soon as there's a little bit of matter inside the filters it stops climbing and slips as it tries to climb up before reversing back down with even the 100 micron filter installed, and I mean miniscule amount of debris in the filters (I thoroughly clean these each time), it just seems to become too heavy but so did the Zodiac as well, maybe all robotics do this? I've tried adjusting the float positions but it hasn't seemed to make a difference at all. Is it possible because my fibreglass pool is sprayed blue the shop should have sold me the CB model? In the manual it states: WB for tile and ceramics, online states also fibreglass so who knows
It does pick up everything, but only if I sweep the silt down to bottom off the higher ledges. It does knock some down on it's descent if it can climb the particular area which I can tell was cleverly and purposely designed. It leaves a few small piles of silt on some of the curves/corners and stairs where my pool is strange and street shaped but I can live with that, no robot would be able to get that, it's only very small amounts.
The Zodiac picked up leaves a little better than the Dolphin, and it's larger micron filter helped suction somewhat so both have their goods and bad's, though the Zodiac was really just a toy When emptying the Dolphin finer filters leaves are stuck halfway in the chute blocking up the intake, whereas the Zodiac Excelled in this area. The net filters seem to do a decent job for leaves though and they're one hundred percent inside the filters upon emptying.
The Zodiac had a selection of programs on the controller where you could select different run times, just floor, walls and floor etc which was good, the Dolphin M400 is just on and off. It runs for 2.5hrs but find that's ok and I don't need all the bells and whistles. Something dependable that does a good job is what I was looking for. The caddy is handy but a Tadd flimsy for such a heavy robot. It'll be fine as long as you're careful with it. The Zodiac was similar in build quality
Found that I've been able to halve my pool filtration time because what the robot's taking out means my salt cell is essentially not needing to put out near as much chlorine anymore due to it not being used up by much at the bottom of the pool so it saves on power (1000w pump costs 45 cents per hour here, saving a dollar or two per day)
Overall I don't mind it but wish it were a little more nimble on walls, climbing, waterline scrubbing and leaves, that's quite disappointing unfortunately.
EDIT** Well after much online research I've finally found out what was wrong with my robot. It's only by chance I ran across a very small article about the floats (which there is no mention of in the user manual) The handle floats can actually pull out to the side, creating an additional area of buoyancy to help bring the robot to the surface. Since adjusting both of these outward it's a different animal, gone is the lifeless heavy outdated robot that's been sloshing around the bottom of my pool this last week and it's as if it's full of vigour now and gets around as nimble as you'd expect for a robot of this price range. To top that off, because the robot climbs slightly higher with the net filters installed you can simply adjust the float side positions to make it move along the waterline edge better. Really loving how versatile this robot can be once you get to know it, can really tailor it to your personal pool but in order to get the best from it you need to know how to use it and the manual does not tell you. Shame on Dolphin for not only not advising people to do this in the first place when people complain it's not climbing and secondly not mentioning it in the manual. Really? Floats spread outward pictured. Hope this helps someone out there
A good pool cleaner for custom pebblecrete pool – I've had the M400 for over 1 year & it has performed adequately for our custom kidney shaped pebblecrete pool. The M400 can usually clean the pool within 1 session, unless we've had a storm and there is more debris present requiring an additional cleaning session. The unit is easy to clean & the filters can easily be removed for cleaning. The… Read more · 2
only complaint is the fine filter panels are easily broken, particularly the lower lugs that connect into the frames when too much debris is captured. They seem inadequate for the pressure of material allowed into the frame. This is managed OK, but still frustrating the design cant handle the device's capacity. However, the other coarser filter screen type provided work as designed. Other than the filter screen issue, the M400 has performed flawlessly.
In-depth reviews
Filter options vs function – Purchased the M400 4 months ago, I asked the retailer which one I should buy regardless of cost. I wanted the most reliable and guaranteed to clean all surfaces including walls, regardless of cost. Was assured the M500 or M400 (if I didn’t want the programming / App features) is the top of the range and the best option. I wasn’t told about or… Read more · 1
offered the 600M, found out later it was out of stock at the time and obviously they wanted to sell me what was in stock. The M400 does a great job at cleaning the floor, but like many other reviewers, it wouldn’t climb the walls. It’s a new pool with Glass mosaic tiles and water is cristal clear. I scrubbed the walls, just in case, double and triple checked the water chemistry. I contacted the Maytronics customer service for help, and was given their obviously default response, check your water levels. After a lot of trials, I discovered that when using the Ultra-Fine filter pads the robot will not have enough suction to climb the walls. When I switched to the Net Filter it started climbing. Maytronics support, this should be one of your first suggestions when customers report problems with the machine not climbing. And it should be clearly mentioned in the user instructions. So now I have to run it twice, once with Fine filter and once with net filter to clean walls. Not ideal.
