We live in Phoenix AZ where it's very hot in the summer so the swimming pool is our most important oasis we like to use at the end of the day. It is an irregular shaped pool with one coved seating including steps in 3 places and a tanning ledge and I like to keep it CLEAN. We also have neighbors that have tall Silk Oak trees to our West and because we have a prevailing breeze toward the East we get a lot of those terrible type of leaves (the kind that grab onto things like leaves with fingers) in our backyard and pool.

I received the Betta SE 2023 on July 7, 23, put it in the pool and away she went! I LOVE THIS THING! It just meanders around cleaning the whole surface and when it gets stuck in any area, after about a minute or so it backs up a few feet then starts forward making a turn at the same time avoiding the trap it was currently. To be honest after observing it for a while I came to understand that even if it's not trapped, it will stop and go backwards then begin forward and turn at the same time so I believe it is programmed into it's logic to do this ever few minutes as a measure to un-trap it and possibly cover more of the pool surface. I really do like this feature very much. It is also has a large basket that is super simple to empty and clean. It's light weight with an easy to grasp handle. Except for the improvement needed (suggested below) it really is the perfect skimmer!

IMPROVEMENT NEEDED:
One of the feature designs is that it has wheels on the front left and right of the body at the water level which is supposed to keep it from scraping against the wall tile when it touches as it meanders around the pool. If your tile is part of the wall then no problem but if your tile is of an overhang type where the wall is recessed (as our pool is) then the height of the water will have to be raised to about 1/2 inch below that tile for the wheels to touch it or else the body of the skimmer will endure scraping. Because of this I had to buy a special level that would allow me to raise the water to that level but the downside is that now the built-in pool skimmers is almost useless because of the height of the water keeping larger leaves and even small debris from entering due to the lower flow because the water level is so high.

The fix would be to redesign the wheel attachment to allow some vertical adjustment. This would be very easy to do, in fact I almost did it myself but before I got that far it suddenly had a malfunction.

MALFUNCTION 2 WEEKS AFTER PURCHASE:
On July 28 exactly 2 weeks after receiving an putting into service I looked out and noticed that the skimmer was not meandering. I looked closer and saw the normally green blinking lights were blinking red. So I took it out of the pool, made sure it was clean, dried it off and put it on my kitchen table to inspect it. I thought maybe the sensor lenses needed cleaning so I carefully clean them and then cleaned the body and looked it over real good. I could not visually see anything broken or out of place so I placed it back into the pool and turned it on. The green lights started blinking and away she went - but that only lasted for about 2 seconds. After the 2 seconds the green lights went dim and then the system shut down. I did this a couple of time in a row with the exact same results. I believe that it has a faulty battery or "bad cell" because being a long time technician that is the way it acts to me.

I contacted Amazon support, told them of the problem and was given a decision to either return for credit or wait till Monday where support would call me and help me go through some diagnoses steps. I opted for the refund because I honestly don't have much time this time of the year because of the work I do.

I decided to give an overall rating of 4 stars because of the battery problem but not less because they really took good care of me and gave me no hassles, also I really like the unit while it was running - in fact so much that I'm going to use my money to purchase another one hoping that the first one was just a fluke.

EDIT:
I am adding to the above review now that I have had my new (2nd one) beta for about 6 weeks now (it is 8/28 at the time of this writing and I have UPGRADED from a 4 to a 5. I LOVE THIS THING! Really, it is just the best little skimmer ever.

The 1st one I purchased definitely has some issues and I am so glad after returning it that I took the chance and purchased another. This one runs very strong, runs around the pool day and night (flashing pretty green lights) never quitting and never getting stuck - it really operates flawlessly.

I'm not saying that the improvement I suggested above would not be welcomed because then I could run my water level using the built in leveler keeping the water about 2 or 3 inches below the lover ledge of the our type hanging tile. But as long as you don't have a hanging tile with lower sharp edge (like ours) or you use a float that is designed to keep the water level high (within an inch of the lower tile edge) then it simply is a pleasure to own and operate this little bot. Cleaning is a breeze, you just unlatch and open the top up, grab the basket handle and dump it in the trash put it back in, close the lid and latch it - very very easy and it keeps my whole pool from getting dirty. I also purchased a Polaris (which is also awsome) but I hardly have to use it at all because this betta does almost all the cleaning work before the debris every sinks below the surface! Really good.

TIP! Before you place the skimmer in the pool get some good car type nano wax (with UV protection) and wax the top and sides of it really well. This will help keep the unit looking new. Wax it about every month more or less and it will stay looking great. Otherwise it will fade especially if you're in a hot climate like we are (Phoenix AZ).

That's it! I love this thing so glad I purchased it.

I've only had this a few days, so durability remains an open topic, however, I'm very happy so far!

1. The first thing I noted was that it's very light. It's easy for me to lift in and out of the pool. I'm 5' 0" and have MS, so that means weight really is not an issue.

2. I tried the remote and it was very responsive. I love that it goes back to auto in 2 minutes if you don't use the remote.

3. I did extend the "feet" because of a shallow ledge in our pool. It has not been an issue. It goes over the area easily and I think I'll put the feet back to the retracted position.

