User:Stevenmaxpool/The History And Timeline Of Pool Cleaners

The History And Timeline Of Pool Cleaners

Introduction And Perspective

The known invention of the swimming pool cleaner will celebrate its Centennial Anniversary in 2012, at least in the United States. A recent visit to the European Pool and Spa Expo in Lyon, France - the largest pool and spa trade show in the world and as much as three times larger than the annual International Pool & Spa Expo held each year in Las Vegas, Nevada - demonstrated that pools and spas are anything but an American monopoly. Hundreds, if not thousands of exhibitors showcased literally tens of different pool cleaners of every type and variety. This article concentrates on the history of the pool cleaner in the United States, but the European trade show and the research conducted for this relatively brief study made it clearly evident that the pool cleaner owes its evolution to imaginative tinkerers, engineers and designers from all over the world.

This work was inspired after the author, during his 14 years in the industry, had heard and read rumors, boasts, speculation and outright deceptive claims regarding what individual or company invented the pool cleaner. It took but two days of intensive research to debunk virtually all of them and finally publish the true facts. His education, experience and expertise as a trial and appellate lawyer over the last four decades trained him to pub-lish only material facts that could be confirmed by reliable, provable evidence. The author includes opinion, speculation, analysis and conclusions, but never states any of them as confirmed fact. A word about the use of some of the terms in this study: pool cleaners, swimming pool cleaners, vacs and vacu-ums are sometimes used interchangeably. So are the terms power-driven or powerized, which denote the use of an internal, usually electric motor. In most cases no attempt was made to differentiate between manual and so-called “automatic pool cleaners.” The latter term is technically inaccurate as there are no external machines known to the author that will clean a pool or spa without some intervention or manual effort by the user. Electric robotic cleaners come the closest, as they are usually self-contained machines with onboard motors and debris collection bags and containers that operate independent of the pool’s main pump and filter system. Still, even those machines require some manual effort by the user.

This work does not include any mention of central cleaning systems that are built into the most expensive in-ground swimming pools that do automatically attempt to vacuum and clean a pool. These have their limitations as they operate from some central point in the pool, do not traverse the pool floors, walls or steps, and do not scrub or brush a pool. It also makes only a passing mention of the traditional method of manually cleaning a pool by the three step, arduous method of skimming the surface with a net attached to a long pole, then sweep-ing dirt and surface debris toward the main drain and finally, returning the filtered water back into the pool. Nor does it mention large commercial vacuuming systems, often powered by a 12 volt, automobile-like battery, or extremely large commercial so-called “automatic” pool cleaners that are enhanced versions of their residential ancestors.

In today’s society, the concept of vertical integration, integrating within one company, individual business, or divisions of a single company working separately is largely a thing of the past. As will be discussed in the au-thor’s upcoming book, 1962, The Year American’s Shopping Habits Changed. Forever?, commemorating the Golden Anniversary of the modern discount department store specifically, and generally a history of mass mer-chandisers, at the onset of The Great Depression, the country’s largest retailers controlled their supplies and suppliers through vertical integration. The first mass merchant, chain store and largest retailer in the world at the time, The Great American and Pacific Tea Company, better known as A&P, owned or controlled their own fleet of fishing boats, bakeries and canning plants. A&P was the Walmart of its day, with about the same percentage of the United States gross national product the Bentonville giant contributes today.

There are but two or three large manufacturing companies in the pool and spa industry, none whose annual rev-enues are more than 1 or 2% of Walmart’s. Of these, their pool and spa divisions are but a small part of a larger conglomerate. All told there are less than ten manufacturers who sell pool cleaners or vacuums in the United States. Only a few of these have their own research and development departments where they actually design their own pool cleaners. The rest have acquired the brands they sell through mergers and acquisitions.

Even those who design and claim to manufacture their own pool cleaners usually subcontract the manufacturing of their products to foreign nations where material and labor is far less expensive. It is the way of today’s world. Brand names are bought and sold and often licensed from one company or individual to another. The manufac-turer of the same model General Electric toaster quite possibly was not the same company that made it last year.

