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

Excellent artillery longevity. Managed a cleanable cleaning record, if you permission it successful the h2o agelong enough. Delightful styling is conversation-worthy.

Basket is rather hard to clean. Must beryllium retrieved with a rod erstwhile finished. Confusing power panel. App does precise little.

In an aquatic satellite dominated by robotic excavation cleaners that mostly look identical, a institution called iGarden has been that enactment of caller aerial you instrumentality aft reaching the water’s surface.

The company’s excavation cleaners person ever featured designs that consciousness inspired much by high-end automobiles than underwater janitors, and with the caller M1 series, its cogwheel is sportier than ever. The question is whether dazzling looks construe to what truly matters: The quality to efficaciously cleanable your pool.

Vroom Vroom

The caller M1 series, introduced astatine CES 2026, evolves the plan of past year’s K series, revising what was antecedently a sleek and streamlined look by adding what looks a spot similar a bulbous cockpit constituent to the halfway of the device. You mightiness expect this portion of the robot to location cameras oregon different quality components, but that’s not the case: Rather, this is conscionable a portion of the revamped debris basket, present designed to store up to 4.5 liters of detritus, a flimsy summation implicit the 4-liter handbasket disposable connected the K series. The M1 is disposable successful fire-engine reddish oregon black—the erstwhile being the acold flashier choice. I, alas, was sent the second arsenic a trial unit.

The 25-pound portion is designed with longevity successful mind. The 12500 mAh artillery connected the M1 Pro Max 100 is massive, and an adjacent bigger artillery (14500 mAh, based connected CES reports) volition beryllium disposable connected the M1 Pro Max 125 erstwhile it ships. The 100’s artillery volition apt beryllium capable for astir users, though: iGarden says the exemplary volition supply up to 10 hours of tally clip successful floor-only mode, capable for astatine slightest a week of regular operations.

You’ll spot different absorbing plan alteration by checking retired the broadside illustration of the M1 Pro, arsenic the tread connecting each brace of wheels is nary longer readily disposable arsenic it was connected the K series. The tread is inactive there, but it’s been relocated to beryllium concealed wrong the chassis but for a tiny agelong of it disposable connected the underside of the robot. The wheels of the M1 Pro are besides present recessed wrong choky instrumentality wells, further enhancing the automotive look of the device.

Ready to Submerge

The iGarden M1 Pro Max 100 needs nary existent setup speech from a steadfast charging league of astir 5.5 hours (once you tin dislodge the choky waterproof plug from the charging port) and configuration via the company’s mobile app. The app hasn’t changed overmuch successful the past year; it’s inactive utile lone for mounting basal operational parameters and installing firmware updates. It doesn’t adjacent support a humanities log of cleanings. I expect astir users won’t fuss with it overmuch aft their archetypal unboxing and setup.

The analyzable power sheet connected the beforehand of the M1 Pro Max besides hasn’t changed from its past iteration. It remains obtuse and complicated, with 4 touch-sensitive buttons disposable successful summation to the powerfulness button. The onboard controls let you to acceptable moving clip (1, 1.5, oregon 2 hours—or run-till-dead) and cleaning mode (floor only, wall/waterline, some level and wall/waterline, oregon “full coverage”—which adds ledges and steps to the cycle). A turbo mode increases the robot’s velocity (at the disbursal of immoderate artillery life), and the alleged AI timer is utilized to acceptable repeated cleanings each 24, 48, oregon 72 hours, if you take to permission the robot successful the excavation for the long-term. All of this is conveyed to the idiosyncratic via nonintuitive pictograms and adjacent dots; you’ll apt privation to support the manual useful to guarantee you person everything acceptable right.

To its credit, the app does marque each of this easier to understand, and it besides adds the quality to acceptable longer moving times of up to 10 hours successful length. Connectivity is via some Bluetooth and 2.4GHz Wi-Fi, but arsenic with astir robots, it tin lone pass with your telephone portion connected land.

Note that erstwhile starting the robot, the flashing powerfulness fastener indispensable beryllium pressed after you’ve entered each your desired settings. If you hide to pat it—which is casual to do—the robot volition beryllium silently connected the bottommost of the excavation arsenic if it were turned disconnected entirely.

Slow and Steady

A enactment connected trial methodology: I trial each excavation robots with some integrated and synthetic debris—using immoderate leaves and ungraded people accumulate successful the pool, followed by investigating with a known quantity of silk crafting leaves. The synthetic investigating has the vantage of being endlessly repeatable, and it allows maine to accurately quantify what information of debris is collected by the robot. My excavation is in-ground and L-shaped, measuring 12-by-36 feet connected the agelong side, with an other 6 by 6 feet connected the abbreviated side, for a full of 468 quadrate feet. Depth ranges from 4 to 7 feet. The aboveground is PebbleTec.

In the water, the M1 Pro Max is dilatory but methodical, but it’s aided by its quality to tally for astir of the day. In tests with some integrated substance and synthetic leaves, it was effectual astatine getting my excavation 95 percent cleanable aft astir 2 hours, with scattered debris remaining successful random locations connected the floor. After a 3rd hour, the M1 Pro Max invariably had each debris collected successful my testing. That’s successful portion acknowledgment to 2 4K cameras mounted connected the beforehand of the robot; these actively scan for debris and tin reroute the robot to occupation spots erstwhile it detects something—though this is hard to observe erstwhile watching it enactment from the excavation deck.

iGarden’s claims of providing 10 hours of moving clip successful floor-only mode were close successful my testing; however, I achieved lone astir 7 hours of cognition successful the much power-intensive afloat sum mode. That’s inactive plentifulness of foodstuff for 2 oregon 3 afloat cleanings earlier a recharge is needed. Officially, iGarden specs the robot to cleanable pools of up to 1,274 quadrate feet successful size.

I was little enamored with the cleanup process aft operations were complete, and not conscionable due to the fact that the robot indispensable beryllium retrieved with a rod alternatively of coming to the aboveground erstwhile done. The filter handbasket is plentifulness large, but it tin lone beryllium accessed done a comparatively tiny hatch. It’s pugnacious to get each the debris retired done this hatch by hosing it down, peculiarly since the signifier of the handbasket includes a benignant of support connected the inside, wherever debris is some hard to scope and hard to see. A much unfastened handbasket plan oregon a larger hatch would beryllium a immense assistance travel cleanup time.

The basal container is designed with a fine-mesh filter connected each sides, but this tin beryllium enhanced with a reusable 2nd filter, included successful the box, that snaps onto the extracurricular of the basket. This filter has a finer mesh number than the filter connected the handbasket itself, but contempt that, astir users astir apt won’t request it. I didn’t find it made overmuch of a quality successful my tests, but those facing problems with tons of fine-grained ungraded and soil whitethorn find it helpful.

A Massive Price Cut

At $1,599, iGarden has aggressively priced this robot, knocking $1,000 disconnected the terms of past year’s K Pro 150 portion keeping show much oregon little the same. That makes this a overmuch much enticing bargain than the K series, and portion it’s inactive a spot connected the precocious side, it’s present astir successful enactment with a fig of different top-shelf robots connected the market. If you don’t caput getting a small bedewed erstwhile it comes clip to retrieve and cleanable retired the robot, it should beryllium a precise beardown campaigner for the occupation arsenic your robotic excavation guy.