iGarden M1 Pro Max 100 Review: A Sports Car for Your Pool

iGarden’s claims that it offered 10 hours of battery life in ground-only mode were accurate in my testing; However, I only achieved about seven hours of operation in the more power-hungry full coverage mode. That’s still plenty of juice for two or three full cleans before a refill is needed. Officially, iGarden specifies the robot to clean pools up to 1,274 square feet.

I was less enamored with the cleaning process once operations were complete, and not just because the robot had to be retrieved with a pole instead of returning to the surface when finished. The filter basket is very large, but it is only accessible through a relatively small hatch. It’s difficult to get all the debris out through this hatch when watering it, especially since the shape of the basket includes a sort of shelf inside, where the debris is both hard to reach and hard to see. A more open basket or larger hatch would be a big help when it comes time to clean up.

Photography: Chris Null

The basic box is designed with a fine mesh filter on all sides, but this can be upgraded with a second reusable filter, included in the box, that snaps onto the outside of the basket. This filter has a finer mesh count than the filter on the basket itself, but despite this, most users probably won’t need it. I didn’t find it to make much of a difference in my testing, but those who face problems with a lot of fine-grained dirt and sand may find it useful.

A massive price drop

At $1,599, iGarden has priced this robot aggressively, shaving $1,000 off the price of last year’s K Pro 150 while keeping the performance more or less the same. This makes it a much more attractive purchase than the K series, and while it’s still a bit high, it’s now roughly in line with a number of other high-end robots on the market. If you don’t mind getting a little wet when it comes time to collect and clean the robot, it should be a very good candidate for the position of pool robot.