This main source material for this article is the United States Patent and Trademark Office. As explained later, the person or company obtaining a patent generally credited as being its inventor is sometimes the person or company that filed the patent application first. Typically, a patent application must include one or more claims defining the invention which must be new, non-obvious, and useful or industrially applicable. Many who were issued patents did not necessarily create an actual machine, but often a prototype of their invention. Probably the greatest inventor in history was Leonardo DaVinci, who rarely if ever built any of his thousands of incredible product or system designs. Although a patent was reportedly granted to a Florentine inventor twenty five years before Leonardo was born in the nearby Vinci region of Florence, it is not believed that he went to the bother to even try patenting any of his designs. Among his designs, was what is generally accepted as the first robotic machine, which he sketched in the late 15th century. On the other hand, America’s greatest inventor, Thomas Edison, when he passed away in 1931 was credited with 1,093 patents, although many of them were created by his subordinate scientists in his Menlo Park and West Orange, New Jersey Invention factories. Many say his greatest invention was inventing a process to invent.

Since he never actually built any of his wondrous machines, the question of how many would actually work re-mains a mystery, although today several disciples and latter day admirers, relying on Leonardo’s detailed sketches and notes have done exactly what the master did not do. They actually built some of the machines. Many worked perfectly, including several that naysayers contended would not. Thus, many of the patented pool cleaners included in this work may never have become commercially-feasible or even worked at all. Those that did became industry icons.

Thomas M. Lachocki, Ph.D, (CEO of the National Swimming Pool Foundation in Colorado Springs, Colorado, which is a 44 year-old non-profit dedicated to improving public health worldwide by encouraging healthier liv-ing), upon reading an earlier draft of this article poignantly commented, “It is interesting that the cleaner market boomed at the same time the residential pool market did (50s –60s). This was when racial integration resulted in affluent (largely white) America moving away from public pools and building them in their back yard. Of course, the strong economic times as the US was supplying world reconstruction after WWII made pool’s eco-nomic feasibility strong.” He was right on. As will be discussed in 1962, supra, the beginnings and later prolif-eration of the big box and other mass merchants simultaneously occurred not coincidentally with the develop-ment of the suburbs following World War II. Up until then, all large department stores and supermarkets were concentrated in or just outside the inner cities. As the suburbs grew, retailers followed. In the warmer climates those ex-GI’s who returned from battle raised their families and moved to the less-crowded and more affordable suburbs, into homes with pools. The pool cleaner found its major market, as there were few residential pools in the cities, and even today they only are found in some of the huge penthouse and other apartments of the rich and famous who can afford to build a pool forty stories in the sky. No story of the pool cleaner can be complete, nor can the table for its inventions even be set without a brief summary of the history of swimming and swimming pools. The United States Census Bureau reports that next to walking and jogging, swimming is the second most popular recreational exercise among Americans. They estimate that 42% of all citizens swim regularly. Water Tech, with help from numerous research firms, estimates that as many as one out of every four Americans, over 70 million in all live in a dwelling with some type of a pool or spa, from the iconic kiddie pool to the largest and most expensive indoor ultra-luxurious creations. Today, there is a cleaner or vac for every pool, spa and budget, although only one of the manufacturers make products that will effectively clean more than 20% of all pools and spas.

The First Swimmers

A brief history of the swimming pool cleaner cannot be told without some perspective regarding the history of swimming and swimming pools. Recreational swimming is almost as old as civilization itself. The earliest civ-ilizations began almost simultaneously over 6500 years ago in what is today’s China, Iraq, India and Egypt. Drawings from the Stone Age were found in "the cave of swimmers" in the southwestern part of Egypt near Libya, capturing the technique of the breaststroke and the doggie paddle. Other references to swimming were found in Babylonian bas-reliefs and Assyrian wall drawings, depicting a variant of the breaststroke. The most famous drawings were found in the Kebir desert and are estimated to be from around 4000 B.C. The Nagoda bas-relief also shows swimmers dating back from 3000 B.C. An Egyptian tomb from 2000 B.C. shows a variant of the front crawl. Depictions of swimmers were also found from the Hittites, Minoans, and other Middle Eastern civilizations, the Maya in the Tepantitla House at Teotihuacan, and on mosaics in Pompeii. The Greeks did not include swimming in the ancient Olympic Games, but practiced the sport, often building swimming pools as part of their baths. One common insult in Greece was to say about someone that he or she “neither knew how to run nor swim”. The Etruscans at Tarquinia (Italians) show pictures of swimmers in 600 B.C., and tombs in Greece depict swimmers in 500 B.C. A series of relics from 850 B.C. in the Nimrud Gallery of the British Museum shows swimmers, mostly in military context, often using swimming aids. In Japan, swimming was one of the noble skills of the Samurai. Historic records describe swimming competi-tions in 36 B.C. organized by emperor Suigui, which are among the first known swimming races. Swimming was initially one of the seven agilities of knights during the Middle Ages, including swimming with armor. However, as swimming was done in a state of undress, it became less popular as society became more conservative and it was opposed by the church at the end of the Middle Ages. For example, in the 16th century, a German court document in the Vechta prohibited the naked public swimming of children.

