Pentair Rebel

Don't waste your money on 1 of these pool cleaners . I bought 1 brand new , over $500 and it works good for a few months , then you have problems . The gears wear out easy . It stops moving for no reason , and so on. Will get a new not so fancy pool cleaner in the future. Show details

Disappointing doesn’t move – Unfortunately it just stays within a 2sqm area, doesn’t go to either end of the pool or climb walls as is supposed to. Have tried adjusting pump flow and there’s no blockages

Expensive and doesn't last long – This was advertised by retailer as suitable for pools with heavy leaf drop and described as "wall climbing". The device stopped moving in one direction after less than 18 months then stopped moving completely a couple of weeks later. It was still under warranty but manufacturer said it generally lasts about 18 months before needing new parts so… Read more

it's not covered (normal wear and tear). Some of the plastic rollers disintegrated too which they said would have been caused by a stick in the pool so also not covered. Spare parts (i.e. a few bits of plastic) cost $180 and I was able to install them myself. The thing now moves again but the manufacturer implied I'll need to do it again 18 months from now. That's $10 per month just to keep it moving.

It does not "climb walls" and manufacturer said it's not meant to, despite retailer's description. It deals with moderate leaf drop but jams on larger leaves, small twigs, flower buds etc so isn't ideal if you have any trees around your pool.

The only positive has been the one customer service person I spoke to who was very knowledgable and patient with my questions. But ultimately in my view it's not sufficiently robust, it's marketed as something it's not, it's far too expensive and the warranty is meaningless.

Does the job and didn't break the bank – I used the Pentair rebel in my pool for five+ years in a house I recently owned and it is still running for the new owners. It did jam once, but I was able to fix it myself after reading the instructions. Some leaves got caught, and it was a simple fix. trust me I am not mechanical and if I say it was simple, it was. The only issue I had was that… Read more

it would get stuck on top of the drains. In newer pools the drains are above the pool bottom, and his little wheels couldn't always get over it. Now there is a fix, bigger tires but at a cost of $80 for two little tires and the fact my house was on the market, I was willing to yank him off when he did get stuck. I am now having a pool built at my new house and will opt for the larger tires when I purchase another rebel. Other than that, it has done a good job with little to no hassle. - and it didn't cost an arm and a leg. As an aside I did have the local pinch a penny set it up. I was new to pools and didn't have a clue what to do and thankfully they did as the water pressure wasn't correct and Fred (his name was Fred) kept climbing out of the pool. They got everything coordinated and I was good to go, or rather Fred was.

Least Worst of all the Pool Cleaners! – To set the background for my review.. my current pool is under a range of trees which drop a variety of propeller leaves (with a large nut like seed attached), flowers, flower buds, leaves, branches, then there are other palm trees with seeds and so on.. the biggest trees dump their entire load every few months. And so during peak periods I have… Read more

to manually empty (the full) skimmer box every few hours, 'plus' scoop the pool manually too , so finding the right cleaner is really important for me.

I have tried the 3 different types now, here is the summary:

1) Zodiac CX20 (Robot Cleaner - plugs into 240V) - These can handle any size debris with a large separate container to store the debris.. its really good if you have let your pool go and have heaps to remove.. however the trade off is: a) the whole unit has to be pulled out and emptied/hosed regularly b) It cant stay in the pool permanently and c) It doesn't actually vacuum the pool floor (thru the filter), the algae just ends up back on the floor.. so for the 2 years I used this.. I had ongoing algae green pool issues due to before mentioned leaf matter. This was a huge issue for me, as green pools are very expensive and time-consuming to rectify.

2) Vacuum Cleaner (Zodiac T3) - This fixes the algae issues, at times it does a great job actually, however there is a $30 diaphragm part that gets damaged by some of our leaf seed matter.. every few weeks it becomes less effective, to the point it will at some point become split completely.. basically it will stop on 'every single seed' and requires manual intervention. Its actually a very large cost to keep replacing that diaphragm every few months.. and in the end I was still spending far too much time trying to unjam it & trying to scoop the floor manually to prevent the next jam. Another point about vacuum cleaners.. I look after my neighbours square shaped pool also, this style of vacuum gets stuck in square corners all the time.. its completely fine for an oval pool like ours though.

3) Pentair Rebel 2 - This is the best of the options I have found.. it has the movement of the Robot Cleaner (ie its not powered by the sucking motion).. there is randomness to its movement, and its much faster at cleaning a pool vs the vacuum style cleaner which tends to do loops and completely miss areas of the floor.. but more importantly it handles the larger leaf matter which was forever jamming my T3.. and it avoids the algae issues of the robot cleaner, as it is picking up green matter from the floor and sending it through the filter. Note: Don't forget to backwash your filter occasionally if using a Vacuum or Rebel cleaner.

I know from reading reviews that there are lots of wearable gears in a Rebel.. its a risk.. but the other cleaners have their issues too, I dealt with mechanical failures on Robot and Vacuum cleaners too. And over time I think replacing diaphragms is far too expensive (they should make these cheaper and in bulk imo).