4. Ewwww! The stuff in the basket is all the stuff I don't want floating in my pool! There's a great handle on it so you don't have to think about touching the icky stuff to empty it. The pool surface is SO MUCH CLEANER!!

5. I noted the MS above. Instead of expending valuable energy skimming the pool myself, this little guy does it for me. It allows me to focus on targeted exercises of weak muscles rather than how much crud is on the water for me to skim.

6. We have a waterfall and it doesn't phase the robot a bit. It approaches it and knows to back away. Not a problem.

7. We were using the waterfall to help push surface debris to the skimmer/pump. Running a second pool pump is quite expensive! This has helped greatly reduce our use of the waterfall feature and will likely pay for itself within a couple of months.

8. Solar energy seems to work very well. I see it going around the pool with green lights well after dark. Of note: our pool is in full sun.

I hope it has great durability because I never want to skim by hand again!

UPDATE -- I retracted the feet and it got stuck at the intake/skimmer. I have put the feet back down again.

UPDATE #2 -- It's been getting stuck in the skimmer intake, so I bought an inflatable animal ramp for about $10 to put near the intake. Works like a charm! Still lovin' my bot!!

Keeping in mind I'm starting week 3 with our Betta, this thing works! We've had a couple of issues with it where I was afraid it was a dud, but it turns out there were easy answers. (More on that in a sec.)

Our pool is constantly battling leaves. We're surrounded by several trees that shed leaves in the slightest breeze all year long. Our built-in skimmers do their best, but can't possibly keep up, so the bottom of our pool often has piles of leaves. We vacuum, vacuum, and vacuum.

I discovered this at my BIL's house a few weeks ago and he sang its praises, so I ordered one right then.

Miracle! Holy cow, is Betta effective! We still get the odd stray leaf on the bottom, but it's absolutely so much better than before. I'm simply amazed.

On to the "problems." I looked out and the Betta was acting funny, sluggish and wonky. I went out to look and found it absolutely stuffed with debris, so I cleaned out the basket (sooo easy!) and set it back to work. The packed basket made it heavy enough that it couldn't work well.

For about a day it still wasn't quite right. I watched it go over things without picking them up and then it still seemed to be standing still or turning in circles, just not being its efficient self. I went back out to check and found that after I'd emptied the basket I hadn't seated it quite right when I put it back in. It was sitting too high and the gears weren't catching to make the back propellors spin to move it forward. I fixed that and ta da! All better. (So be sure you double check and correctly seat the basket after emptying. When I looked the basket was obviously sitting too high so it couldn't pull things in.)

Lastly, I looked at it another day and again it was acting weird. It was running around in a lazy circle, not covering all of the pool. I checked the basket and the gears and all seemed just fine, so I was stumped. I thought, "Ok, this thing isn't as great as I thought." I turned it off and took it out of the pool for closer inspection. It turns out that a leaf had gotten caught up and wrapped around one of the propeller shafts in the back. I cleaned that out and it's back to working perfectly again.

So, it's not maintenance free, but its issues are easily dealt with. Just keep an eye on it: empty it regularly, carefully seat the basket, and inspect the propellors once in a while.

The picture with my review is real-time to this writing; it's been a cloudy, stormy day with rain and sprinkles on & off. In fact, it was raining lightly when I took this pic. Betta has run all day long without direct sunlight.

"Bottom" line - ha ha! - if you have a leaf/debris problem, get this and you'll cut your pool cleanup work exponentially.

(Note: I had no choice but to rate the remote control, but I haven't used it, so I gave it 3 stars. Should be noted as n/a.)

Love this skimmer for our pool! We have a old farm behind us and they have several trees that drop their leaves and stems into our yard especially in the fall. This has saved us lots of hours in trying to get the leaves and stems out of the pool and with us being older it is harder on us now. Only issue we have it doesn't play fair with the pool robot to clean that cleaned the bottom of the pool. The electrical cords get tangled in the skimmer feet. So I have to take the skimmer out of the pool early morning and put the robot in to work and then change to the skimmer.

I waited a little bit to write this review in case it decided to quit working in 3 days.
So we have a large swim spa, which means there is no built in skimmer at all, and no screen enclosure. We have two dogs that love to get in there, and shed all their hair. You CONSTANTLY have to manually skim this thing. If I clean it one day, there's stuff floating around on the surface later that day, or the next day at the latest.
UNTIL I bought this solar skimmer. This little guy runs non-stop, day and night back and forth. No lie, I have not had to manually remove a single thing off the surface of the water since I put this in the pool a little over a month ago.
I have not used the remote. Have not seen a need for it.
The only improvement I would make to it would be to lower the proximity sensors closer to the water line as I saw someone else mention. After a few days of rain where the water level gets up within a two to three inches of the top, the sensor doesn't see the pool and it will run into the wall and keep trying to go further forward, which it obviously cant. Its not that big of a deal though, as its appears to be programmed to change directions every few minutes so after a few minutes it backs up and moves on. In normal operation if the sensor can see the wall it will immediately stop and back up.

Bottom line, I love this thing. Even if it fails in a year, the amount of time it has saved so far I would buy a new one.