In 1538 Nicolas Wynman, a German professor of languages, wrote the first swimming book, Colymbetes. Around the same time, E. Digby in England also wrote a swimming book, claiming that humans can swim better than fish.

In 1696, the French author Melchisédech Thévenot wrote The Art of Swimming, describing a breaststroke very similar to the modern breaststroke. This book was translated into English and became the standard reference of swimming for many years to come, and was read by Benjamin Franklin.

Predating actual swimming pools, early European-Americans were inspired by the rituals of many Native Americans who would dig holes in the ground, fill them with water that they heated. Then use as a form of hot water therapy.

The first German swimming club was founded in 1837, while in Britain a major swimming competition was held in 1884 in London that included some Native Americans.

The Earliest Swimming Pools

History may have lost the date of the first swimming pool, but what is known is that the Indian palace Mohenjo Daro from 2800 B.C contains a swimming pool sized 30m by 60m. The Minoan palace Minos of Knossos in Crete also featured baths. The first heated swimming pool was built by Gaius Maecenas of Rome in the first century BC. Gaius Maecenas was a rich Roman lord and considered one of the first patrons of the arts. He supported the famous poets Horace, Virgil, and Propertius, making it possible for them to live and write without fear of poverty.

The first indoor swimming pool was built in England in 1862. An Amateur Swimming Association of Great Britain was organized in 1880 with more than 300 members.

In 1879 King Ludwig II of Bavaria built a swimming pool in castle Linderhof.  This is believed to be the first artificial wave pool and also featured electrically heated water and light.
However, swimming pools did not become popular until the middle of the 19th century. By 1837, six indoor pools with diving boards were built in London, England. After the modern Olympic Games began in 1896 and swimming races were among the original events, the popularity of swimming pools began to spread.

Also lost is the date and location of the first American residential swimming pool. Most probably early residents first dug watering holes outside their property, then on their property, and eventually strengthened the floors and sides with either wood, brick or some early form of concrete. The first known commercial swimming pool is believed to have been built in Brookline, Massachusetts in 1887. Within a few years as the manufacturing of steel was refined and made far more readily available than ever be-fore, contractors began to combine it with concrete and cement to form the early versions of today’s Gunite swimming pools.

It is no wonder that a member of the so-called “Building” Vanderbilt’s, had one of the first significant residen-tial swimming pools. Built in what still, 110 years later is the largest American residence, the Biltmore is located in rural Asheville, North Carolina. George Vanderbilt, youngest grandson of the legendary Commodore Vanderbilt, at the ripe old age of 26, out-did his older siblings and cousins and their famous Newport cottages. The Biltmore boasts 4 acres of floor space, the 250-room mansion featured 34 master bedrooms, 43 bathrooms, 65 fireplaces, 3 kitchens, and an indoor swimming pool. Priceless art works and furnishings adorned its interiors. The surrounding grounds were equally impressive, encompassing 125,000 acres of forest, park, and gardens. This was a most fitting place to start the American residential swimming pool industry. By the early 1920’s about twenty pools a year were being built in Southern California. Today, according to P.K. data, the Georgia company commissioned by the former NSPI and now APSP estimates that there are conservatively more than 13 million pools, spas and hot tubs standing, not including several million portable and an estimated 20-25 million kiddie or wading pools.