So I run 2 of these Rebel cleaners now, my pool has a new one, and my neighbours is now 12mths old, so far so good.. I see people complaining about not wall-climbing, that depends on the pool surface as to how well it attaches, but really you don't want it climbing walls.. its spending a lot of time for no actual benefit, the only time you need to scrub the vertical walls is when you have algae issues (which is a completely separate problem), and not only that, but if its climbing walls you have to start worrying about it hitting the water surface (see below).

So for my Vinyl Pool, the Rebel was periodically climbing walls to the water surface and sucking in 10 seconds of air.. which unprimes the pump, makes a racket.. and eventually causes it to fall back down. Very uncool.. I followed the guides.. I have an adjustable skimmer plate AND the adjustable valve connecting that comes with the cleaner.. even with both of those set to the lowest power, the issue persisted. But I found a brilliant idea on a random pool forum.. there are raised notches on the Rebel Tyres (Mine are the tile tyres that came with it), these notches help break the suctionto the floor/wall, which stops the cleaner climbing walls indefinitely.. however what I did was put some off cuts of a gel like rubber (kids eraser would work also) under the tyre notch to make the notches protrude even further.. an extra few millimetres.. and that was enough to stop my wall climbing issue completely.. super happy and super cheap fix if you have a similar climbing problem.

So TL;DR, there is no perfect cleaner, and a lot comes back to the shape of your pool & just how much and how small/large your green matter is.. I've had pools before that have zero intervention required (so who cares what cleaner you have)...but in both my current pool and my neighbours, my workload is cut down 300% or more since moving us to rebels, its just a really smart cleaner for nearly any pool shape or leafage situation I can forsee.. but dont expect perfection.. you need to sweep the steps every month or so (no cleaner will do that for you), and also dont expect a cleaner to do walls reliably imo, its a very fiddly thing to get right (and suction varies as your skimmer/filter/pump/cleaner clog or age), and imo its pointless anyway.

=================== 2022 Update: I want to flag that every few years, if you find your Rebel is sitting permanently in the deep end.. it will likely be that the gears are slightly worn, and there is something called a 'left hand drive kit' which fixes it instantly.. it might be under warranty still, I've replaced both the rebels I use now, it is an issue no doubt, but I still much prefer this to the other options, just be aware! GL ^_^.

Does an excellent job – We purchased a Pentair Rebel two years ago from Captain Nemos. We have alot of Gum trees and native trees on our property and in the past had the round circular style cleaners which regularly had to have stick/leaf removed manually. The rebel never missed a beat until (after 2 years and 2 months) one of the gears on one side stopped working… Read more

properly. To my delight - they sell tune up kits - the Rebel II kit fits the original rebel, so for about $180 we essentially have a new product again. We are very happy.

Hate it – I have had several of these machines. Tune up kits ectect ect. Iv spent $100s trying to get it to work as it should but nothing works. It just turns around in 1 spot. Absolute rubbish. Do not buy this product you will not be happy. No idea where to go next with a pool cleaner. Show details

Avoid avoid avoid – Absolutely rubbish. Despite all the instructions and multiple online videos and guides this works for 20 minutes max then stops working. Flow isn’t an issue. The wheels just don’t turn. The internal mechanism does not work. Was told this was an easy simple to use machine. The only thing easy about it was when I put it in the bin. Show details

Cheap Chinese Junk – Put a tune up kit in mine and lasted 12 months. Another rubbish expensive product that you will waste your money on. Show details

It’s great when it works – My problem same as everyone else. Loved it when I got it, hate the thing now. The kit does make it into a new machine again do save your money and move on. I am really surprised there is no response here from Pentair, do they seriously not care less. Show details

Constantly breaks down the plastic gears last 6 months. Do not buy – Over the course of 4 years I have had 2 replacements and one kit up grade. The manufacturer advised to get a longer life out of this product was to use it less. Show details

expensive piece of junk – Cost over $500 . Had trouble with it from the start . Got it going properly after a month of so. It has now been about 18 months and now it needs a tune up kit . All the plastic bearing inside are cheap Chinese junk. Do not buy. Show details

Chucked it after 4 months – Ran in circles in deep end, never moving up to shallow end of pool, useless

Waste of money – I found this ok at first, after 6 months the clean started to get worse. 1 year in and it's going in the bin. All it does is spin around in circles cleaning about a 1m x 1m area. No matter how much I re-adjust the suction etc the thing won't clean correctly. Show details

it is not the same as the austral S6 although it claims to be the same – From the day i put it in my pool, it just keeps stopping all the time and cannot seem to cope with any small leaves. My Austral S6 cleaner never had this problem. There is nothing wrong with my pump or filter. No matter how many times i take it out and put it back in, it will run for a short time and keep stopping. Show details

stopped working after 14months – stopped working after 14 months which was coverred by warranty ,sent back to dealer and had been told no spare parts after 4 weeks ... and no one knew when the parts would come... still waiting ... Show details

It is terrible and I wish I never bought is – It does not clean the pool very well. E.g it can not pick up leaves or stick. It also jams up on these items. I can clean the pool better with a net and a broom. The rebel 2 is not design for an outdoor pool Show details

Waste of money, wheel gets stuck & doesn’t move – Its’s only 12mths old, spent time everyday trying to get it working, it just kept jamming. Pentair no help, wouldn’t send anyone to have a look. Gave up and bought a robot. Show details