Great robotic pool cleaner – Our pool builder recommended to use a robotic pool cleaner on handing over the pool. They in fact brought in Robotic pool cleaner (Non-Maytronic product) and demonstrated. During the demonstration (~2 hours) at least three times the robot toppled over and stopped working. Later we had a demonstration of M400 by a rep from Maytronics Australia… Read more
agent. M400 was far superior to Non-Maytronic robot. We’re very happy with our decision. It is a great small tool which makes our life much comfortable. M400, runs for about 2.5 - 3 hours. (time – nonadjustable). It came with two sets of filters including fine filter elements. However, up to now we have used only the standard filter elements. Our pool is a rectangular 44K with two sets of steps at the either ends. M400 dose a great cleaning job. We use it even if water is crystal clear and cannot imaging how much of sand/fine dust it scoops from the floor. Remember machine cannot do any thing for the items floating on the surface nor will climb/cleans the steps. (Rep mentioned that M400 will climb on to the steps. It doesn’t!). Sometimes you need little bit of muscle power to brush the waterline. We have been using M400 for last six months and has not seen a single instance of toppling or struggling to do it’s task. I have no hesitation to leave the machine to do it’s perfect job un-supervised. M400 is little expensive, but you get what you pay for. Yes, I would not think twice to recommend the M400 for anyone who is in the search of robotic pool cleaner.
Fantastic pool cleaner – This is my second robotic pool cleaner after using a number of suction hose type pool cleaners over the last 20 years of pool ownership. My very first robotic cleaner was superior to the suction hose cleaners that I’d previously used but it didn’t always clean up the fine silt that sometimes settled at the bottom of my pool. This previous model… Read more
also had other shortcomings in that the cable badly twisted and the baskets were clunky to remove, clean and replace. Anyway after several years of loyal service it died. (I was kind of relieved). After lots of research and the offer of a free trial I settled on a Maytronics S200 pool cleaner and was immediately impressed from the get go. On its very first use it charged through the silt and other random leaf litter in my very large pool and sucked everything up. It did the same along the walls and after a couple of runs, lasting about 2-3 hours each cycle, it cleaned the entire pool surface including the ledges and steps. It is also very easy to clean the unit afterwards as the basket lifts out using its folding handle and the fine mesh holds all of the silt and micro debris as I walk to the tap to give it a rinse. In summary, I highly recommend this product. It wasn’t cheap and I was tempted at time of purchase to explore less expensive products but glad I resisted to avoid anything inferior to my S200. I can’t remember when I last used a pool scoop to clean my pool and my new S200 robotic cleaner has certainly made my pool maintenance a lot easier. (I do not have any association in any way with Maytronics or pool retail or associated industry. I offer my comments in good faith to assist anyone contemplating the purchase of a good robotic pool cleaner).
Positive reviews
A++++ – Tried out a few machines and this was by far the best. It isnt cheap but you certainly pay for what you get with Maytronics. It is easy to set and go and always leaves the pool spotless however dirty it was at the start. Also easy to clean. Show details · 1
very satisfied – Better than expected! Easy to set up and quick. It cleaned the pool in less time than it has taken me to set up the vacuum hose and attachments in the past Show details · 1
Find out how Maytronics Dolphin M400 compares to other Robotic Pool Cleaners
Know better, choose better.
Well impressed – Just got our new Dolphin over the weekend and unpacked it, put it in the pool and away it goes. Its pretty much cleaned the whole pool and even did some of the steps. Well impressed. Show details · 1
Negative reviews
Still in 'as new' condition but completely died – Purchased Feb 2020. Used approx 15-20 times per year (fortnightly in summer, less in winter). Looked after meticulously. Stopped working this week, only 4 and abit years old. Pool shop says the motor has gone and it's dead. Called Maytronics, couldn't have cared less. I've never had a TV, fridge, washing machine, etc (all of which cost less… Read more
than this did) last such little time. We will be buying a different brand. At least they could have offered a dicount on the parts required or something, but expecting us to outlay ~$1,000 to fix what an applciance that is basically in new condition is a joke. Clearly they just dont build these thinsg well and assume if you have a pool you can afford to replace these every few years.
Hi Dave, Thank you for sharing your experience, and… Read more (+1 reply)
Love the robot but not the blue cable! – My second cable has just failed inside 5 years of use. Cleaner is looked after and in great condition but spending $400 to replace a cable every 2-3 years seems unreasonable. Customer support replied with a standard response about balancing the water and correct storage of the cleaner but I already follow their recomendations and still the power cables fail. Aside from that, the cleaner does a great job of cleaning our freeform fibreglass pool. Show details
Hoping for a good outcome – Great pool cleaner just out of 2 year warranty. Couldn’t rate the cleaner enough!! UNTIL a week ago it stopped working!!!!! So we tested the power sockets etc at the wall and the power supply and they were all good. Still not working. YouTubed the matronics troubleshooting etc pulled it apart as per the videos and the whole electrical part was… Read more
FULL of water!! Got in touch with our pool installer who was amazing and Maytronics called me straight away to tell me where to send it for a service (even though I highly doubt it could be serviced now after what we saw) luckily I videod the whole thing so they can’t tell me I’m lying. I’m really hoping Maytronics will replace this. Wish us luck!