And Then Came The Pool Cleaner

It is amazing that today with the millions of pools, spas and hot tubs in place, that perhaps the majority of pool owners still clean their pools, the old fashioned way … skimming the surface with a net, brushing and vacuum-ing by connecting a long hose to the main pool filtering system. Yet slowly, but surely, powered swimming pool cleaners are getting more and more popular. A recent survey by Water Tech, inventor of the Pool Buster battery-powered pool cleaner came up with no less than 150 different brands and models. Like pools themselves, there almost certainly was not a single inventor or a single powered pool cleaner that has been recorded in history as the first such machine. Many of today’s manufacturers of pool cleaners have over-zealously, and often irresponsibly attempted to rewrite history, claiming that a company they acquired, invented the first automatic pool cleaner. The industry abounds with rumors and inaccurate recollections. Most of these claims are pure fiction, including a recent article in Wikipedia that contends the first automatic pool cleaner, the Kreepy Krauly was invented in 1974. Hogwash! This is akin to claiming the 1974 Chevrolet was the first automobile.

The true story readily available lies within the database of the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO), at least in regards to the pool cleaner in America. In today’s era of cut throat competition, any new invention, if it is to have any commercial value must be patented. The USPTO was established by George Washington who issued the Patent Act in 1790 and the first patent, signed by President Washington was issued to Samuel Hopkins for an improvement "in the making of Pot ash and Pearl ash by a new Apparatus and Process.”

Many Americans tend to believe that we invented everything, and the rest of the world is always far behind. Of course, that is not true. In 500 BC, in the Greek city of Sybaris (located in what is now southern Italy), "encouragement was held out to all who should discover any new refinement in luxury, the profits arising from which were secured to the inventor by patent for the space of a year."

The Florentine architect Filippo Brunelleschi received a three-year patent for a barge with hoisting gear, that carried marble along the Arno River in 1421. In 1449, King Henry VI granted the first patent with a license of 20 years to John of Utynam for introducing the making of colored glass to England. Patents in the modern sense originated in 1474, when the Republic of Venice enacted a decree that new and inventive devices, once put into practice, had to be communicated to the Republic to obtain the right to prevent others from using them. While this article is not intended to be a history of intellectual property, the foregoing is mentioned to debunk the great amount of false information that abounds as to the history of the pool cleaner. Many great innovators who invented some of the world’s great products, the telephone being a great example were never given the credit deserved because someone beat them to the Patent office. But, on the other hand, the existence of a pa-tent dispels false information that someone invented the pool cleaner years after the first patent was filed.

A search of the United States Patent and Trademark Office disclosed that today’s powerized swimming pool cleaners evolved slowly from the combinations of a variety of other machines … pumps, motors, rotating brush devices, and particularly cisterns. The forerunner of today’s pool cleaners were cistern cleaners. A cistern (Middle English cisterne, from the Latin cisterna, from cista, box, from Greek kistê, basket) is a wa-terproof receptacle for holding liquids, usually water. Often cisterns are and were built to catch and store rain-water. The great palaces of antiquity had both lavish pools and cisterns. They were prevalent in early America as well. The USPTO makes reference to a cistern cleaner patent being filed, although never issued as early as 1798. Before swimming pools were affordable and fashionable, many swam in their larger cisterns.

In 1883 John E. Pattison of New Orleans filed an application for a “Cistern and Tank Cleaner,” and the first dis-covered patent was issued the following year. It swept and scraped the bottom of a cistern or tank and through a combination of suction and manipulation of the water pressure was able to separate and remove sediment without removing the water. Over the next 20 year his invention was improved on numerous occasions. Many pool cleaner patents issued in the modern era refer to some of the cistern cleaners as antecedent to their invention.

In 1912 while the air was black with the smoke of the great steel mills in Pittsburgh, local citizen John M. Da-vison submitted an application of a “Cleaning Apparatus For Swimming Pools And The Like.” It read: “My invention relates to the art of dredging and is particularly designed for cleaning the bottoms of swimming tanks, and the like, where sediment collects, and it is desirable to remove without emptying the water in the tank”. As stated above, Americans did not invent everything, and there are a variety of references in many patents issued by the USPTO to foreign antecedent patents although most appear to be various parts that were incorporated in the applicant’s invention. But it is safe to say if Mr. Davison did not invent the first pool cleaner, he certainly was issued the first patent in the United States for it.

There is no readily-available evidence the Davison Pool Cleaner was ever commercially produced, or even if he ever manufactured one. The next attempt to perfect a pool cleaner tool was about ten years later when Texan Jordie J. Johnston applied for a patent that looked more like one of today’s liquor or serving carts in a restaurant than something that pre-sumably would roam around the bottom of a swimming pool filled with water. The examiners at the USPTO must have also scratched their heads as it took them eight long years before they issued him a patent.

