Beatbot Sora 70 Review: An All-in-One Robotic Pool Cleaner With Surface-Skimming Power

The Sora 70 is like a little tank that can float and swim at the water surface and waterline, deep-dive to the pool floor, scale pool walls, and even handle platforms in as little as eight inches of water. It features four bottom roller brushes and includes a charger and a hook.

Weighing 22.9 pounds and measuring 17.1 by 16.9 by 11.2 inches (LWH), the Sora 70 works on both above-ground and in-ground pools in rectangular, round, kidney, or freeform shapes, made of concrete, ceramic tile, fiberglass, or vinyl. It features 18 sensors, including two AI-powered ultrasonic ones, allowing it to watch out for obstacles, determine platform heights, and detect inclines and declines.

When it comes to cleaning, the Sora 70 can cover up to 3,229 square feet on a single charge with 6,800 gallons per hour (GPH) of suction power via eight motors. For comparison, the Dreame Z1 Pro provides 8,000 GPH of suction, making it one of the most powerful cleaners we’ve come across.

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Power comes from a lithium-ion battery with a 10,000mAh capacity. Battery life depends on your choice of five cleaning modes: Water Surface (up to 7 hours), Floor (up to 5 hours), Pro (floors, walls, waterline, up to 4.5 hours), Standard (floors and walls only), and Eco.

For surface cleaning (aka skimming), the Sora 70 uses JetPulse technology, a dual-flow jet system that draws all floating debris toward the center of its suction inlet for efficient cleanup. This feature gives the Sora 70 a notable advantage over the Dreame Z1 Pro, which doesn't skim the surface. Our Editors' Choice for dedicated pool skimmers is the $399.99 Aiper EcoSurfer S2.

When it's done cleaning, the Sora 70 employs Smart Water-Surface Parking, which means it automatically floats to the edge of the pool. When you lift up the robot, it quickly releases any internal water back into the pool, returning it to its original weight (plus whatever debris it has picked up).

The filter basket capacity is a hefty six liters, so leaves, twigs, dirt, fine sand, algae, and bugs don't stand a chance. Beatbot claims it can hold up to 800 leaves. It's always a pleasant surprise and a satisfying feeling to open it up upon completion and see just how much junk is no longer in my pool. The Beatbot AquaSense X ($4,250) offers the same suction rate as the Sora 70 (6,800 GPH), but is even easier to maintain thanks to its AstroRinse cleaning station, which empties and rinses the filter basket after each work cycle.

The Sora 70 uses the Beatbot app, which is compatible with Android, iOS, and Apple Watch, and supports Bluetooth within a 65-foot range and dual-band 2.4/5 GHz Wi-Fi. App navigation only works when the robot is on the water surface, so once it goes for its deep dive, there's nothing you can actually control. If you want more flexibility, the Dreame Z1 Pro comes with a light-activated remote that allows for underwater steering, a rare feature among cordless robot pool cleaners.

Prior to submersion, you can select which of the Sora 70's five cleaning modes you'd like it to use. When it returns to the surface (or is skimming), you can change its direction via the app or park the robot to end its cleaning session on your schedule.

The app records the date, mode, and cleaning duration (in minutes) each time the robot is used. It also keeps a maintenance record to let you know when to clean the standard filter basket, the ultra-fine filter basket, the inner filter, the roller brush, and the sensor.

And of course, the app will show you the robot's battery life while charging and when unplugged. It's important to remember to recharge the Sora 70 after each use, as the cleaner needs a full charge to get the job done.

As someone who detests all the work that goes into maintaining a pool, I find a robot pool cleaner is the answer to my biggest complaints, especially since my pool is used almost every day during the summer.

So, when I opened my 16-by-32-foot in-ground pool at the beginning of May, I put the Sora 70 to work right away. Thanks to the quick-start guide, setting it up was a breeze. There are no parts or pieces to install on the main unit, so it's effectively ready to go out of the box. I plugged the charger in for a solid four hours to bring the battery to 100%, and the app pairing process was fairly seamless.

For my first few tests, I used Pro mode (floors, walls, waterline) to get a full feel for its performance, letting it run until the battery ran out. Later, I alternated between Standard (floors and walls only) and Surface Cleaning modes. To quote the great Ron Popeil, this is really an ideal "set it and forget" situation: Pop the Sora 70 in, go about your business, and hours later, a mostly clean pool awaits. I say "mostly" because there would always be a few random areas of the pool floor that the Sora 70 just couldn't seem to clean. They were fairly easy to spot because the cleaner did such a good job on the rest of the pool.

In June and July, my area in the Northeast was hit with a spate of surprise thunderstorms (we're talking heavy winds, massive downpours in short bursts, and a whole lot of flooding). That meant an excessive amount of leaves, twigs, and dirt quickly found its way into my pool. This is where the Sora 70's surface-cleaning functionality came in handy, filling the filter basket with every floating bit of detritus and leaving the pool looking as if there had been no storm at all.