Robotic Pool Cleaner Specs Glossary: What Every Number Actually Means

Plain-English definitions for the terms we use across every product page, comparison, and Finder answer on this site.

Confidence levels

Every spec on this site is labeled with one of six states — Confirmed, Archived source, Estimated, Conflicted, Not verified, or Not applicable — explained in full on our methodology page. When this glossary or another guide says a spec is "documented," it means the spec has a value and a cited source, at whichever of those confidence levels applies — it is not a claim that every documented spec has been read directly from its source (that narrower claim is what "Confirmed" specifically means).

Pool compatibility

• Install type — whether a model is documented for above-ground pools, in-ground pools, or both.
• Max pool length — the manufacturer's stated maximum pool length the model can cover in one cleaning cycle.
• Compatible surfaces — pool wall/floor materials (vinyl, fiberglass, concrete, gunite, tile) the manufacturer states are safe for the model's brushes.

Cleaning coverage

Floor, walls, waterline, surface — the specific areas a model is documented to clean. A model not listed for waterline coverage isn't assumed to do it partially; it's simply not verified.

Power

• Corded — powered continuously through a cable; see cable length for reach.
• Cordless — battery-powered; see runtime (minutes per charge) and charge time.

Filtration

Micron rating — the approximate smallest particle size the filter reliably catches; lower means finer filtration. See our filtration guide for more.

Navigation

The manufacturer's own name for how the robot maps and moves through the pool — we report it as stated, not independently verified. See navigation technologies.

Connectivity

App, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth — documented independently; a model can have app control without documented Wi-Fi if the manufacturer doesn't specify the connection method.

Warranty

Manufacturer-stated coverage period, in months. See what a warranty typically covers.

"Not verified"

Means exactly that — we couldn't find the spec from a manufacturer or retailer source, not that the feature is absent. See why specs sometimes disagree for how we handle conflicting numbers across sources.

"Archived source"

Means the data was sourced from a manufacturer page that has since gone offline. We keep the spec, its original citation, and the last-checked date, but the source is shown as plain text rather than a clickable link, since it no longer resolves. See our methodology for how this differs from "Not verified."