Another fifteen years went by when in 1937 Roy B. Everson of Chicago filed the first patent for a machine that actually looks akin to some of today’s pool cleaners, brushes and all. Everson should be credited with inventing the first modern pool cleaner!

Ferdinand Chauvier a native of the Belgian Congo, who emigrated to South Africa in 1951 and then to the United States, allegedly began to tinker with an idea he had just after World War II in 1947. It took him twenty seven years before his device was finalized. The first Kreepy Krauly made of wood was “invented.” It does not appear to have been patented until 1977, two years earlier in South Africa. The Kreepy Krauly may have earned the claim of its current owners, Pentair, that it is the best-selling pool cleaner in history, purportedly over 1.5 million sold (although Polaris may truly earn that distinction, and the explosively growing Water Tech Pool Blaster line is expected to topple everyone else within the next few years). However, it missed being the first pool cleaner by at least sixty one years.

The true era in pool cleaner design really caught hold in the 1950’s and 1960’s, probably because Florida, Ari-zona and California began to mushroom in population, and who from Chicago or Detroit would move to a sun-shine state and not have a swimming pool?

In 1953 northern California’s Oliver M. Lombardi filed a patent application for a device that resembled a typical stick home vacuum cleaner. He claimed it was “light in weight, easy to handle and inexpensive to manufacture,” and required no outside electrical power, its power source being a garden hose.

Upstate New York’s Hugh H. Babcock’s 1955 “Submarine Suction Cleaner,” might be the most referenced an-tecedent device in later patents, and arguably the first truly automatic pool cleaner. It may also be the first elec-tric robotic pool cleaner. Babcock claimed it traversed the floor and even had its own self-contained suction mo-tor. It reality, this innovation was really a pump which a filter discharged water and sediment out of the pool. “Conveniently used to water grass or plants,” he claimed (although one wonders how one’s petunias would deal with harsh pool chemicals). While not included in the application, it did state that “where filtering equipment is available, the water from the discharge hose is filtered and returned to the pool.”

The next year, another northern Californian, Joseph Eistrup invented a “Pool Cleaner” and applied for a patent for a device that could easily be confused with one of today’s commercial leaf vacuums. Not coincidentally, removing them from the pool was his primary claim.

Two years later Andrew L. Pansini, founder of Jandy, made an indelible mark in the pool industry by inventing what the author originally mistakenly believed was the first automatic pool cleaner. And why not? Jandy, which was later acquired by the huge Teledyne corporation claimed that it was. What this may have been was the first pool cleaner patent to claim the title, “Automatic Swimming Pool Cleaner.” This was not a simple ma-chine. It required use of the house water supply, presumably a faucet, attached to a hose and the main pump and filter system of the pool. It took the patent office four years before deciding to issue Pansini his patent.

What followed was a rash of other suction-side cleaners, none of which appeared to have any immediate com-mercial impact. Perhaps the most successful early pool manufacturing company was AquaVac Systems of West Palm Beach, Florida, recently sold to Hayward Pool Products of Elizabeth, New Jersey. According to The Complete Story published on the Hayward website, the company began selling residential and commercial pool cleaners in 1962. This was a pivotal year in American retailing (see the upcoming book 1962: The Year America’s Shopping Habit Changed. Forever, by the author) as Walmart, Target, Kmart and virtually every major surviving discount department store chain all were founded that year.

The Aqua Queen was truly revolutionary. Reputed to weight over 40 lbs. and according to those who remember it, the big lug bumped around from wall-to-wall. Surprisingly the USPTO has no record of any patents being issued for the owner of AquaVac Systems in the early 1960’s, the company or any robotic pool cleaner that can be confirmed clearly as an Aqua Queen. Two prime candidates might be the 1963 “Pool Cleaning Device” in-vented by Benjamin H. Watson or that year’s “Swimming Pool Cleaner” by Ralph J. Gelinas. However, neither was independent of the main pool pump and filter, which seems to disqualify both patents. Since few of today’s manufacturers have their own sophisticated research and development departments or divisions, even a close inspection of issued patents can be tie them to most of the best-selling pool icons.

The original patent for the aqua Queen remains a mystery, still to be solved by the author. Regardless, the true era of the robotic pool cleaner was developing thousands of miles away and not realized unti a decade and a half later. This will be explained a little later.