Hi Mel, thank you for reaching out. Please kindly… Read more
Recent reviews
Dolphin M400 – Purchased the M400 just over a mth ago. This is an excellent auto pool cleaner. Cleans floor/walls/steps to perfection without me lifting a finger. Luv the notification on my ph when the cleaner has finished. Collects everything. Show details · 1
This is the best cleaner on the market – I so love this machine, I've had it for 5years ,it cleans my 60,000 litre pool so beautifully, it does the walls ,it's so worth the money, and makes life so easy for me Show details · 1
Great all rounder – I’ve had mine for several years and it has worked really well. It cleans and filters fine silt. If you scoop majority of leaves before running it, there’s absolutely no problem. Wouldn’t be without it! Show details · 1
Efficient pool cleaner – Bought the Dolphon M400 to replace a Barracuda creepy crawler which had disintegrated in the pool after 2 years. While the creepy crawler option was ok it had a couple of drawbacks. Annoying to get in & out of the pool so ended up staying in the pool. Would go through a diaphragm on avg every 6 months which while only $20 was ongoing. Lastly it… Read more · 1
would suck everything back into the filter. Have a skimmer sock but still not great. Initially was going to get the cheapest pool cleaner I could. After reading a few reviews decided to go with Maytronics. After talking to a few people ending up on the M400. A fair bit more money then I had planned on spending but a great product. Does a really good job of cleaning the pool surface. Handles large debris. Comes with a caddy so easy to drop in and remove from the pool. Filter is a lot happier.
Relax with a beer while your dolphin does all the work – Got our M400 a few months ago as we bought a house with a large gumtree in the adjacent property as well as a quarry behind. We were spending hours with the upkeep due to dust and gum leaves so decided to buy a dolphin after a lot of research. Would recommend it for dust/dirt and tree debris, and also for the entertainment when cleaning the water… Read more · 1
lines. The dolphin app is convenient as it occasionally needs a hand with curves, haven’t had an issues with the cable due to the swivel and the caddy is a great bonus.
Find out how Maytronics Dolphin M400 compares to other Robotic Pool Cleaners
Know better, choose better.
Great Pool Cleaner – My M400 is over 5 years old now, and it’s still like new, never replaced a single part. As someone else said, the best $2000+ I ever spent on pool equipment. Show details · 1
Long term use and review, final verdict.. very poor – Had 4-5 years now, started well but but within 2 years started to have mechanical and leaf clog issues, both likely related. Multiple repairs, replaced traction belts, pickup bearings and rod (was described as a design fix). Debris pickup design is poor, narrow slots into small bags, if the entrance gets clogged the bag doesn't fill at all, i… Read more
even removed the cloth input bags on advice, helped but still problematic. Problems occur when the input is blocked, the pickup mechanism will stall and as its hard driven by same gears as the wheels the device starts to turn/spin, eventually leaving cable in a twisted mess and often the drive belts jammed.
Considering the high cost for this device I can only describe it as a bad investment.
Purchase date is approximate but within 6 months.
Hello PKR. Dolphin models do require servicing from… Read more
Works very well – Very happy with it and would recommend. It does the job that it was purchased for and if you want a good pool cleaner then this is the one for you. Show details · 1
Fantastic machine! – This machine is an amazing cleaner for our 12 m pool. It has a wonderful trolley to store it all on so that everything is easily stacked and stored away. Show details · 1
Pricey but does a great job – This wasn’t cheap but I’m glad I stumped up for it…does a brilliant job of genuinely set and forget pool cleaning. No regrets of not opting for an infloor self cleaning system- this is perfect Show details · 1
So much more advanced the the previous model! – I have had my Maytronics Dolphin for a few months now and it is amazing. Far better than the previous model. It picks up larger leaves and all debris on the bottom of the pool. I switch it on and off it goes, the pool has never been cleaner! It is also a lot lighter which is great for me when I lift it out to clean. Cleaning the filters is a lot simpler than the previous model. Another bonus is that it cleans higher up on the pool walls. Show details · 1
brilliant - should have bought one years ago - set and forget and clean – our pool is surrounded by lots of trees - the M400 cleans up leaves and seeds effectively and cleaning filters is no issue - we can also leave it in while we swim and it continues to do the job well. Show details · 1
This is great, set the dolphin and off it goes – Working out position of the handle for cleaning the curves of the pool, easy to clean filters, works while I do other jobs, no need to be there or watching to make sure the whole pool is done Show details · 1
You can't beat a Maytronics Dolphin M400 robot to clean your pool – We recently purchased the Maytronics Dolphin M400 with trolley for our pool. Easy to place into the pool, turn it on, let the robot do its thing, lift out of the pool, clean the filters and tuck it away until needed again. One of the best inventions EVER! Show details · 1
Extra Information
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Hi, we would love to help you get the best experience with your Dolphin M400. Please call us on 1300 693 657, we are here to help.