Many old-timers point to the famous Arneson Pool Sweep as being what they think was the first automatic pool cleaner. It was a site to behold, a central unit with tentacle-like extrusions roaming all over the pool. Howard M. Arneson distinguished himself as more than the inventor of a pool industry icon. He also made a major impact in power boat racing, both as a driver and inventor. But, his Pool Sweep was probably the forerunner of today’s pressure-side cleaners, for years afterwards literally dominated by the Polaris and its large variety of models, starting with the 180 (apparently models 1-179 were early experiments). The first patent discovered and filed by Arneson was issued in 1965. As complex as it seemed to be, the fact that it not only worked, but became an industry icon is clearly a tribute to the engineering skill of its designer.

Over the course of several years beginning in 1967 Florida’s Robert R. Myers submitted numerous applications that led to a 1971 patent for a very complex machine that used electricity. Myers’ invention had numerous sen-sors, levers and shafts and collected the debris in an onboard bag. Although not contained inside the body it may qualify as the first present day electric robotic cleaner. Its outward appearance was much more similar to a Polaris.

While the privately-held Polaris Pool Systems closely guarded virtually everything about its products, it almost undoubtedly did more to popularize the so-called automatic pool cleaner than any other company in the last third of the 20th century. The Kreepy Krauly, early versions of the Baracuda and one of the most famous of all, the Jandy Ray-Vac all helped build the industry. The progenitor for the patent for the Polaris line is probably a 1972 application in which a patent was issued in 1974 to Melvyn L. Henkin, a resident of Los Angeles’ San Fernando Valley. Now that Zodiac is involved, it has expanded its Polaris brand name into other products, the most notable being an electric robotic unit with all the bells and whistles and then some. However, it also not for the average pool owner.

Suction side cleaners remain the mainstay of the automatic swimming pool industry. Today they are being churned out in China for a song and offered to anyone that wants to undersell the competition. But it is almost universally-agreed, except in China that these are not worthy of the great innovation and creativity of many of those discussed above. Baracuda, Hayward’s almost three-decade old Ultra Vac and even Chauvier’s Kreepy Krauly, and a bevy of other makes and models are still the choice of the majority of the pool owners who opt for an automatic cleaner. Even though none of them are really automatic. They are closer to being a vacuum head extended from the pool’s suction valves by a long, bulky hose than an independent machine.

In 1983, Aqua Products entered the market with more technological advancements. The company launched its Aquabot residential micro-filter (allegedly 2 micron filtering ability) cleaner and the Aqua Max series of com-mercial pool cleaners after considering the market and limitations of the competition. It followed with other in-novations, remote controlled cleaners and huge commercial monstrosities costing upwards of $6,000. One of their inventive ideas that never quite took hold was the Aquabot Bravo Lumina, which featured a neon light in the handle. It would not shock anyone who knows the designer and president of Aqua Products, Giora (“Jerry”) Erlich, if a talking unit is on the drawing board. The company was recently sold along with its international sis-ter company Aquatron, to Fluida, a Spanish conglomerate that includes the European industry giant Astral. Aqua Products has long competed with two main rivals in the robotic swimming pool industry, AquaVac Sys-tems, mentioned above, and Maytronics. Maytronics was founded in Israel and entered the American market with Erlich as its American representative. Before he partnered in forming Aqua Products with one of Maytron-ics’ principals, Aquatron’s former top executive and still co-owner, Joseph Porat.

Although the author spent seven years working with Erlich and Porat, including working with their outside legal counsel, both have always been tight-lipped as to how Maytronics’ Dolphin seemed to evolve into Aqua Prod-ucts’ Aquabot. The usual explanation was that “We have a licensing agreement.” The two companies have done battle in both foreign and American courts over time, but there is no dispute that the Aquabot is a later version of the original Dolphin. It was not until 1979 that a patent was issued on a 1977 application for what became the Dolphin and Aquabot lines. Wilhelm Rasch of the Federal Republic of Germany who was by then deceased was credited with being the inventor, along with “Gertrud Rasch, heiress, Bleicherwalkstrasse 12, Ulm-Donaus, also then West Germany.

The progeny of this invention was a growing line of Dolphins, Aquabots and a horde of residential and com-mercial products that dominated the American robotic pool cleaner market for the last three decades. Comparing the first Aqua Queen to any of these machines would be like comparing a 21’, 7,000 lb. early 1930’s Bugatti Royale with a seek new electric Tesla sports car. They were faster, far more efficient and climbed the walls of the pool. None truly are as fast as they claim to be, pump as much water as they report, nor can filter down to the two-micron level they boast about. (The average human can see objects only about as small as 20 microns, leaving one to wonder why the holes on a Dolphin or Aquabot micro filter are visible to the human eye upon close inspection). But, regardless of the overdone huffing and puffing, the electric robotics were and are the most technologically-advanced pool cleaner designs in the world. More than thirty five years after the first pa-tent was issued in South Africa, neither company, their smaller competitor AquaVac or any other company in the world has patented a significantly-improved robotic machine. Many changes, bells and whistles, like the Aquabot Turbo Remote Control model have occurred and been patented, but nothing really revolutionary, at least for the so-called automatic pool cleaners.

Until the 21st century began, there were three basic pool cleaner technologies, suction-side (i.e. the Kreepy Krauly), pressure-side (i.e. the Polaris) and electric robotic (i.e. the Aquabot). Although designed more for spas, hot tubs and kiddie pools, it would be a stretch to characterize the wide variety of garden hose attachments and hand-powered wands to even be considered a technology, at least worthy of the other three. To clean these small applications, companies like G.A.M.E., Rainbow, Polaris and Grit Gitter have introduced hand-operated wands to go along with the myriad of garden hose attachments. The Spa and Hot Tub category had been the industry’s fastest growing segment until The Great Recession of the 2009. With as many as seven million spas and hot tubs standing, no one seemed to have invented or patented a power-driven vacuum specifically designed for spa, hot tubs or even kiddie and wading pools.

However, the new century and millennium produced the first new pool cleaner technology since the third quar-ter of the 20th century. The line also developed into one that extended to power-driven machines to clean even the smallest pools of water. Guy R. Erlich who literally grew up in the pool industry as Aqua Products’ Vice President of Sales and Market-ing, helped lead his father Giora’s company into the 21st century as the top dog in robotic cleaners had an idea of his own. He formed his own company in a tiny studio apartment on the upper west side of Manhattan, a strange place to form a pool cleaner company, Water Tech, L.L.C.

Many in the industry, including the author, believed that his brainchild of developing a hand-operated pool (and spa) cleaner was taking a big technological step backwards, akin to inventing a new standard transmission for an automobile. Erlich proved us all wrong. His concept was not just another non-automatic pool cleaner, but a battery-powered one. Easier said than done. For years others had tried and failed. In the 1990’s a feeble at-tempt was an inefficient unit called the Concord. The Pool Buster, with its high quality, nickel metal hydride battery was an instant success when it hit the market in 2003. By the end of the decade the renamed Pool Blaster line was arguably the best selling line of pool clean-ers and sold in more venues than any other pool cleaner or vacuum in history. Every company from the neigh-borhood ma and pa pool store in Timbuktu to the world’s largest retailers carry one or more models of the Pool Blaster line, which includes everything from an under $20 (power-driven) model for kiddie pools, to a powerful commercial model for industrial use.

With Erlich’s 2002 patent applicable, (issued two years later) the Pool Buster became an exclusive new category, which it has all to itself; a powerized, totally independent manually-operated one. Running on a rechargeable, onboard battery, the Pool Buster is the only powerized pool cleaner that works without hoses, power cords or booster pumps. To add functionality every Pool Blaster attaches easily to any telescopic pool pole, although some models now include their own pole. The patent explained that the body houses a filter and an impeller at-tached to an electric motor. It also includes a handle for ease of carrying and for manipulating the nozzle over the surface of a pool to clean it. The company recently announced plans to accept the next challenge of cleaning not only the floors, steps and walls of a pool or spa, but the water’s surface as well. Here is where leaves and other debris gather until they are sufficiently saturated and sink to the bottom where they are vacuumed. The 2012 Pool Blaster Solar Skim will be powered by the sun and is expected to be soon accepted as the next technological breakthrough in the ancient pool industry, a great way to celebrate the 100th anniversary of the first pool cleaner.

External links

• U.S. Patents - Patents and Trademarks - Research Guides at Virginia Commonwealth University